He is grateful for her ties, grateful for the ways she has wound them together, even without his knowing. Asterion’s life until Novus was full of knots undone, threads easily snapped. That is why he drifted so far, so long, all the while searching for an anchor he didn’t know he needed.
Has he finally learned she will not push him away, as Talia had? That no matter what he does as Regent she will love him still?
She is easy to talk to (she is always easy to talk to), her gold painted pale beneath the moonlight. Florentine could be a carving of a queen, then, were it not for the flowers that drift and scent the air, or the way her hair stirs in the breeze, or her liquid, searching eyes. All these things are too alive to ever let her pass as stone, however the moonlight colors her.
“They were,” he says, thinking of how No would turn to a pillar of salt and sea-foam, or how Selke could remake the waves and guide the tide. His own water-magic had been nothing in comparison – and it had been a gift, besides. He had seen the gods give their gifts, and had seen them taken away, and nobody else in Ravos had that ability.
But at her mention of removing the gods, his brow furrows, an ear twisting toward her then back, uneasy. Asterion does not like the thoughts of more gods, here, whether they had their power or no. “I do not think they would be. I don’t know what they would be – if they would be more like us – but I think the world shapes them as much as they do it. If you took them out of their world…” The bay huffs a breath, shakes his head. His gaze on her then is dark, but there is a glint in it still, of humor or starlight or both. “I think we have enough to deal with without transplanted gods, sister.”
Something deep inside him shudders and twists, at the thought of his sister playing so with the gods.
For if she could do such a thing, what did that make her?
He is glad, then, to return his thoughts to the party, glad to finish the talk of gods and their whims. It is with relief that he looks on her smile and returns it, before nudging her muzzle with his nose in a gentle push. “Let’s do both,” he says, wondering if he can fake joviality until he feels it. “But the painting first – I shudder to think of what you’d make me look like after a couple droughts of wine.” Asterion laughs, then starts forward, flicking his tail at his sister’s chest as he goes.
Perhaps with enough wine, enough paint, enough laughter, he can forget all talk of gods for the night.
@
if you'll be my star*
