A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
You lost sight of the real threat, Raymond says, but Asterion thinks the red stallion is wrong.
There is no part of the man that is not a threat, no side of him that Asterion would want to tangle with, no part that bladed tail could not reach. Almost the bay says so, but he knows this a lesson and he does not want it to be his last.
He will be a good student, eyes that watch and ears that hear, a mind that considers all that it is taught.
They walk together through the swaying grasses as the golden light grows thicker and birds begin to wing their way home. The regent does not consider whether he should be laying his thoughts so bare before the warrior; the red is a piece of his old life, almost a friend, and Asterion is still sometimes made a fool by the stars in his eyes. He should have learned, after Reichenbach, to be more careful.
He should know better, too, than to feel the little trill that goes through him at the sound of the unicorn’s name. Hell, Raymond names it, but Asterion has never had a head for strategizing, and has never had opportunity to outmaneuver.
Almost he tells his companion that he feels better at surviving than planning. That he wishes he had gone to the rift, instead.
But Raymond’s words are clipped like the firm closing of a book, and there is nothing soft in the glance that catches him then. The bay only nods, considering the idea that the rift might reach this place. It is a possibility he had not considered – but then, Florentine had never spoken of the dangers of the rift. Only the wonder of it. “Then I hope we’re lucky,” he says finally, and turns his gaze away once more, ignoring the disquiet that stirs in him.
He is no less hungry for stories, but he knows of other tellers.
Yet there are other things to be learned, though they do not quicken his blood in quite the same way. Ahead of them, lines that were never natural break the horizon, solemn stacks of stone. Asterion is not sure if he is ready to be home, to wash the dust and tension from his muscles.
“What would you have done, in my position?” he asks, referring not only to the battle that left them bruised and sweat-slick but to the smaller lesson only moments before. “How would you defend against a man like yourself?”
@Raymond
