asterion,
Marisol had not seemed relieved. Even just the mention of her name had one of his ears flicking back, uncertain, though the quiet lines of his face never changed; their business was between them, and not for friends to worry about. It is only another stone to add to his cairn of regrets. (Still it eats at him, an aching tooth, something rotting beneath the leaf-litter of an autumn forest).
When the gray mare’s eyes slide away to scan the forest, Asterion follows her gaze with a quiet exhale. “I know what you mean,” he says softly, and he does - there is something different about the forests here, a quiet sense of wakefulness he never found in Tinea, or the short pines that marched up to the cliffside. It feels ancient but not malignant, though perhaps that is the work of the stream that runs beside them - that laughing water, he thinks, could never sound sinister.
The shake of Corrdelia’s head doesn’t surprise him, but that does nothing to keep his heart from sinking. Sometimes, he thinks, the wondering is worse than the knowing - there are too many awful endings his imagination can conjure, too many images of Cirrus searching for him. Better to think that she’d just…given up on him. It’s hard to meet the dappled mare’s eye at her question, but he does, and shakes his head, though Asterion doesn’t speak.
He appreciates her offer of tea - it makes him think of Fiona, and of all the things he’d loved about the Dusk Court. The way they cared for each other as best they could, not extravagantly but with such gestures of care. “I would love that,” he says, carefully ignoring the blank, unseeing eyes of Hasta, and summons his best smile. “I haven’t had tea in a long, long while. And I’d like to hear what you and Novus have been up to.”
As he follows her to her home, he reaches out, briefly, to touch her cheek. “It’s good to see you, Corr,” he says.
Tho' much is taken, much abides;
@Corrdelia
