Asterion misses what might have been a sharp edge to her smile, too curious of what was happening just across the field - and he might not have thought anything of it had he seen it at all. Though he has learned much of people and politics, so absent is his own ambition that he still does not see it in others. Marisol is not wrong when she thinks him too trusting, too open - even when his faith is battered he still does not look for teeth where he does not expect them.
But his ear does flick when she calls him simply Asterion; it’s unusual, not to be addressed as king.
Still, he smiles when she accepts his offer, and gestures his chin in the direction of the gathering. Then he’s cantering, hooves a drumbeat over the meadow, mindful of the holes and valleys, some fresh, some remnants of last year’s flooding.
His people make way for their king and the monochrome woman who follows him. The starlit bay passes a few brief words with the ranking Halcyon at the site, and then steps forward. The freshly overturned soil is pungent and the air is thick and lazy with the drone of bees; it feels a strange companion to the feeling sharpening in him, something that crackles like excitement and gnaws like worry.
When he lifts his head and steps away, it is to make room for Camillia, though he doesn’t expect the words to make sense to a non-native of Terrastella, much less a newcomer to Novus altogether. But there is already a thought forming in his own mind, building like a wave out to sea - a wave that will be mighty by the time it hits the cliffs.
“I think I know where this means,” he tells his new companion, and he can’t keep back the boyish grin that lights across his mouth then. “Follow me.” And with a nod to those gathered and a flick of his tail the stallion is leaving, first a walk and then a lope, running east with the sun behind him.
@Camillia let's close this one for the contest timing and I'll start a new one for them <3
if you'll be my star*
