asterion*
It does not feel too much like pride for Asterion to think that this is his favorite part of the Midsummer Event.
It is only that everything here fits him so perfectly. The lit-pearl pathway sets the stage for the dream, soft reflections of the stars that blaze above, and they cast strange light along the false-glass walls. Behind them the water shifts, blue deep as a secret and purples like jasmine blooming beneath a new moon. The tents glow warm as bonfires and Asterion thinks that he has never seen the lake so lovely.
Never mind the memories that surface then - another midsummer night, nothing but fireflies and still water and the fading perfume of wildflowers. And her. Oh, the king wonders if it is Aislinn he still misses, or the way he had felt his first night in Novus, when everything was still an adventure and a promise.
But tonight he is not alone. Though he walks, for the moment, by himself, there are faces all around him, some laughing and some still with wonder. The bay drifts along the tents, glancing at the wares, marveling at the artistry. He smiles at each face whose eyes catch his, he passes soft words with the vendors. And then he breaks away from the small crowd and walks back out onto that pathway of wood and dark gold, as full of quiet awe as he had been at the building of it.
There in the darkness, where the only light ripples over him in waves of green and blue like an aurora, he falls to stillness, only watching. For a moment he lets his mind drift with the water, thinking of nothing but color and the promise in a summer night’s breeze.
