asterion,
Something in him stirs at her name, a wave testing the shoreline to see what has eroded. Mephisto. Though he does not react save a twist of his ears, Asterion is sure he’s heard the name before - one of the hundred Florentine has told him as he begged for stories of the Rift (always hoping and never wanting to hear more of his father). But though he reaches for recognition he finds nothing, and he is left only to nod as though it meant no more to him than a handshake from a stranger.
It is nothing to the way his own name affects him, the syllables long and taut all at once, but this time when his gaze is caught by Marisol’s it is her poetry he thinks of, the way she’d recited it in the bleak of summer between sooty bonfires, music winding in the background like the sound of their bloodstreams given voice.
Almost he smiles at the memory alone, and the quirk of her brow does make his dark mouth curve, something wry and sheepish that is quickly gone again.
When Mephisto answers him the whole of his attention shifts to her, though he flicks his tattered ear again against its constant itching. His expression is still soft as she speaks, and does not betray the way his body wants to grow taut at how general her words are. The king cannot begrudge her for not so easily spilling her truths -
but oh, she has found them at a time when it is more difficult than usual to trust.
He is not so unaware as to miss the burn of Marisol’s gaze on him, though he does not take his own from the newcomer. Neither is he so naive as he once was, to fold her into his flock without checking for the wolf beneath the wool; it is Marisol, then, who speaks first, and only then does Asterion glance her way. The look is thank you and are you sure and we will be wary, and then the king regards Mephisto again.
The wind is sighing in the pines and the frogs and crickets are singing, in joy or in lament of the end of summer he cannot guess, and Asterion notes the strength of the pegasus and the easy way she stands and her calm and level gaze. He thinks of how many they lost in the last year, and how thin their ranks are, sparse as a midwinter field.
Maybe they cannot trust her yet, but they need her.
“You’re far from the first to arrive on accident,” he says at last, and something in him has shifted with his decision; the words are more wry, and softer. “And the Dusk Court welcomes all who arrive with good intent. If you like, we can walk to the city together, and - perhaps - help inform your decision on whether to stay.”
king of dusk.
@Mephisto @
