I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone
or else alone
Asterion does not notice what’s happening behind him until the dragon rises up out of the sea.
At first he thinks it’s a summoning of his own magic, as the water stirs in a frenzy and foam froths up from some great creature beneath. But as soon as the head and the arc of wings breach the surface his heart holds in his throat in awe (in a little fear) and something in him rises as the dragon does from the sea. Oh, he is glad Fable is not the same dragon as the last that ruled over Denocte. There is something terrible about that beauty, and about the power just as present in each gleaming scale and inch of membrane iridescent with water.
But right now Fable means hope. And when he turns at last from that growing mountain of ash to see the unicorn giving wings to each clam and crab he wants to pledge himself to her, to say I knew you would not be broken. Instead the Dusk King says none of these things; he only greets her smile with a deep nod and a look as black and fierce as her own. There is a rainstorm at her back, now, sweeping in from over both of their courts, but the only moisture in the air is still the mist from the waves as they dash themselves against the beach.
He does not ask her what hells she has traveled through to be here, or how she had escaped from Raum. This beach was no place for his own guilt, or the shame of his inaction; and anyway, perhaps none of the before matters, for here they stand now. Instead he goes to her, as Cirrus’ wingtips flash in the faltering sun and she calls the other birds away. Asterion touches his muzzle to hers with all the care and caution of a wild thing, and is glad her skin does not smell of smoke.
Still the water keeps its distance from them both, still a swell of waves waits to answer his will. His lungs follow the rhythm of the water and his heart drums at the cage of his ribs, the least steady part of him. “I have always felt braver beside a unicorn,” he says at last, and turns his gaze back on the black cloud before them.
Perhaps the wind would shift, and blow all that death out toward the open sea. Perhaps there would be no monster, no ruin at all, and what they face is only chance and weather. Asterion hopes so.
But he is glad to stand beside her nonetheless.
@Isra
Asterion.
