He is drawn to the lake like a boy to a locked door in a dream, drawn like a hand to a scab that itches and itches.
Asterion has not been back to the lake since his first night in Novus, the night he met a girl like a storm who wore a crown of fireflies, who made him feel like a waking dream.
She is gone, that girl, and so are the fireflies, and so are the nodding flowers that carpeted the banks that long-ago summer evening. And yet his feet remember the path to the lake, and his dreaming heart remembers all the things he had felt, and the mountains watch solemn and silent.
And when the king looks into the waters of the lake there is a girl there and his heart trips. It is deja vu, he thinks, it is an errant memory -
it is Isra.
He sighs as soon as he realizes it, with relief and with something else, but as he looks closer from his green hillock those feelings turn only to curiosity sharp as hunger. Asterion had not known of the queen’s magic, but there is no other explanation for the things happening around her now - the glitter and dark of the shoreline, reaching out to her in a bridge where there was no bridge. The gleam and shine of diamonds, the similar gleam of sweat and lake water on the unicorn’s skin.
Asterion has never been to the rift, has never seen wonders quite like these - the thing he thinks of then is the maze of Ravos, all those strange and echoing pathways, the descent into darkness and then terrible light.
The late spring sun feels cool, then, and a tremble passes over him like a cloud-shadow, but the bay has never been a coward (nor has he ever been truly hurt). For a moment his jaw tightens, and then he swallows and descends to her with the sunlight on his back, throwing up a thousand shattered reflections from the diamonds and the gold.
At first he keeps his distance, standing with the water up to his hocks, still cold this high up. The crescent moon of the lake bends away in both directions, alive with the sound of frogs, the splashing of fish, the graceful-strange wading of herons. But Asterion notices none of these things, for there are wonders before him. Only when he realizes she is struggling with something does the King of Dusk walk out to the Queen of Night. Now he realizes the water is cold enough to bite; now he is close enough to see her shiver. With a thought, the barest motion of his head, the waters part around them, pulling back so that they both stand, dry, on gleaming gold and rippling wood. All minnows and trout recede with it, and the crayfish scurry for the water, surprised to find themselves bared to the air.
“What is it you’re trying to do?” he asks, softly, his glance lingering on her only a moment before turning with wonder and curiosity to the things she has transformed. He almost touches her, then, his muzzle to her shoulder, but magic is a private thing, and sometimes a tricky thing, and he would do nothing to keep her from her task. But -
“It’s lovely, your magic. Is there something I can do to help?” Still the waters flow around them, giving them space, quiet as a cat’s purr.
And Asterion does not think of Aislinn at all.
@Isra
if you'll be my star*
