asterion,
“No,” he agrees softly, “It is not.” And he thinks of the slap of the flat edge of Raymond’s blade against him, or the whine as it tasted the air and asked for something more.
It is the same sound that her tail makes when she uses it like a scythe and Asterion glances away from her to watch the heads of the flowers fall. He wonders why they are dead, and he thinks of Florentine’s petals drifting like dead leaves, and he imagines (it is not so difficult to imagine) what that blade might feel like, cutting into him instead, tasting blood instead of sap.
He does not want to wonder if that would please her, or if her expression would change at all if it happened. It makes his magic begin to stir inside him, a rising tide that he whispers down as she steps nearer, and nearer yet.
Asterion still has not decided whether it is the water drying from her or the unicorn herself that carries death like a long veil around her. He is not quite sure why to look at her, dark red as old blood against the gold behind and the long evening light, makes his heart beat like it is dying, too, fierce and brave in his chest but losing, oh, each tick numbered.
Their breath is caught and kept between them; the king forgets the rot at her feet and the gods-pool behind her and when his gaze finds hers again his shows the same sorrow, the same want. He wants to know everything she knows of the rift, ever monster and every piece of magic shifting like fish-scales in sunlight, like scattered drops of golden water. And yet each thing he learns is another thing that can someday be lost.
“Do you want to learn another way?” he asks, soft and bold as sunlight through fog, and slowly reaches to touch her.
king of dusk.
@Thana | <3
