A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
His nephew’s face has the same delicate fae features of Florentine - the high cheekbones, the dip of the muzzle, the wide expressive eyes. Now, Asterion watches a battle being fought across that so-familiar face.
He wonders what winning would be, for Leonidas. Certainly not being forced to remember an absence so painful he’d blocked it from memory. Certainly not feeling again the pain of being left.
But maybe, one day, he would understand the bittersweet joy of being found again.
Once again the boy denies his mother, but before Asterion can respond he continues, his words smaller, defiant but unsure. The bay stallion, his head on a level with his nephew’s, smiles a small, sad smile. “Because I wouldn’t let her. We couldn’t be sure that the doorway was safe. She has a magic dagger that lets her travel worlds, but it broke.” His eyes do not drop to the sliver of silver the boy still holds in his grasp; he doesn’t wonder at it, not yet. “She wanted to be here. She told me to tell you she is coming for you. And your sister.” But where is Aster? He still does not ask, and he is still afraid to guess.
There are so many shadows in the world. Novus has fewer monsters than the rift lands, but it is not free of them, and some of them wore friendly faces.
But you can stay. His breath is shaky when it releases. Asterion hadn’t realized how much he’d meant the words, how taut and tangled like barbed wire those thoughts of Terrastella now were, how rigid and wounded his heart was until Leonidas speaks them, a few small sounds that add up to absolution. Inside him the waves quiet, the whirlpool fades. His expression softens, even turns to a smile at the added requirement.
“I have enough stories to talk until you’re old as I am,” he says. And then he reaches out, offering his muzzle, a mingling of breath - if Leonidas will meet him there, where the air is sweet with fallen apples.
There are tears fading on both their cheeks when together they fade into the woods.
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