and they've been changing the sound of my name;

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow*   He is transfixed by the doe. But for her paleness, he never would have seen her. But she is as bright as a ghost in the dim, tawny green beneath the shadows, and as soon as he marks her he stops in his tracks. They regard each other for a moment, but he finds he cannot hold her gaze; it burns too hot, it pierces him to the core. Asterion averts his eyes like a beggar, not a king, but he is too greedy and too wondrous to tear them away entire; they travel the circle her antlers make, strange and lovely treasure, more precious than any crown Terrastella could put on his head. They travel her throat, long and graceful as a swan’s, and the trembling, narrow muscles of her, and the lines of her legs thin as calligraphy. And then she is gone, a whisper through leaves, disappearing quickly as a comet into the dark. She leaves him with a cry trembling in his throat, unvoiced; what would he say, what name would he call after her? But his name is called instead. The stallion’s head lifts, ears twisting, not so different than the doe - then his gaze finds Ipomoea and that wildness, that wariness, in it softens to familiarity. Not until he exhales does he realize he’d been holding his breath long enough his body was nearly shivering with the need to breathe. All at once the air seems richer, more humid, though he can’t tell if there is more magic in it or less. Something feels different, after the doe passed by, but he is at a loss to say what. And so he only inclines his head, and then goes to meet the stallion. “Ipomoea,” he says, and the name feels as foreign as a bright island flower on his tongue. He knows that Florentine calls her friend Po, but Asterion has always had a difficult time dropping formality before invited. Anyway, the rolling syllables give him a chance to gather himself, when all his mind wants to do is bound after that hind through the trees. “Maybe that’s part of its magic.” His tone matches the other man’s, soft as leaf-litter on the ground, but at the paint’s offhand statement the king’s mind conjures a fairy-tale vision: an island that grows and grows to fit them, until it has enough. What then? What once it has them all? Steady, he thinks, and watches as Po steps into a column of sunshine. It anoints him, too, and dust motes dance in the gold, and Asterion finds that it is not so difficult to reply, “It’s good to see you too.” He means it, even as he turns his gaze away, to trace the place a deer vanished. His eyes are dark with longing, and intent, but one ear remains fixed on the Deluminian when he speaks again. “I don’t suppose there are allusions to any of this in your library?” Now it is he who smiles like smoke. @Ipomoea