asterion,
Somehow, in the time that has passed, the world that has withered and bloomed, the deaths and the births and the growing-pains between, Asterion has almost found peace with their patron goddess.
Or at least with the idea that there is no getting rid of her, that Vespera is as tied to the court as the cliffs or the castle. He has not prayed, since that long-ago day when he climbed with younger muscles to the peak and asked for guidance. But maybe it isn’t a bad thing, to have some kind of faith, any hope to cling to. Otherwise it is too easy to be swept away in any stream.
Their eyes meet at that word - bodies - and he doesn’t flinch the way he might have once, when he was young and green, before he had seen death, no grand and heroic thing but only figures in the mud, bodies carried off by the current. Their eyes tell the same stories, then, shadowed by shared memories. At first he only nods, then adds, “I approve.”
For a moment they both settle back, then, before he does his asking, before he offers to her the weight he’s been yoked beneath (and oh, what mingled guilt and relief comes then, to share his burden on shoulders already curved beneath great weight). If only he had Eik’s power, or could know what she wanted - someone to watch as she slept, some to give her, for a moment, peace -
but neither of them are practiced enough at asking for what they need.
When the question registers, when her breathing holds, the king shifts forward, as if he might have to catch her across the desk. But of course (of course) she straightens again, steadies herself, steel and slate, strong as the cliffs that stand and stand against the crashing sea.
At her smile the fist that holds his heart tight loosens, just a little. And when he breathes in, deep and slow, once more the office smells of tea and old wood and dusty ancient books, and a little of the ocean, never far outside the door.
“I think we both know how absurd I can be.” He dares a smile, then, and more - he leans forward, touches his nose roughly to her cheek, so near those hidden teeth. “Thank you, Marisol.”
It’s impossible, not to hear her fears and think of his own, when Florentine had asked him the same thing. And oh, Marisol is far more suited than he had been, feral boy whose hair was only ever combed by the wind, who had never seen a building, never led a people, never spoken to a group of more than three. She was born for such things, and he had stumbled through. There are no doubts in him when he regards her again with the desk and the book between them.
“You begin as I did, with grace and guidance. The position is more subdued than you might think. You speak for me when I am not present, you act in my stead should I be unavailable.” A pause, another memory that brushes up against him like the froth of a wave on a long-ago day on the beach. “And together we’ll try to keep each other young.”
Somebody passes by out in the hall, shod hooves ringing against the floorboards; it feels like another world, outside her weathered door. There is never enough time, he thinks, to process things fully - and maybe that’s a blessing, too.
“We can begin practicing now,” he says then, and catches her eye. The smile he wears is soft as beaten leather, and a little wry, but it does not fade from his face as he nods. “Tell me, Regent, how I can best serve us - you - in the search for Prudence, and in your…change.”
king of dusk.
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