She was not the only fool who could do nothing but go forth into the storm and pray for survivors.
Time has no meaning when all the world is the brown of mud and the gray of rain. How many hours has Asterion fought the flooding and the rain, with Cirrus his eyes overhead? All he knows is the ache in his muscles, the weariness of mind and heart and magic. But he has no choice – his water magic has come back to him (been given back to him?) and what use would it ever be, if not for this?
Oh, but it is a well running dry.
He is picking his careful way through slick mud and snagging branches, gaze on his path, when Cirrus cries out across their mental connection. There’s flame, she says at first, and it makes no sense until It’s Solaris—
Asterion freezes, sinking hock-deep into thick muck, and casts his gaze overhead. There, a little ways ahead, is the pale shape of Cirrus against the dark of the trees and the flickering light of what could only be the phoenix. Over the sound of the rain he can hear the birds, calling to one another in their rough voices, and the bay plunges into a run.
Guided by the both of them he scrabbles over logs and winds around trees, his coat covered in mud and soaked to his bones. He swallows down his fear and that ancient, animal panic and forces himself onward, ever onward, until at last he slides to a stop before the unfolding scene.
His heart seems to stutter to see Dusk’s Warden, half-submerged with wings spread like flares. Oh, but how could she hope to fly from such a position? And then his gaze tracks from her to the focus of her attention. For a moment he doesn’t see them, so similar in color and shape are they to the crooked branches and mud they cling to, but at last he catches the gleam of their eyes.
Otters. Of all the things to risk yourself to save, otters –
But they are Vespera’s creatures, too, and he would have done nothing different.
Asterion wades out behind her, only until the water courses around his knees, begging him downstream.
“I can still the current,” he calls to Israfel, his voice hoarse with overuse and throat tight with the cold, “but not for very long.” His gaze holds hers, and then he breaks it, nodding toward the shivering otters.
One more, he thinks, the prayer he has echoed for days now. Let it be enough to save one more. And then he draws deep from that near-empty well, raising up all the new and hungry power within him, and stills the raging current to nearly a halt.
If this was all he’d done, the only drain on his magic, he might have been able to draw away the water altogether – but the bay stallion knows his abilities are running out.
Hurry, he thinks, and grits his teeth against the now-familiar strain, and wills it to be enough for them all to reach higher ground.
@Israfel <3
and hardly ever what we dream
