A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
He is a little relieved when Pan does not press him on the smugglers, but there was a glint in the boy’s eye that Asterion recognized - one he himself had often worn - and the bay flicks an ear back at Cirrus. Keep an eye on him, he thinks, and hopes that if Pan finds his way to the smuggler’s caves he will think nothing of one more gull among a hundred of them.
When the colt pulls the weathered book from his satchel the king leans forward with his own boyish eagerness. His reverence for books had only grown since learning to read, though he did not spend much time among them; now his head is next to Pan’s, forelock tumbling careless across his eyes as he scans the pages. He only straightens again when the colt speaks, and the smile he wears is full and bright.
“A worthy goal,” he says, and nudges Pan the way a man might clap a hand on a boy’s shoulder. “Once you do, could you come back here and teach Dusk’s healers about what you’ve found? They would be glad to expand their own knowledge.”
At Pan’s question the line of his mouth turns considering, and the king studies the rough sketches of plants. He had never spend time pursuing herbs, but he has gleaned a wide range of knowledge in his years in Novus, and after a moment he taps an image of a pale bloom with leaves gathered in threes, lines running down them like veins of silver. “This one,” he says, “grows this time of year in Tinea Swamp. A friend showed it to me once.” The thought of Rhea makes his heart pang; he’d never gotten the opportunity to know her better, to ask what the runes carved into her curling horns meant. Asterion wonders if she is still living in the swamp, or if she is only another face he will never see again.
Maybe that is the trouble with staying in one place - it taught you to expect to see your friends again. It was easier to be a drifter, a dreamer, a dandelion seed on the wind.
But this is a reunion, of sorts, and Asterion shakes himself dog-like as he straightens, and casts Pan a grin. “If you go that way,” he says, and motions toward Tinea, “you’ll soon run into the swamp. Watch your step - the water is deeper than it looks, in places. Good luck, Pan, and I will see you again soon. You are always welcome in Terrastella.”
The king has to turn away (back toward the keep, back toward home) before his heart gets ahead of his mind and he asks Pan to stay.
@Pan
