Space shrinks, the cosmos lessen, the sun dims, everything disappears until it is only the two of them - Moira Tonnerre and Asterion. An Emissary and a King. A girl and a boy and a forest between them. She could shiver with the delicious sparks floating along her skin, sizzling in the air, but she does no such thing. Instead, the red crowned woman lets the silence stretch, let it settle over them as a blanket (as snow once did when she’d first screamed and raged in a fit of fire, a fit of confusion, when she was reborn into something beautiful and something sharp), and listens to the beating of her heart. Badum, badum, ...badum. It sings as only a fool’s can, sonnets marinate in thoughts that go on for miles, climbing mountains, weathering storms, scaling cliff sides and plunging into valleys deep and unknown. Even when his eyes close, when he wears a mask of quietude, of trouble brewing on the horizon, she cannot look away.
The Emissary of Denocte is as much a captive as he in this tangential arc their hearts have gone on together.
He may deny so much, but one can only weather a storm of fire so long.
Moira is a living flame.
She inhales gasoline, exhales conflagrations of poetry and pain, singing flesh and tender hearts, letting her passions fuel her evermore. Gold looks at the dappling upon his sides from the canopy above. Maple leaves, cecropia smatterings, the faint outline of moths moving and praying mantises on the hunt, it lives along his ribs, it plays along his hips. Hips and back and sides where scars lie heavy and subtle. She wants to know those scars, intimately, as well as she knew Estelle or her own name when fire burned feathers and darkness was her sole companion. Moira wishes to put on poultices until they are lessened, until they disappear, until hers is the only name he remembers, even for a heartbeat, even for a moment frozen in time.
At last, at last she breathes out with her name as a sigh upon his lips. Heart stutters, stops, then leaps and bounds and runs headlong toward him, to him.
Asterion is the sea.
And she is caught in the waves, pulled in by the undertow, so ready, so willing to jump further, to push further, to let it toss and turn her as it pleases. Even when she feels her chest tighten, even when the air is too far away to pull in, to survive, she revels in the way he looks at her. Asterion looks like he’s drowning, and how strange she finds it when he is of the sea and she was meant to be of the sky. Brown and gold meld into something molten, something magnetic, something that is unbreakable when he speaks.
Truly, Asterion is more a king then than ever before.
“You are not rotten, nor cruel, nor corrupt. You are not cold. You care so much - too much. You inspire a nation with your bravery, your willingness to let the world rest upon your shoulders. Oh! But Asterion, you are not Atlas. You cannot hold such weight forever and deny yourself life… You cannot.” With that, she moves. Distance that has separated them, kept them apart for so long by her choosing and his, it lessens when her feet lift. Offhandedly she wonders if the world sighed or if that is herself, and she is grateful for the privacy the jungle offers, the seclusion so they can talk and scream and cry and reunite. It is as though he’s shed his skin and let himself shine through.
Somehow, Asterion is looser, freer, more relaxed when the phoenix’ wings wrap around herself, wrap around him and drown out everything else. Distant is the cicada song, soft and sweet are the lovebirds calling to one another high above. Even the rustling of the brush (is that Neerja, back and ready to scare away that which Moira loves more than herself?) cannot make the pegasus withdraw.
Again, the pegasus is bold.
“How could a heart love wrong when they sing so sweetly together? Asterion, you are flawed. You are imperfect. You are so many millions of things smashed into a body of starlight, of wonder, of splendor and riches untold. There is no wrong way to love, and when one synchronizes with another, no matter how short - or long - it would be more wrong to overlook and refute the proposal and promises.” Gently she bends her neck, looping her chin below his, tucking herself against his chest until their hearts are pressed together. Her breaths take up the rhythm of his own and amber eyes close when she lets herself simply feel him once more. “Our nations would prosper. Terrastella and Denocte have lived with Kings and Queens and many more who did not love within their own court. How could we ever hope for peace, for true serenity and tranquility throughout the lands if we will not even allow ourselves the chance to find happiness alongside those of other kingdoms?” It is a whisper traced into the base of his neck, moving carefully along his hairline, and ending as a broken, cracked wisp of cigarette smoke in his ear.
