asterion*
There is a moment where they stand, each with their gaze on the other, and there is no sound but the sigh of the snow and everything is still save for the plumes of their breaths and the softly drifting flakes.
It is Moira who moves first, the arc of her wing a vivid flash of color in the pale. It takes him a moment to notice that only one of her wings had so gracefully arched, and even longer to realize why. Oh, was there anything good in Novus that would not be bruised? If anyone deserved to survive unscathed, it was Moira. (And Florentine, his mind whispers, and Cyrene, and-)
His heart, which had soared to his throat to see her, falls like a stone. Simultaneously, he realizes for the first time why Calliope clothed herself in rage, a fierce violence tough as chainmail. It is not so hard to see why that might be the only way to survive, and to do what must sometimes be done.
And yet he still smiles back at her, still turns his dark ears forward to catch her words. Asterion still inhales as he, too, steps closer, and the scent of sharp pine and clean snow is like a balm.
“There are far sweeter dreams than me,” he says, and his soft laughter plumes silver between them. But the bay king is remembering another meeting, another Night Court woman both winsome and wild. I do not wish for this dream to end. His eyes find Moria’s injured wing, wrapped in bandages pale as the snow, but before he can ask she pulls him into an embrace.
Oh, he flushes warm enough to melt the flakes on his back, but it is her heartbeat quick and vital that is more of a comfort than he can name. Their festival kiss feels a lifetime ago, before the world went so terribly wrong, before he was named king.
It’s good to see you, she says, and he wonders what it is she sees - his washboard ribs, the weary lines of his face, sorrow in the shine of his eyes? There is little stardust left to him, he thinks. Hard to think that not so long ago he was just a boy, happy and foolish, streaked with paint beneath the glow of dusk and lanterns.
”I missed you.” The truth of it is simple, soft on the air, but then his muzzle ghosts against her shoulder, near her injured wing. “What happened?”
Well, he is still foolish, at least.
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