asterion*
It is snowing as he walks the streets of Denocte, his shadow soft beside him on the cobblestones. It is not the fearsome kind of snow that blanketed the desert, borne by unnatural winds; it is a soft and lovely fall, less like ashes and more like hope. It is beautiful.
For the first time since their arrival in the city of starlight (and now Asterion has seen how it earned its name) he is alone, and grateful for it.
Even Cirrus has let him be; the gull is only a dim presence in a corner of his mind as she joins her fellows on the cliffs alongside the crashing winter sea. Despite the snow the streets are full of color, though the bright blues and yellows of the flags are muted by the flakes, and each step he take leaves a small half-moon print behind him.
Asterion can feel himself healing: reknitting after the stress and weariness of the last few weeks, the tension and the terror. He had never paused long enough to mourn, to worry; there had been too much to do. Again and again he had used his recently-returned magic until the ocean inside him was nothing but a tidepool, a puddle left behind by something far stronger and stranger. All of Terrastella had given everything they could.
And none of it had been enough.
Is it a weakness, that he led them with their backs to their home, seeking shelter from a stranger? Guilt like gall churns within him and he shakes his head with a sigh. When he lifts his dark gaze once more, there is a figure before him. Like the flags she, too, is veiled by the snow – but still he would know that color anywhere. She flares bright as a phoenix, and the bay’s steps falter.
“Moira?” he says, and can already feel heat flush through him, prompted by memory, despite the bite in the air.
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