[P] where the wild things go;

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow*     Asterion stares out at the unmoving sea.  Eik’s words echo still in his ears, like little bits of sea-foam that brush against his memory (don’t you feel there’s something off about it?) He had wanted the island to be for them, not for Novus at all, not for the gods. Nothing but wild magic, feral and strange, all gifts and no curses. But then there was the unicorn. Time is here. Time is free. And now the midsummer sun is a high, baleful eye above him, beating down on his back, and the sea might be nothing more than glass with strange shapes passing darkly beneath.  Time may well have found its freedom, but for the horses that freedom is meaningless; the Dusk king has long since lost track of how long he has travelled the island. That initial birthing pain, black-ash sky and fire on the horizon, might have been a month ago or only a day. He feels like he has explored the virgin forest for days, with Corrdelia, with Eik, with Moira. Has he slept since stepping off that terrible bridge? His body is weary but his mind is whetted, a hungry blade cutting deeper, asking for more. But that has always been a dangerous request.  He does not test his magic against the sea. He is afraid of what it might mean if nothing responds (is it Vespera, a delayed punishment for his blasphemy?). Asterion tells himself that it is enough he can feel it stirring in him still, restless and unending, drifting in currents the true sea does not reflect.  Cirrus, he thinks, finding it suddenly unbearable to stand here, alone. He is relieved when she answers, long moments later (filled only by silence where there should be birds, and insects, and the lap of the waves). All is well, she tells him from the battlements of Terrastella’s castle. And you? All is well. For now, he believes it. All is well - Marisol is a kelpie with her attacker still unfound, and Raum walks the island, unseen as a ghost. All is well - Florentine is having a child, and Eik and Isra are having daughters. All is well - somewhere Moira waits to see him again, and in the last memory she has of his eyes they were not laden with sorrow but joy.  It is life. It is home. And when he turns from the shoreline (so deeply strange, more than anything he’s seen of Novus) back into the shade of the trees Asterion tells himself that it is enough.  He walks, though of course he can’t say for how long. There is a part of him that looks for a doe with an answer blazing in her eyes (or perhaps a challenge) and antlers of gemstones. There is a part of him that hopes out of the corner of his eye to see a flick of seaweed or the glint of sand, a dragon born from beach, shells for eyes and dripping seawater and a smile that beckons and pleads. But in this he is disappointed. There is nothing, only him, no sounds to break the silence (not the sea, not the breeze) but his own breathing and his own footsteps. He thinks, once, that he hears the laughter of a brook (the laughter of something, anyway); he thinks that he hears voices, but when he stops there is nothing, not even wind through leaves.  Just before he decides to return to the beach, and stick to the shoreline in hopes of finding others, Asterion finds the waterfall.  He had thought (foolish man!) that by now he must have walked every inch of the island, learning its valleys and hills, each cave and bay and stream and cliff. But he has never seen this, a silver line plummeting a hundred feet, mist thrown high at its base, a rainbow arching out beyond it in a delight of color - and all of it caught still by time. Almost the bay laughs; almost he bends his head to drink from the stream unwinding at his feet, though there’s not even a ripple to disturb the scatter of light at its surface. All around it smells of green and growing things, and perhaps he should feel afraid, but oh! Asterion regards the waterfall, liquid but frozen, caught up in time. The saltwater king inhales, and reaches out with the great well of his magic -  @Florentine