Asterion is grateful for Moria’s presence – has he ever been so comfortable with someone so quickly? Perhaps Florentine, but he suspected it was always that way with her – but he is even more grateful for her excitement.
He needs that eager anticipation more than he knows. For his own thoughts are full of a different scent of smoke, a distant line of fire, a goodbye echoed endlessly with each wave that washed up on the beach. Shhhh, the water bade him, but he could not listen.
But the girl beside him is a balm to the ghosts that haunt him. It is easy to match her smiles, to catch the bright gleam in her eyes. Even each step she takes makes music, bangles and chains chiming in song like bells, and they call for him to forget.
The bay stands beside her in line, listening to the conversation that flows around them like a current and admiring the paint stallion’s handiwork. Dawn was a riot of color and bright sun, and for this he was glad, too – lately he could not bear the dark.
When it came Moira’s turn, he bumped her shoulder with his own before she stepped up to the table. As she spoke with the Dawn stallion, he eyed the florists’ worth of blossoms, more colors than he’d ever seen. Part of him wanted to continue without adorning himself, but –
“Something simple,” he asks when it is his turn, and smiles almost sheepishly beneath his tilted crown when he goes to join Moira again.
@ipomoea @
if you'll be my star*
