“I suppose I’ll never know.” He ought to ask Florentine, sometime - she had done more traveling in her youth, world to world and time to time, and he wonders now how many lives she’s lived, how many she’s discarded. Maybe she was wise enough to not pull herself in too many directions. What kind of tapestry would a life like that make - richer, or pulled thin?
Asterion knows the sound of a confession, and he doesn’t miss the tremble of the Dawn King’s voice as he whispers his. A garden, the bay thinks, what could be so bad about that - but then Po continues, and he thinks he understands. “Perhaps it’s best we can only make driftwood statues,” he says with the curve of a smile in his voice, and touches his muzzle briefly to the paint’s shoulder, like a steadying hand.
He withdraws as the king turns toward him; he was always a little shy about touch. But their conversation reminds him of Eik, another man (another friend) who knows the hairpin balance between power and responsibility, and just like that Asterion is glad he’s come to Delumine. It isn’t a magical forest, chasing a mystical hind, but it is good to see Ipomoea again.
Especially here, in his own country, with branches and starlight sprawling above in a meadow with more than a whisper of its own magic. The bay tilts his head at the remark, remembering. “I danced here once, at another festival, but it seems like a lifetime ago and I never had the time to explore. I feel lucky to see it in the fall.” He does not add that he may stay to see it in winter, as well.
He’s glad to follow Ipomoea away from the table, away from the few pairs of eyes that truly are watching them. Neither would he be sorry to continue walking, to melt further into the shadows and then into the trees - but he wouldn’t want to draw the king away from his country’s own party. “Like a friend,” he answers, smiling more broadly now, so that it reaches his eyes. But there is still something searching in them as he regards Po, like he’s looking for evidence of a wound. “And how is it treating you?”
@Ipomoea
hold me amongst all your cards;
