asterion*
It’s easy to lose track of time as his vigil continues on the shore.
Especially now that the black cloud has swallowed up the sun, casting them all into a muted darkness. Even the sea is holding its breath; the tide has gone out and all is still, no sound but the waves. All the birds have flown away (and the crabs and the clams, too, thanks to Isra’s magic) and still Asterion waits, sure of nothing.
At first there had been the shock of it, and the fierce surging of his heart and magic, so certain that he would fight, would overcome. But there is still nothing that he can do battle with. The mountain of ash, split occasionally by lightning, remains far out to sea, with only occasional flakes of gray alighting on the beach like snow lost and dark. Now the only movement is from the other horses, who come to bear witness with the same roil of feelings that churned like whitecaps in his own heart. For the most part they all keep the silence of a cathedral, as though the billowing of death is only another offering of incense and destruction for their gods.
But there is one who comes, darker than even the soot-black sky, that Asterion turns to like a supplicant.
After the secret she has bared to him, the king’s heart closes like a fist to see Leto upon the beach, where the waves reach for her but die away. It begs for her to flee, to leave her death behind on this silent beach, and yet something in him strengthens to see the shine of her moon-silver eyes, to hear her bells break the silence with their defiant ringing. He wonders what star she might call down from that black cloud of ash, and whether it could burn away the smoke; he wonders what else she might know, given by the whispering of bones and runes.
And when the Ilati girl turns back inland, to the mangroves and the mire and the swamp, the bay stallion follows.
It is a comfort, to at last turn away from that terrible horizon. Still the king takes a glance back over his shoulder before vanishing between the dark-leaved mangroves; it is a relief when they close behind him, whispering cool over his skin. As he winds further and further in and the scent of salt and brine gives way to leaf and earth, as the birdsong returns, he can almost pretend it is normal - save for the darkness that hangs overhead, muting the shadows, making a held breath of the world.
When he catches up to her, at first he only finds her by the gleam of her eyes, the shine and sound of her bells. Though he knows she must be aware of him - despite his years in Terrastella he has yet to move graceful as a deer through her landscape - he says nothing, only watches her work, gathering up bones. He wonders if any of the runes carved deep into the bark of ancient trees tell tales of such horror as is now being born; he wonders if such stories would matter. For a moment he almost smiles, wry and strange, to think of how he once saw Novus as a fairytale world, all castles and kings.
After a stretch of time (how much? he cannot say - it is as meaningless to him now as it must be to Florentine) he crosses to her, solemn, as though it is a temple floor and not a forest carpeted by leaf and moss and still, slow water. Asterion is careful not to touch, but his eyes are luminous even in the dim, a well of questions and wonders and fears.
“Will you tell me what they say?” he asks at last, low.
@Leto
