in sunshine and in shadow
It is easy to watch the three of them - the golden man, the girl, the impossible lion. Asterion lacks the context for who they are; he should know, of course would know, if things were different. But he can sense the fondness between them, and watches dark-eyed as the lion approaches Aspara, and lets his gaze linger on Orestes’ glowing tattoos. Written on his skin are eagles, and towering pines, and the mountains and the sea, and over and over the sun. Even with these clues the bay does not put together the evident, not until the palomino says I haven’t yet run Solterra into the sands.
Of course. Now the look he gives the man is sharper, more thoughtful; questions stir and rise like a flock of starlings in his mind but the timing isn’t right, and anyway guilt weighs his tongue heavy. If he’d been here, he would know each answer.
He wishes then that he didn’t have to speak at all; that he could simply observe the others. But he does, and Orestes - King Orestes - answers first. At the sharpness of his words, the almost urgency, Asterion meets his gaze, saying nothing, but the look in his eyes and the curve of his brow says because I have lived it, because I am living it now.
The bay would have explained more thoroughly if he’d known it would forestall what comes next.
There is familiarity and incredulity in the way she says his name that almost makes him wince. Perhaps he should have braced for it, but he had hoped - well, it would just have been better, easier, if they could stay strangers. The stallion looks at her and dips his head, that sad and faraway smile returned, until she says you left.
Asterion wonders if this will always be his legacy - another king who vanished. But I came back. It is a boyish impulse to defend himself, and in a way (a terrible way) it is funny, after all the little decisions he agonized over, all the choices he had to make for his people, and then something happened out of his control and now…
He is not smiling any longer. He is not doing anything accept breathing in the soft, sweet, slightly decaying scent of the night forest, and looking at the archway and the way firelight makes the colors tremble and glow, and the way the light down here makes the stars seem further away. Even when Orestes adds another accusation (another truth) there is a long moment before he looks between the two of them, from the king to the unicorn.
“I went to meet my father - but everything I loved was here. That day on the island…before my sister’s magic failed…I was so happy, but there was still so much to be done. I never would have left on purpose.” His sigh is a wave rolling softly out to sea, but within there is that familiar Charybdis, guilt and shame and sorrow, and a fear that whispers and now you have nothing.
Then he turns to Orestes, weighing him, already wondering.“Marisol has always been strong, and has survived worse than my absence. She belongs to Terrastella and it to her in a way I never could.” Asterion’s words are not stony; they are the calm of a glass-surfaced lake that reaches deep. Nothing in his expression betrays the way the words wound him, the way her frigid stare has imprinted him. And Orestes should know, after the aftermath of Raum, that no leader ever had an easy path. But the question Asterion is asking, as he meets the golden king’s gaze in the soft and shifting light, is and what is she to you? He can guess already; there are so few that the Commander would share her true feelings with, especially if they could be interpreted as weakness.
He hopes Orestes is deserving.
@Aspara @Orestes
Of course. Now the look he gives the man is sharper, more thoughtful; questions stir and rise like a flock of starlings in his mind but the timing isn’t right, and anyway guilt weighs his tongue heavy. If he’d been here, he would know each answer.
He wishes then that he didn’t have to speak at all; that he could simply observe the others. But he does, and Orestes - King Orestes - answers first. At the sharpness of his words, the almost urgency, Asterion meets his gaze, saying nothing, but the look in his eyes and the curve of his brow says because I have lived it, because I am living it now.
The bay would have explained more thoroughly if he’d known it would forestall what comes next.
There is familiarity and incredulity in the way she says his name that almost makes him wince. Perhaps he should have braced for it, but he had hoped - well, it would just have been better, easier, if they could stay strangers. The stallion looks at her and dips his head, that sad and faraway smile returned, until she says you left.
Asterion wonders if this will always be his legacy - another king who vanished. But I came back. It is a boyish impulse to defend himself, and in a way (a terrible way) it is funny, after all the little decisions he agonized over, all the choices he had to make for his people, and then something happened out of his control and now…
He is not smiling any longer. He is not doing anything accept breathing in the soft, sweet, slightly decaying scent of the night forest, and looking at the archway and the way firelight makes the colors tremble and glow, and the way the light down here makes the stars seem further away. Even when Orestes adds another accusation (another truth) there is a long moment before he looks between the two of them, from the king to the unicorn.
“I went to meet my father - but everything I loved was here. That day on the island…before my sister’s magic failed…I was so happy, but there was still so much to be done. I never would have left on purpose.” His sigh is a wave rolling softly out to sea, but within there is that familiar Charybdis, guilt and shame and sorrow, and a fear that whispers and now you have nothing.
Then he turns to Orestes, weighing him, already wondering.“Marisol has always been strong, and has survived worse than my absence. She belongs to Terrastella and it to her in a way I never could.” Asterion’s words are not stony; they are the calm of a glass-surfaced lake that reaches deep. Nothing in his expression betrays the way the words wound him, the way her frigid stare has imprinted him. And Orestes should know, after the aftermath of Raum, that no leader ever had an easy path. But the question Asterion is asking, as he meets the golden king’s gaze in the soft and shifting light, is and what is she to you? He can guess already; there are so few that the Commander would share her true feelings with, especially if they could be interpreted as weakness.
He hopes Orestes is deserving.
@
