asterion,
He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until she turns toward him, and the amethyst of her eyes flashes like a comet burning up. Then it rushes out of him, all unsteady, and he is glad she isn’t close enough to hear it. Asterion hadn’t thought before calling to her, and now he starts to think too much - what if what if what if - and remember all the times she looked ready to run him through. If she did now, who could blame her? She might even believe she was dreaming. Which of them could truly say that this world was The world?
But Asterion is not a frightened, inexperienced boy any longer, too uncertain to act. He pushes those thoughts away with the same kind of power it took to bend a wave to the shape of a wish, and he walks to meet her, too.
Above them is a cradle of stars and light and Asterion spares a thought to wonder what will happen to them - if they are real, if they exist. Even time in the Rift could not tear such questions from him, there where the only law was magic and the magic was sick, and both beauty and horror were born of chaos in equal measure.
It is silent but for their breathing and the sound of their hooves, the light waving slow overhead, until the stars begin to fall. The bay flinches when the first strikes the glass, but he continues to walk, and the stars on his coat shine in dim reflection of those above. He does not flinch again, even when he sees the black streaming from her eyes and her horn, the way the golden god-water had from her body when they met.
They meet again beneath that eternal midnight, the endless making of the dawn. Asterion closes his eyes and only knows truly that this is real at the whisper of pain within her greeting. Her skin is hot below his mouth when he touches it to her shoulder as softly as moonlight.
When she speaks it, that truth and accusation, he keeps his eyes closed for a moment longer as she pulls away and cold rushes in to fill the space she left. In that utter darkness he steadies himself before looking at her, the dark of his eyes reflecting the light of falling, dying stars.
“I came back,” he says, and does not break his regard of her even when the ground groans and begins to splinter below them and the stars plummet faster. He begins to wonder if it is Thana making them fall, and if she realizes it, and if she will stop before everything is unmade. “How long-?”
Tho' much is taken, much abides;
@Thana
