A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
It feels good to laugh - the sound of it surprises him at first, slipping out between his teeth like a brook, like that brief joy has lived in him all along. “Well put,” he answers, and his grin is wry, and he thinks that (for them at least, and for Dusk) she is right. It could be worse, and has been, and may yet be.
But today it is not too bad.
When she turns her attention to the waves he follows suit, save for a quick glance at Solaris. The sight of the phoenix has never yet failed to raise up in him some sense of wonder, like that laugh but softer, another part of him he forgets. Now he watches the sunlight on the water, but keeps an ear tuned to her, and his body angled toward hers even as his dark gaze regards the flat line of the horizon. From here, that island is out of sight. From here, everything is normal.
It’s not until she mentions Marisol and Theo that his mouth turns down and his eyes move back to her, and the king’s star-marked brow is furrowed. “Happened between them? Neither have mentioned anything to me…” but even as he says it he begins to wonder. Of course both of them are tense, when he speaks with them; but they always have been. He has never seen the Commander or the Champion at peace, but neither has he thought that tension came from anything but the trials that face them daily. Now he wonders if he has been too preoccupied with the wounds of his own heart to notice his friends’, and it turns something over in him, a dark guilt like dead and rotting leaves. He sighs, soft. “Let me know what you find out.”
His grim expression does not lighten as she moves on, outside their borders. “A murder, and not an accident?” It is a careful line to walk, but Novus was not without its predators - better a wolf or a panther, he thinks, than some more wily, savage killer. It is the last thing Somnus needs. “I am glad you’ve kept in touch - we should be strengthening our relationship with Dawn. I never thanked your properly for going with Atreus and the others.”
The bay catches the last of her grin, and it heartens him for a moment the way the sun on his shoulders does in December before it fades. And well it should, as their talk turns to Solterra.
“I’ve heard nothing new from the desert - but Isra has returned to Denocte, and they managed to suppress an attempt to burn the Night Court’s supplies.” It is too much to think of them, all his friends across the mountain pass; the only comfort is that the queen is returned, and Asterion knows better than most how strong she is. His words are low, his expression flat as stagnant water; his uncertainty feels like drowning, like a great weight is pressing him down and down and asking him to breathe.
“I’m told Raum is cutting off Solterran’s access to food and water unless they submit to him. We should see if we can bring them supplies - or smuggle their people out.” Now when he meets his Warden’s eyes, his own are asking for help. There are too many decisions to make, too many lives depending on each - oh, what if he is wrong, what if there is nothing right? Deep in him, wherever it is that magic lives, saltwater twists like Charybdis. Asterion has only begun to test the edges of that power; he has no idea how deep it goes - deep enough it vanishes into darkness.
“Israfel, should I go there? I don’t want to bring a war down on our heads. But I could give them water. With my magic, I could…” He swallows, trails off. “I could kill him, perhaps,” he says, and though his gaze is still on her his eyes are dark, and far away.
@Israfel <3
