This keening soul;
He stands tall before her, every part a king, rooted beneath his crown. Through those silver eyes she watches him, painting the sigils of her skin upon his, each one emblazed in silver. Each one is pressed with the starfire heat of her gaze, blistering as a brand. He will bear more scars, more, more and oh she wonders of the beauty of sigil scars, scattered across constellations. She closes her eyes and thinks what it would be to paint them in starfire upon him. It is a childish dream that aches in her bones and wakes her fitful from such unreachable dreams. When had she last painted any Ilati but herself? They were few, few, few. Their paint was old upon the trees, the stories carved into bark were being swallowed by time and growth.
Loneliness breathes oxygen over her ire and oh how the flames fan and rise licking in silver tongues along the insides of her soul. Her Ilati were dying and she was a girl with eyes upon the sky and a mind full of dreams of the ocean. But there is nothing of the earth now. Not when she stands, illuminating the Terrastellan king, illuminating the temple trees that arch high into the that godless sky of stars and endless nothingness.
Her eyes close as her chin tips up, up, up until they open and she looks upon the stars as Asterion’s voice strikes her like a whip. Her throat, her throat, her chest, her heart. She smiles, oh how she smiles. Light gleams from the curve of her lips, it burns wild and hot but the darkness within is hollow, hollow. Her smile is anguish and ire, for yes, yes, of course they would stay but – “Divided we are weak, Asterion.” And still she looks upon the stars, held within the palm of the galaxy. Slowly she lowers her starborn gaze until she drowns him in the galaxies there. Sigils and stars and scars, oh she would make him so many things. Her breath rattles in her lungs and still that smile curves at her lips, wicked and dangerous and beautiful.
“Together we-“, She begins again but oh he is talking, pulling her out of the sinkholes and mud of her memories, dragging her back, back to that night where they danced and danced and – His gaze his heavy upon her. In his eyes the memories drift, as fluid as water, as sweet as an elixir. Does he remember that night like she? His voice is low across her skin melding with the ghost of his touch. Her chin lowers, the curve of her nape arching , sinking, lowering as in her ears that strange music still sweeps and swells. Leto was not made for many things, there is no part of her that belongs – not any more. She listens the that sighing of the sea, to that laughter of starlight and the crying of the lonely swamp. She smiles and there is nothing of starlight there. Nothing but a wild girl with tangles in her hair, bones and twigs and leaves wound in as tightly as proudly as any glittering gem. She smiles as a girl painted in sigils and adorned in mud that splatters up her limbs. Her heart thumps to the beat of a drum and her eyes light upon Asterion – suddenly present, suddenly more than just a goddess-girl of starfire.
She laughs and swallows back desire and the ache of a girl awash in a place of more than just tribal dance. “Of course I danced. How else would I have found you?” And there is no other truth she knows, despite he might never believe her. “I left after I asked you to come home.” She says, soft as a lullaby, her light-lit veins a melody of moonlight across his face.
That moment of softness, of lullaby confessions is lost as he steps close for, oh, the stars are keening, hissing as his lips press upon her cheek. She flinches at the warmth of his lips then up, up they move to the curve of her ear. His breath is a caress, heat blooming and oh she does not flinch fast enough, for already a tremble is rocking through her skin. Her heart storms within her chest and the stars burn bright, bright above. She glows like a flare, yet she turns, into his touch, until his lips are no longer at her cheek, her ear. Those galaxy eyes illuminate him, she trails the lines of his face in starlight and starfire. Her breath is the rub of universes pressing and oh as she stands so close to him she thinks she might know just how that friction burns.
“Trust in you as Asterion or as Terrastella’s king?” She whispers as her breath reaches for his cheek. “In one I have too much and in the other too little.”
@Asterion
@Asterion | "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
