It is a strange fate they share that has cast them together.
Asterion’s father - Florentine’s father - had been king of a Winter Court, too. His sister had been born a princess to a kingdom of mountains and snow and forests of dark, stately pines, of thickets of roses in summer and a vast sky with nothing but the mountains to break it.
And that kingdom had also fallen. They had survived a war with rivals, with horses that bore magic as well as hooves and teeth and horns - but they could survive no war with magic, with a godless, savage sickness, with a world that rebelled against life.
Perhaps Novus would end the same way - as ash, or a frozen expanse beneath a baleful sun, or swallowed up by the sea and the endless instability of the gods. But Asterion would fight that future with all the breath in his body and the magic thick as saltwater in his veins.
The bay king is standing in the courtyard when a messenger comes to fetch him. It is dusk, and somewhere in the background of his mind he can sense Cirrus coming in for the sea, wings weary and damp with mist and spray. He has been watching the sunset, trying to settle himself beneath the kind of dusk their court was named for, but something in him feels tense and waiting. It is almost a relief, then, when a young stallion approaches him his head dipping in greeting. “A visitor, your Majesty.” When he asks who, he receives only a shake of the boy’s head, and that the mare had asked not for him but for the Queen. When Asterion follows him below the richly colored sky to the foot of the steps he wonders if this is why the air has felt so laden til now.
But his tension melts away as soon as he sees the Wolf, unmistakable even beneath her cloak.
Leaving the courier behind, Asterion closes the distance to the former queen, touching a soft muzzle to her shoulder before it occurs to him that she might not remember him at all. When she had left, he had been nothing but Florentine’s brother, new to Novus, new to queens and castles and everything those words encompassed.
But while she might not remember him, the bay could never forget the warrior who wore the colors of Terrastella upon her very skin, who stood a testament to duty and dignified strength.
With respect he steps back, dropping his head, grazing the cobblestones with his dark-eyed gaze before it lifts to hers again. When it does he wears a smile, slight and wry.
“You’ll have to make do with her brother, I’m afraid. Florentine named me King a little more than a year ago.” And what a year it had been - one of plagues and tests and grief and growth. One that was only just beginning to lighten with the dawn.
“Welcome back, Rannveig.”
@Rannveig
and hardly ever what we dream
