I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone
or else alone
It is Cirrus who spots the newcomer first, as the gull circles the court in the warm afternoon light.
Spring had been quick to come this year - a relief, after the past few winters Novus had seen. Today the fields and woodlands were all in bloom, a thick carpet of emerald dotted with a full palette of color from all the wildflowers that nodded their head in the breeze. The mare is unmissable against it, a mark of pale blue and snow-white to Cirrus’ airborne eye, and the gull tips her wings and drifts a little closer. She knows she is easy to ignore, among all the other seabirds near the coast, remarkable only to those familiar with Asterion’s companion, and she watches the strange mare stumble like a new foal before rising on an updraft another dozen yards.
Asterion, she thinks down their mental bond, and the bay king pauses his walk through the courtyard. There is someone you should meet. She is - and here the bird pauses, and the man twists an ear, wondering, wary. She is from the sea, Cirrus finishes, and all Asterion can think is kelpie.
He has yet to meet one of the creatures they say haunt the shores and swamps of the Dusk Court, but there have been reports that suggest they are not as much vacant myth as he might have believed. And now, as he crossed the courtyard with the sun warm on his back and passes through the great gate out into the rolling fields, he weighs eagerness with caution. It is easy to spot Cirrus, a white speck against a blue sky, and she drops swiftly through the air to perch upon his withers. Asterion flicks his tail at her by way of greeting, but his gaze is still searching those waving grasses, waiting to see what parts them.
And when he does spot her, his first feeling is wonder.
The Dusk King should be accustomed, by now, to the people of Novus in all their shapes and colors and strange additions; and yet he has never seen anyone like her. The bay’s approach slows to an easy walk, but his eyes are keen and dark upon her skin, her stripes, her long and thick fish-tail. Not until they are only a few dozen lengths apart does he note the glint of her second pair of eyes; not until they are near enough to speak does he remember to be wary.
He stops, then, curling his dark muzzle toward his chest, still regarding her out of those eyes the color of deep evening, of dark water. “Hale, stranger,” he says, and on his back Cirrus flaps her wings and resettles them against her sides. “Welcome to the Dusk Court.”
Asterion doesn’t know if it’s curiosity or warning that has the slumbering magic in him waking, a churning of water, the taste of salt in his mouth.
@Below Zero ahhh she's adorable!
Asterion.
