This keening soul;
Night is coming. Oh she feels it in her veins, it creeps upon her as the sun falls lower and lower. The stars call, down through ozone and cloud, dust rain and sunlight. The space in which they stand is liminal, time shifts and slows. The stars awaken with moon bright eyes, they blink out from amidst the setting sun.
But below, so far, far below them, shrouded beneath the blanket of Tinea’s leafy roof, Leto cannot see them. Her blood thrums with their call, however. It stirs like a dragon in her veins and her eyes close. Magic surges and shifts, it welcomes darkness and the dawning of stars like the earth births the newborn sun.
He is soft beneath her lips, she feels the press of mud made warm by his skin. How the sigil burns her lips! How is burrows into her soul and, as Asterion feels anchored in the forest, so a part of her anchors tight to him.
Danger, Danger! Her Ilati trees hiss, before her eyes sigils seem to burn bright, bright like the sun – or is it just her skin lighting like fire in her distress? The trees groan their lament for a girl fated to die deep, deep in water’s slick grasp. Yet they warn her more of ties with a boy, a king, a boy of stars and whimsy.
How can she not? Her soul cries. How can she not when he is the savior she so desperately desires? How can she not when he says as soft as stars, I will not let you drown. And oh she hears the clack, clack of the Witch Doctor’s bone horns. No, no, nothing can save you from fate. Be brave you weak little thing.
And Leto is glad he is leaving, glad his skin is not warm against hers. She says nothing as he slips into the darkness. She does not look after him, she does not miss the anchor chain that pulls tight with every step he takes from her. Oh how it aches! How it pulls so tight she cannot breathe! She does not wish to cling to him, with fingers pressing tight into his skin. She does not want to need him, Fate is stronger than them, she knows.
She was the girl ready to die, whenever fate may declare it time. But that was before she met a starbright king and tasted the water that whispered along his skin. That was before she dared to hope that he might save her.
Oh foolish girl.
She does not watch him go, but feels his sigil still upon her lips.
How far can you roam, Leto wonders, from where you let your anchor set?
@Leto | "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