She cannot be the only one who feels this way. “I’ve missed you,” she murmurs in closing, pulling back to run her lips along his cheek and lay a kiss so chastly, so sweetly and feather-soft at the corner of his mouth, “and I’ve been so horridly mistaken.”
The Emissary of Denocte is as much a captive as he in this tangential arc their hearts have gone on together.
He may deny so much, but one can only weather a storm of fire so long.
Moira is a living flame.
She inhales gasoline, exhales conflagrations of poetry and pain, singing flesh and tender hearts, letting her passions fuel her evermore. Gold looks at the dappling upon his sides from the canopy above. Maple leaves, cecropia smatterings, the faint outline of moths moving and praying mantises on the hunt, it lives along his ribs, it plays along his hips. Hips and back and sides where scars lie heavy and subtle. She wants to know those scars, intimately, as well as she knew Estelle or her own name when fire burned feathers and darkness was her sole companion. Moira wishes to put on poultices until they are lessened, until they disappear, until hers is the only name he remembers, even for a heartbeat, even for a moment frozen in time.
At last, at last she breathes out with her name as a sigh upon his lips. Heart stutters, stops, then leaps and bounds and runs headlong toward him, to him.
Asterion is the sea.
And she is caught in the waves, pulled in by the undertow, so ready, so willing to jump further, to push further, to let it toss and turn her as it pleases. Even when she feels her chest tighten, even when the air is too far away to pull in, to survive, she revels in the way he looks at her. Asterion looks like he’s drowning, and how strange she finds it when he is of the sea and she was meant to be of the sky. Brown and gold meld into something molten, something magnetic, something that is unbreakable when he speaks.
Truly, Asterion is more a king then than ever before.
“You are not rotten, nor cruel, nor corrupt. You are not cold. You care so much - too much. You inspire a nation with your bravery, your willingness to let the world rest upon your shoulders. Oh! But Asterion, you are not Atlas. You cannot hold such weight forever and deny yourself life… You cannot.” With that, she moves. Distance that has separated them, kept them apart for so long by her choosing and his, it lessens when her feet lift. Offhandedly she wonders if the world sighed or if that is herself, and she is grateful for the privacy the jungle offers, the seclusion so they can talk and scream and cry and reunite. It is as though he’s shed his skin and let himself shine through.
Somehow, Asterion is looser, freer, more relaxed when the phoenix’ wings wrap around herself, wrap around him and drown out everything else. Distant is the cicada song, soft and sweet are the lovebirds calling to one another high above. Even the rustling of the brush (is that Neerja, back and ready to scare away that which Moira loves more than herself?) cannot make the pegasus withdraw.
Again, the pegasus is bold.
“How could a heart love wrong when they sing so sweetly together? Asterion, you are flawed. You are imperfect. You are so many millions of things smashed into a body of starlight, of wonder, of splendor and riches untold. There is no wrong way to love, and when one synchronizes with another, no matter how short - or long - it would be more wrong to overlook and refute the proposal and promises.” Gently she bends her neck, looping her chin below his, tucking herself against his chest until their hearts are pressed together. Her breaths take up the rhythm of his own and amber eyes close when she lets herself simply feel him once more. “Our nations would prosper. Terrastella and Denocte have lived with Kings and Queens and many more who did not love within their own court. How could we ever hope for peace, for true serenity and tranquility throughout the lands if we will not even allow ourselves the chance to find happiness alongside those of other kingdoms?” It is a whisper traced into the base of his neck, moving carefully along his hairline, and ending as a broken, cracked wisp of cigarette smoke in his ear.
She cannot be the only one who feels this way. “I’ve missed you,” she murmurs in closing, pulling back to run her lips along his cheek and lay a kiss so chastly, so sweetly and feather-soft at the corner of his mouth, “and I’ve been so horridly mistaken.”
