He chances a look at her, as her memory carries her back, and he is struck with how familiar is the expression she wears. How many times has he felt such a thing, some mix of sorrow and gladness? Almost Asterion feels like he is intruding, until she begins to speak.
For a long moment afterward he is silent, letting the ripples of her words settle over his heart. They, too, are familiar – for has he not been that same boy?
What was love, when did it become real? Was it only ever in the proving, in the end? This is not about you, he reminds himself, and extends his muzzle to her own, where her smile slips away to nothing. Briefly he touches her, his breath warm on the velvet-soft of her nose, and then, still silent, he draws away.
Asterion has no words for her, nothing to comfort with but shared sorrow.
The moment passes, as all moments do, and there is something like wonder in his eyes as he watches her put herself back together. Another pang of familiarity, another silver sliver of regret: how similar they are, he thinks, and his heart aches for her. Moira Tonnerre should know nothing of sorrow.
At least, for the moment, sorrow is traded for sugar.
“A gentleman?” he laughs, and shakes his head. “I only just told you of how feral I was.” Dark eyes merry, he stands his ground as she draws near, close enough he can smell the sweetness of her breath, the clean scent of her coat. Some of her hair is threatening to come free from its pins and he is glad of it – but just as quickly as the thought comes he thinks why should I be glad? It should matter nothing to her whether her hair is bound or free, tumbling curls or neat coils.
She is close close close, and Asterion falls still. That crooked smile is gone from his face, but it lingers still in his eyes – and those fall from her own down the angle of her cheek, the smooth column of her throat. Where the frosting stripes her skin.
“We may as well give ourselves over to the bees,” he says with mock-resignation. The bridge of his nose tingles where the frosting still rests, a strange kind of war-paint. Asterion’s heart is suddenly a rabid, fluttering thing in his chest, though he can’t think why, and he worries the moment is stretching too long, becoming something, something –
“Unless-” he says, and extends his nose forward, nibbling a fleck of frosting from her throat before he can think better of it. His heartbeat is still a quick, bird-winged thing, but the danger (what danger?) is passed. The vanilla is rich and sweet on his tongue, the taste of an autumn afternoon or a slow summer day. “We could do things the way we savages do.” He angles his frosting-specked face toward her, arching a brow expectantly.
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if you'll be my star*
