A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
Asterion was still testing his new-made bond with Cirrus; this evening, like many evenings of late, the big gull was flying far ahead to see how far their telepathic connection remained intact.
Once she was out of eyesight, their verbal bond vanished, but the bay could still feel the sense of her ahead. Right now, she was all joy – playing on the updrafts, dipping her slender wings into little eddies of wind like ocean currents, now and again reprimanding the smaller shorebirds with her throaty cry.
For his part, the Regent walked behind, unusually at peace. He was headed to the shore, for one, and the first hint of brine and salt-grass always calmed his nerves, the endless lull of the waves a dreamer’s lullaby. It was twilight, and the sky is not dissimilar to his coat, little places of color and light amid a larger darkness. It is the tail end of summer, the kind of evenings that seem to go on forever, and for once Asterion does not war with his thoughts.
There was a flash of white ahead, fading sunlight on pale wings, and Cirrus circled overhead once, twice, before gliding back toward the shore. Come, she said, less of a voice and more of an impression on his mind, there is a boy in the waves – maybe he is a kelpie? But her tone is curious, not alarmed, and the moon would not be full for another week.
As soon as the dirt turns to sand below his hooves the bay eases into a lope, leaving a line of prints behind him in the gathering dark. It takes him a moment to spy the colt – there is little to see but the last of the daylight glinting off a thrust of a horn – and Asterion stills and watches, for a while. Once he is sure the boy is not in trouble he smiles, and wades out into the water until it swirls around his knees, each wave a little tug as it goes back out to sea. Come with us, they seem to say, and oh, he wishes not for the first time that he could.
There seems little use in saying anything, over the breeze and the gulls and the susurrus of the waves as they turned themselves to foam on the sand, and so the Regent only waits to catch the stranger’s attention. Cirrus, for her part, wings back out to watch, and swoops low across the swells and troughs, laughing at the boy in her rough voice.
@Florestan hope this is ok!
