Asterion has spent his life believing in things that he has never seen.
In adventure, in horizons that wait for him, concealing monsters he might slay and maidens he might rescue. In a family that welcomes him whole-hearted, that does not abandon him as his father did or push him away as his twin did, despite how they were born with matching heartbeats, how they grew in the safety of their mother with their limbs tangled together, dreaming the same dreams.
Ironically that belief had never extended to the gods. He’d never thought of them during his slow and gentle colthood; his mother had taught him of the stars and of the tides but never a whisper of what might have made them both. In Ravos the gods had walked beside him, had been present for advice or rebuke, but they had seemed little more than men.
But here, oh, here –
He is too old, he thinks, to learn now how to be devout.
It is a shame, would be even if the gods weren’t awake and walking, because he thinks that Marisol could be the one to teach him to worship. She is steady as the cliffside with her brave heart of stone, and he has wondered if Vespera gave her that strength. That if he loved their goddess, too, then he and the Commander might be closer yet than the hairs-breadth between them.
But when he thinks of the gods of Novus now, he thinks only of the stones tumbling shut, sealing the meeting place into a tomb. Perhaps it is no wonder that he would rather search for myths that did not try to disguise their danger.
He nods at her response, feeling just a little chastised – like he is a boy, begging for stories. Cirrus clacks her beak at him, and he doesn’t need their telepathic connection to know she is saying See, see, not everyone is so foolish as you to go looking for monsters when there are plenty around already.
Asterion flicks his tail at her, and turns away to study Marisol.
“I forget how young you are,” he says, and his voice is teasing but soft. “Sometimes I think that you’ve seen everything.” It is that hard look in her eyes, that kept-apart, that he imagines is part of why she is so accomplished, so controlled –
but he wonders what kind of wall it is. If it is glass to be shattered or stone to stand forever or simply a veil of mist that someone might walk through, if they had a care to.
He draws in a slow breath, then, like a sigh in reverse, and looks back to the shimmering sea.
“How fare your cadets? Cirrus tells me she’s seen them on patrol, and they look a fine bunch.” His voice is still easy enough, still moonlight on water, but he would much rather speak of stories than responsibilities.
@
if you'll be my star*
