He would be sorry to know she thinks herself best in silence; already he is growing too fond of the sound of her voice, the rich music of it, the timbre of laughter that carries it all. She reminds him of Florentine when she talks, a tumble of unselfconscious words that he can get lost in.
Perhaps he gave her the wrong impression, there on the cliffside where they met; Asterion is not much of a talker by nature. But when he is silent his worries circle him, dark shadows under water, looking always for an opening.
It sounds as though Leo was a true friend,” he says with a smile, and does not flinch at the brush of her shoulder, the whisper stray wisps of her mane over his skin.
Despite his years spent alone, it seems that touch is a thing he is growing accustomed to, too. At least he manages not to shy like a wild thing.
“I’d never heard of such things until I came to Novus. There was only grass if you were lucky and leaves and brush when you weren’t.” A strange thought occurs to him, then: he doesn’t know which seems more foreign, now – that lifetime spent foraging in lean and brutal months, eating mouthfuls of snow for water, or this one with its pillows and castles and cakes.
When first he’d arrived, Asterion had never thought he would adjust – yet here he was, listening to music, accompanying a lady. Was he the better or worse for it? Weaker or stronger?
Moira yanks him from such thoughts once again – this time with a well-placed fleck of icing. It dots the bridge of his nose, and after his initial shock and following attempt to lick it off fail, he curls his chin to his chest and rubs the icing off on his leg. He does it unhurriedly, keeping his gaze down as she scurries to the other side of the cakes – and then flicks a strip of vanilla frosting back at her.
“Now we match, at least,” he says, laughing, the scent of sugar in his nose fragile as gossamer. The bay grins at her, and in this moment he is no longer a Regent with a broken heart, but a boy once more with stars in his eyes and silver in his hair.
And icing on his foreleg.
“Worse than frosting? I can’t imagine such a threat. Unless it is the bees that follow.”
@
if you'll be my star*
