asterion*
He has yet to be truly fearful, despite the way the world roils at the horizon, all that smoke and darkness. Here beneath the boughs of great trees it might only be another night, the dim-dark it always is beneath the canopy. The water and mud is cold against his legs but to the king it is only another charm to ward away weariness.
Oh, if he is afraid at all it is only when he looks at her, painted like a wild thing (not feral, never-caught) with a body beside her. Her sigils are bright, but dim compared to the magic that lights her from within; the blood in the bowl is so dark, so thick, it might only be swamp-water but for the smell. That old-penny scent of iron and salt could never belong to any thing else.
Asterion says nothing when first she speaks, and his mouth draws a grim, taut smile. It is not a question meant for answering; they both know there is no limit to the world’s suffering. Only at her second does something different glint in his eyes, something more savage than sad. “Long ago,” he says, and wonders if Calliope would be proud.
He does not watch the bones, nor the blood stirrings its dark cloud like ink. The king’s eyes are only on her, waiting, waiting -
and when the answer comes he is disappointed.
Not because of the words themselves, but for their inevitability; Asterion had already known they were alone. He knew it from the first trembling and groaning of the world beneath his hooves, knew it better as soon as his gaze touched upon the shadow out beyond the sea. Now that the reading is given his unconscious tension relaxes and he drops his head, draws a deep breath tinged with humid swamp air. The boy in him wants to demand But what is it we face? And how do we defeat it? The man he has become knows better.
“I’m relieved,” he says, and his mouth makes a crescent-moon smile in the darkness at his blasphemy. “I would hate for us to fail another test.”
@Leto
