Asterion Not old yet - how long ago had she reminded him of it, like a secret or a vow, on that quiet sea-fog morning? Too long. He has forgotten it again as he stands before her, autumn’s chill on the air and frost betraying his footsteps. Above them the sky is a crystalline blue, the kind that only comes at the end of fall when the last of the leaves are letting go and everything is beautiful like a heartbreak. Asterion isn’t near enough to catch her words, but he doesn’t need to - he knows the shape of them on her mouth, knows, too, the way her lip curls in nothing like a smile. The king offers no greeting in return, but there is something at once wounded and accusatory in his gaze. (What does it mean, if they no longer serve the same god?) He watches her beautiful wings unfurl and tries not to remember her reciting poetry, or telling him how it feels to fly. The bay knows he cannot let her leave the ground here, not if he wants to win. And he does - oh, he does. She thinks you weak, Cirrus had told him when he woke in the bone-cold predawn. He had not refuted it then and he isn’t sure, looking at his Commander so fierce and so steel-eyed, that he can now. All he can do is try to prove to her otherwise. He begins at once. At first there is only this: his head ducked against the bright glare of the sunrise, his shadow slanting long behind him, his limbs moving in an easy trot. Asterion does not draw a straight line to her; he circles, putting the sun between them both. He wants to keep her eyes on him, but it doesn’t really matter - for regardless of where she watches, his magic begins to stir. Up and up from the ground, wrung out and out from the air, he begs the water to answer him. It is more obedient than his people, or his god, or even his own heart; it responds to him at once, shimmering at first like mist in a curtain around her, making prisms of each suspended drop. But it stays neither lovely nor innocent. Quicker, now, he cuts in toward her, though she is indistinct through the veil of condensing mist, like he is watching her from behind a waterfall. Now he is near enough he might feel the beat of her wings, and now the circle of water tightens until it is upon her, a Charybdis. But it does not pull her down - for all its strength it focuses only on her wings, seeking to douse them, to soak them, to make each feather so heavy it could not dream of lifting. Meanwhile, as it spins and drenches and at last dies away, he is near enough to feel the cold spray on his own skin, near enough a lunge would see them collide, near enough she cannot use her beloved spear as anything but a staff. Asterion searches himself for regret but all he can think, with the elation of using his power surging like the surf in his blood, is that he is strong. |
Summary: Asterion shows up, feels some things (as he does) and approaches her. As he does he uses his power to put a sort of water wall/whirlpool around her with the intent of closing in and totally soaking her wings. Meanwhile he positions himself probably inadvisably close to her.
Attack Used: 1
Attack(s) Left: 1
Block Used: 0
Block(s) Left: 1
Item(s) Used: NA
Response Deadline: 4/1
Tags: @
