[P] where the wild things go;

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow*     Uncle Ashmarian! Asterion does not get the chance to see if his magic has any effect against the island’s. There is a voice, a shout, his name - and then there is a boy, bursting through the waterfall, scattering droplets like ice or glass or nothing more than light. The pool shivers in his wake and Asterion is stepping back, dark eyes wide, wondering who, who is this child of gold and earth-dark who knows his name and calls him uncle. Of course his heart already knows, but his head is slow to catch up, when it’s only been days (has it?) since he last saw his sister, and felt a baby kick. And now, against all reason, here is the child, rushing up to him, and the king is smiling, too, and laughing, and joyful and wondrous - for what else is there to do? Doubt? “That’s a very fearsome friend you have,” he says, as the carved cheetah treks across the dune of his shoulder and his ribs, its wooden paws ticklish against his skin. (Ashmer has one too - what could that mean?) The island is near forgotten when his eyes lift to find Florentine walking toward him, except for a whisper in his mind that says it is the answer, it and the wild magic that drives it. He leans into his sister when she tucks her nose beneath his jaw, though his eyes do not leave his nephew, and his heart is still wondrous of these strange miracles. “I don’t even know how many days have passed here,” he says, and cannot think of more than a couple nights spent here, where all the crickets sang a different song than the mainland. But now they, too, are gone. “But I know I haven’t been gone long enough for this.” And he can’t help but laugh again, when she says she has so much to tell him; how much of an understatement that seems. “I can’t imagine a more perfect surprise.” There is a patch of pale ivory amidst the deep green foliage, and then a flash of gold - another foal, stepping like a fawn from beneath the trees, her back like her brother’s dappled faintly in gold. Aster, he thinks, and as Florentine continues he is only half-listening, his heart too full of wonder for anything else. When Lysander emerges behind her Asterion’s gaze lifts and meets his, and the king hopes the nod he gives can convey what his words cannot. And then - today, now, come. The star-marked bay looks at Florentine, now surrounded by her family. He feels the sun hot and full on his back, as it has been for hours, as it may be for days (or forever). Light shatters off the frozen waterfall and the still pool, and there are no birds or insects or animals to cease their hum as Asterion considers for one breath, two. He was afraid to meet his father, afraid to leave Novus. But now, after everything, with his sister and her magic and her world-cutting dagger, and her family that has some of his own blood, too, he finds there is no room for fear. Only for wonder, and only for hope. “I suppose now is as good a time as any,” he says, but something in him whispers that there may never be another time at all. @Florentine