[Worship] it took me years to say the words;

[Random Events]

the sweetest of sunsets

She is drawn back to the mountains, back to the peaks and their empty shrines for much the same reason as he: only while Asterion seeks a godly counsel, Vespera seeks to be that counsel. To gaze upon the face of Florentine’s regent and anoint him in her love, to hear his prayers and to offer him some small piece of hope and comfort.

Of course, the emotions of mortals are nearly as wild and unpredictable as the gods’; but Vespera knows when he sets out for Veneror, and she meets him there.

The goddess arrives as he touches his muzzle to the base of her pedestal, from which she had stepped down only days before. The memory brings a smile to her face: the wind in her hair and upon her face, that first breath she took so filled with sharp and crisp and lovely air. Up here it was as if they stood upon the top of the world, and it was here, so near to the heavens, that she felt most alive.

The dirt crunches gently under her hooves as she approaches him from the west, the setting sun framing her from behind. At dusk she is at her most vibrant: colors dance and shine across her pelt, radiating light in a reflection of the setting sun. Her hind legs are the dark blue of the ocean over which the sun sets, but her muzzle and her chest and her forelegs are as if dipped in liquid light, a gradient of colors filling all the spaces in between. Vespera is as radiant as the dusk - it is only fitting, for the goddess of Terrastella.

“Not even gods always know what it is they want.”  she speaks softly, kindly, her affection shining in every word. All men are created equal, she knows; some are given strength of body, others given strength of mind... but each of them are uniquely their own self. Even so, Vespera guards a special place in her heart for those of her own Court.

“There is nothing to forgive, Asterion. And your thanks belong to Cirrus; she chose you, after all, who was I to tell her no?” She laughs then, her voice light and musical with smiles playing at the corners of her lips. “She’s very decisive, if you don’t already know.”

But the goddess’ humor soon sobers. His heart is worn proudly on his dark leg; kind and hopeful and altruistic. It is what makes him perfect for his role as Regent… but it is also what makes his job harder in the end. 

And when Vespera speaks again, her voice is as soft as it ever could be, sweet and melodious as the whispering wind.

“Little is ever certain in life. You can trust the sun to rise in the east and to set in the west, but it is nigh impossible to know what the sun will awaken to each day, nor the state in which it falls back asleep. The choices of a million people influence the day’s course. So too, do your choices affect your people, Asterion.”

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@asterion