in sunshine and in shadow
It is not his head that leads him, up and up so that the plain sprawls away beneath him like a map, so that the ocean is a distant shimmer on the far horizon, so that the air grows thinner and cooler and the clouds tear themselves ragged on the mountain tops. It is not his heart that leads him, either.
Asterion doesn’t know what he’s following, as he winds further into the mountains, paying attention to nothing more than birdsong and the next place to set his foot as he climbs. Maybe he will continue all the way to the quiet, sparse peak where the gods’ altars lie, and pass the questions he can’t answer on to them. But he has been there, before, and neither time left him impressed or reassured.
He is more in a mood to go where he hasn’t before, and that is what leads him to the caves.
It is clear why they hold the reputation they do; there is nothing welcoming about the gaping, stalactite-toothed maw that greets him, nor the scent of it, iron like old blood and wet earth like a graveyard. It smells a little like the days after the flooding in Terrastella, when everything went to rot - only it is somehow cleaner, at least at the mouth of the cave. There the dying autumn leaves give the air enough normalcy to make it seem not so unreasonable, stepping inside.
The once-king does not hesitate before giving all his star-shine to the darkness.
Within it is cool, and still, and quiet save for a trickle of water that comes somewhere out of sight. Asterion turns away from the cave’s mouth at once, and bites his lip as he wonders just how far the caverns go, how branching their tunnels. He doesn’t know if the cave system is a tap-root or the endless tangle of an oak’s; he can only guess at what waits in the dark. But it has been a long time since anything true scared him (lately he frets only over feelings, and loss), and he is sure that there is nothing worse ahead than any of the rotten heartaches behind him.
With a last breath of above-ground air, he begins to walk. For a while his only companion is the sound of his hooves, ringing against the stone, but there is a scent - a feeling - a whisper of blue ahead of him - a memory of mangroves and salt and dark promise and an ache far sweeter than the guilt he is used to.
Eventually, his head and his heart both tell him he is not alone. And there, in the dark, with the velvet of ferns along one wall and the echo of cold wet stone from the other, he stops.
“Hello,” he says, as much greeting as question, just as he had the last time they met.
@Euryale
Asterion doesn’t know what he’s following, as he winds further into the mountains, paying attention to nothing more than birdsong and the next place to set his foot as he climbs. Maybe he will continue all the way to the quiet, sparse peak where the gods’ altars lie, and pass the questions he can’t answer on to them. But he has been there, before, and neither time left him impressed or reassured.
He is more in a mood to go where he hasn’t before, and that is what leads him to the caves.
It is clear why they hold the reputation they do; there is nothing welcoming about the gaping, stalactite-toothed maw that greets him, nor the scent of it, iron like old blood and wet earth like a graveyard. It smells a little like the days after the flooding in Terrastella, when everything went to rot - only it is somehow cleaner, at least at the mouth of the cave. There the dying autumn leaves give the air enough normalcy to make it seem not so unreasonable, stepping inside.
The once-king does not hesitate before giving all his star-shine to the darkness.
Within it is cool, and still, and quiet save for a trickle of water that comes somewhere out of sight. Asterion turns away from the cave’s mouth at once, and bites his lip as he wonders just how far the caverns go, how branching their tunnels. He doesn’t know if the cave system is a tap-root or the endless tangle of an oak’s; he can only guess at what waits in the dark. But it has been a long time since anything true scared him (lately he frets only over feelings, and loss), and he is sure that there is nothing worse ahead than any of the rotten heartaches behind him.
With a last breath of above-ground air, he begins to walk. For a while his only companion is the sound of his hooves, ringing against the stone, but there is a scent - a feeling - a whisper of blue ahead of him - a memory of mangroves and salt and dark promise and an ache far sweeter than the guilt he is used to.
Eventually, his head and his heart both tell him he is not alone. And there, in the dark, with the velvet of ferns along one wall and the echo of cold wet stone from the other, he stops.
“Hello,” he says, as much greeting as question, just as he had the last time they met.
@Euryale
