in sunshine and in shadow
He nods mutely at the hooded woman’s low response, and opens up a little more space between them. Of course she is right; now is not the time, but something in him is awake now, stretching out, wanting.
Before his words of warning can fade like foam, as the sea resumes its rhythm, they begin to bicker already. It is expected, in any group more than two, but it makes him want to shake his head all the same. There is a part of him that is still surprised to find himself in charge of a people, for there is a part of him that will always long to be alone, adventuring, hungering after the next shoreline, the next night sky. Asterion has never cared for crowds.
But there is no escaping this one, not yet. A strange, vivid stallion - one with markings as bright as any bird on the island - contests his advice, and a more familiar face follows. He watches Below Zero impassively, flicking an ear as she reaches a similar conclusion - that nothing here is to be trusted. Before he can clarify his own remarks, or respond to theirs, another stranger speaks. She, too, looks like something crafted from the island, minuscule and almost more deer than horse; but when she speaks there is nothing small about her words. The king does not get the chance to answer her, save for greeting her by the name she’d given. Seraphina does instead, and he can only nod; that was before his time, anyway, if only barely.
Isra arrives and her eyes flash with death, like the sunlight had flashed on the black clouds of the volcano before all that sulfur and debris had swallowed up the light. Her smile feels like a physical thing, pressed to Asterion’s throat; he is relieved when it turns away, and he watches such stillness as she transforms the unicorn that it might be he that is the statue, save for the wind that touches his hair. When the sea trembles and foams in a way he can sense in his bones, he turns to watch Fable rise from it like a benediction. The bay does not greet either of them vocally, only with a gaze as dark and unfathomable as the depths of the sea, as the space between stars. He wonders if whatever waits in the jungle knows to shudder beneath the shadow of the dragon’s wings.
A paint mare speaks up then, and the breath he huffs at her blunt words is not quite a laugh. She is not very diplomatic, but neither is she wrong. Around them, some horses begin to leave; he can taste the undercurrent of chaos, of excitement and worry, of rage. He can feel the pull of the island, and the pull of the mainland, and both of them say away, away.
Before he obeys - before he steps away with the silver mare with strange eyes, or into that dark arch of trees, he looks again to Isra. “We can keep a small contingent here - shifts with a healer, maybe, and any warriors or Halcyon that volunteer. ” Just in case swift action is needed, he does not say. “If anyone is injured, or learns anything of importance, they can return to the beach and find help.” It is the best he can think to do, for a people he has no real control over - not here, where the land belongs only to the wild magic, or perhaps the gods.
