in sunshine and in shadow
It is spring, and the spray from the sea feels like a cool kiss against his skin and not the bite that made him shiver in midwinter. It is spring and all the birds are coming home, the prairie and the forest blooming green and full of the music of thrushes and wrens, the chorus of frogs and crickets. Each small bloom that unfolds on the path to the beach feels like a gift, for how grateful Asterion is to see Terrastella through another winter. Once, he had taken seasons for granted - but the king has learned that nothing is certain, not even the first day of the year when the sun is warm enough on his shoulders to make something uncurl inside him like a fern.
He has been on the shoreline since before dawn. The dew is still wet on the sea-grass but the clouds are turning from violet to lilac and lilac to rose and sunlight is breaking through, a spill of gold across the water. Somewhere, Cirrus is among her kind, stalking the pebbles and tidepools for crabs, but the gull’s bonded is content to stand with the breeze stiffening his hair with salt and watch two harbor seals playing in the surf.
A part of Asterion is waiting for another rogue island to shove its stubborn shoulders above the horizon line and spew ash and disaster and magic. A part of him is tense as he gazes over the rolling waves, wondering what he would do if the horn and crest and seafoam mane of a kelpie broke a wave, heading for shore. But mostly he is glad to keep watch in relative peace, where sandpipers scurry after snails and the gulls sound more laughing than mournful.
It is no bird that catches his eye as he lingers on the beach, and Asterion doesn’t hide his grin nor the way he tilts his head to watch Samaira land, his gaze only leaving her to touch curiously on the stately heron that follows her. She is not alone in thinking of the day they met; he remembers the way she’d been touched by the music, and how good it felt to laugh, and how he had always kept an eye out for her afterward. It is, he thinks, the first time he’s seen her fly, and he is glad to see no sign of the bandage that had been on her wing.
“Samaira,” he returns with a dip of his head, and as she continues his smile turns from warm to wry and his eyes gleam like pearls. “It may have slipped my mind,” he allows, and grins at her sidelong. When she speaks again his expression smooths to something more solemn. “And it’s an honor to serve them - but I’d like to get to know them, too, and I find it’s much easier when I’m only Asterion. At least for me.” His smile resurfaces like a seal slipping bright into the sunshine from the depths.
“It’s good to see you flying,” he says, and feels almost shy when he catches her eyes, as pale and strange and drawing as the moon. She is a striking figure against the pale of the beach, with the tattoos that pattern her dark skin and the bright of gold against rich brown. The king is studying her still when the heron makes a rough sound, and his eyes go to the bird as he tries to guess what else is different about her - perhaps a sense of peace and contentment, a serenity he wants to share.
But he finds plenty to occupy him with her companion, too, and looks with soft wonder at the white feathers that shimmer like a pearl, at the eyes that even from a distance shine a pale blue. “How did you meet?” he asks her, voice quiet as the shushing waves, and turns his dark eyes back to the mare.
@Samaira
He has been on the shoreline since before dawn. The dew is still wet on the sea-grass but the clouds are turning from violet to lilac and lilac to rose and sunlight is breaking through, a spill of gold across the water. Somewhere, Cirrus is among her kind, stalking the pebbles and tidepools for crabs, but the gull’s bonded is content to stand with the breeze stiffening his hair with salt and watch two harbor seals playing in the surf.
A part of Asterion is waiting for another rogue island to shove its stubborn shoulders above the horizon line and spew ash and disaster and magic. A part of him is tense as he gazes over the rolling waves, wondering what he would do if the horn and crest and seafoam mane of a kelpie broke a wave, heading for shore. But mostly he is glad to keep watch in relative peace, where sandpipers scurry after snails and the gulls sound more laughing than mournful.
It is no bird that catches his eye as he lingers on the beach, and Asterion doesn’t hide his grin nor the way he tilts his head to watch Samaira land, his gaze only leaving her to touch curiously on the stately heron that follows her. She is not alone in thinking of the day they met; he remembers the way she’d been touched by the music, and how good it felt to laugh, and how he had always kept an eye out for her afterward. It is, he thinks, the first time he’s seen her fly, and he is glad to see no sign of the bandage that had been on her wing.
“Samaira,” he returns with a dip of his head, and as she continues his smile turns from warm to wry and his eyes gleam like pearls. “It may have slipped my mind,” he allows, and grins at her sidelong. When she speaks again his expression smooths to something more solemn. “And it’s an honor to serve them - but I’d like to get to know them, too, and I find it’s much easier when I’m only Asterion. At least for me.” His smile resurfaces like a seal slipping bright into the sunshine from the depths.
“It’s good to see you flying,” he says, and feels almost shy when he catches her eyes, as pale and strange and drawing as the moon. She is a striking figure against the pale of the beach, with the tattoos that pattern her dark skin and the bright of gold against rich brown. The king is studying her still when the heron makes a rough sound, and his eyes go to the bird as he tries to guess what else is different about her - perhaps a sense of peace and contentment, a serenity he wants to share.
But he finds plenty to occupy him with her companion, too, and looks with soft wonder at the white feathers that shimmer like a pearl, at the eyes that even from a distance shine a pale blue. “How did you meet?” he asks her, voice quiet as the shushing waves, and turns his dark eyes back to the mare.
@
