in sunshine and in shadow
There is a part of Asterion that is like a moon-shadow.
It is almost never seen; he rarely ever wanes so far. But even as a boy he had known that there were no adventures without blood, no heroes without villains, no magic without cost. Such things are further from him now, perhaps, than they had been as a colt; but there are still moments (on the battlefield with his teeth set, or at the Summit surrounded by gods and stone) he is reminded. He has always admired dangerous things, always loved them.
She is dangerous. He had guessed it at first, as soon as he saw here there beneath the dappled moonlight - but now Asterion knows, the way he knows when a fox is near. Still he does not (cannot?) draw away, only stands and watches dark-eyed and quiet as a seal.
His name on her lips feels like a fly shuddering on his skin, like the reflection of a star rippling on cold water. Light shattered into pieces. “Euryale,” he says in return (the way he had wanted to before), and there is something like a smile in his voice, though he can feel his heart beating like a bird’s.
When she claims she is not one of the kelpies he is not sure that he believes her. The bay king has learned, at least, that not every stranger he meets gives the truth, whether they wear a crown or a dragon or nothing at all. There is the crash of the sea behind them, after all, and the brine still sharp in his nostrils. One of his dark ears turns.
But then she continues, her voice the whisper of sea-foam over jagged rocks. The moonlight catches something, a flash of white at her mouth, and is is the first time Asterion notices her fangs. He knows then she did not lie. “I have heard no stories of them,” he says, and his voice is no whisper but it is soft, soft, the murmur of the tide. Like the tide it pulls, insistent, and there is something like a challenge in it, or a question.
Her gaze rakes over him, more intently than the moonlight ever has watched him. She is nothing, he thinks then, like the others he has known: she is not a summer storm, like Aislinn, or a phoenix like Moira or a lion swallowed up by a unicorn like Calliope.
She is a wolf, and she is hunting him.
It is almost enough to make him turn. But Asterion has never been a coward (though he is often afraid), and he draws in a deep breath as her attention slides along him like a finger. And then she asks her question, and the king forgets about retreating to the waves. For a moment he is quiet, and then he tilts his head toward her and the ocean sighs.
“Neither,” he answers her, “but I dream of both.”
@Euryale
