[AW] BONE-SAW.

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* It is easier and it is harder, walking the winding cobblestone streets of Terrastella in the dark. Easier because they are nearly empty. There are few faces to turn toward his in bruised evening, and none that spark with recognition; nobody wants anything from him this time of night, least of all to know why. Asterion has always been anonymous, a plain bay passerby, a wanderer remembered only for the shimmer of twilight on his skin and starshine in his eyes. Like a dream he had always been gone from a place by morning. Regent has hung on him more millstone than title, especially of late. But it is harder, too, because of the sound each step makes on the stone, and the way that light reflects off of walls, fluid and bent. Even the way the wind blows, sweeping through narrow pathways. When the bay closes his eyes it is not so difficult to imagine that he is back in Ravos, in the maze, and that there are terrible and wonderful things ahead. If only he is brave enough – if only he is strong. (In the end it hadn’t mattered; in the end he had been swallowed up by light, by magic. Sometimes his dreams still conclude this way – a glow far more frightening than any darkness that only grows and grows until it consumes them all.) A breeze kisses his cheek, breathes onto him the scents of honeysuckle and the sea. Ahead of him there is the sound of hooves on stone, though he has fallen still. When he opens his eyes again he is a little ashamed, but he is no longer afraid. It is not fear, then, that tumbles his heart at the sight of the figure ahead – all darkness, save for bright bands of white, like a strange light at the end of a pitch-dark corridor. It is something else, and it makes him shiver. Still he presses forward, falling into step beside her, telling himself it is his duty to touch base with the head of the Halcyons following that last disastrous meeting in the swamp. “Commander,” he says, and Asterion does not think it strange that she is so young. He wonders, sometimes, if he will ever stop feeling like a boy. “I trust all is well with you?” @Marisol idk what this is but enjoy? (also I figure they may have met briefly/he'd know about her appointment since he's been regent for a half-year, but message me if you have different thoughts or more thoughts or any thoughts at all)