The stranger chuckles like a stream over rocks, smooth and rolling, and Asterion bids himself to forget his unsettling eye. What control, after all, did a man have over his appearance? (And there beneath the dusk and the canopy of trees, with darkness creeping up on them, the shadows are thick enough to disguise the sinister map of black veins that trail from the man’s other eye).
Instead he credits his unease with how uncomfortable it still feels to wear the mantle of Regent, a cloak his shoulders don’t fit. Sometimes he thinks they are too narrow, sometimes too broad – but here it doesn’t matter. He must at least pretend.
“Excellent advice,” he says, and grins in response, piling his plate with whatever was nearest. His own appetite was a lean thing at the best of times, but Cirrus would be glad to finish anything the bay didn’t. “I admit I’ve never been good at indulgence. I’ve never been somewhere with such…wonderful excess.” Even after more than a year here, there were days where Asterion missed the leanness of his wandering life, his belly taut and ribs just-visible, summer-fit and strong. It is hard not to wonder if Novus has made him weak.
But he shakes such unsuitable thoughts away and meets the other’s glance once more at the sound of his name, his ears pricking at the stranger’s own. “Ah,” he says at once, “the healer. I’ve heard some of you from Florentine, and I’m glad to put a face to the name.” Indeed, he knows more than the name – he knows that Atreus was soon to be appointed a Champion of Dusk. He smiles now, a truer thing, and follows the man to the firelight.
Distracted by food (some of which he makes quick work of) and the dancing fire-light, he does not study the roan. But when he glances up again, he arrested by the sight of him: a red glow on the dips and valleys of his horns, the straight strip of white down his face, and those strange mismatched eyes.
An odd thought catches him then: how might his life be different if he looked half so striking (so intimidating)?
Oh, hush, came the rough, fond rebuke of Cirrus from somewhere above him.
Atreus’ question makes him unconsciously draw himself straighter, and he shapes his lips into an easy smile. “I do whatever Florentine asks of me,” he says, casting his gaze over the crowd for a flash of gold before turning it back. “I serve as Dusk’s Regent – which lately includes an awful lot of parties.” He takes another bite of whatever’s nearest to him then, and it is both sweet and salty on his tongue, a taste like autumn. “Not that I’m complaining,” he adds with a grin.
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if you'll be my star*
