He had doused her with information, more than he was usually coaxed to speak even in a meeting, even with Florentine (perhaps especially with his sister, who so often had words enough for the both of them). And so her brief faltering is no surprise, and Asterion still stands patiently, letting her absorb the information as his dark-eyed gaze wanders the room.
It is what she says next, the conviction clear in her voice, that has him startled and turning. The bay’s ears prick forward, and he catches just the briefest arc of lightning before her wings. It might only have been a spark from friction -
but Asterion has known Calliope too long to know nothing of lightning-magic.
“Oh,” it is his turn to say, and though his brows rise there is a glint in the depths of his gaze, as though he has half a mind to ask if he could join her. “I am not sure, as sovereign of her court, that I can condone that…” He trails off, voice gone soft again, but the smile he wears is boyishly curved. There is an ache beneath it, too, one he knows will live with him until Terrastella no longer bears the scars of the previous year, but the king is heartened by her fire.
It is what finally gives him the push to ask the question that’s been waiting just behind his teeth. Clearly her sickness would slow Theodosia down no more than the flooding had. “If you might put off your vengeance for a while, I wanted to ask you something.” He pauses for a beat, holding the lavender of her eyes, and for a moment they are not a bruised king and a bedridden warrior in a hospital far from home. “We have been absent a Champion of Battle - but this is not a time to be without. We need courage, and strength, and duty. Theodosia - would you act as Dusk’s champion?”
@
if you'll be my star*
