She is ghostly, too.
It is not only her hair, or the way she hovers above the sand (does she even notice? Can she control it?). It is the expression in her heterochromatic eyes. It is the way that she, like him, hasn’t aged, not really, not in the places where it shows. Asterion wonders what it is they are haunting, or whether they only want to be found. Maybe he, like a spirit, will only keep walking the same path again and again, performing the same actions, falling in love and falling short. Again, again, again.
When she nears, it strikes him how similar their scents are - sand, wind, cold. Nothing of hearth or a true home, no mingled scent of loved ones. Had Reichenbach come to this point, too? Had Rannvieg? Did any rulers die with their families surrounding them, or were their failures just particularly damning?
He, too, has never taken easily to touch - not like Florentine, or Moira, or any of the others who so effortlessly embrace. But when Seraphina brushes against him an urge swells up inside him like a wave, a compulsion to strike, to sink his teeth into her shoulder or neck. It is strong enough, sudden enough, that he recoils from it (and her), startling back and twisting his head away.
For the first time he wonders what is happening to him, specifically, instead of generally. And he isn’t sure how to recover; he licks his teeth as they itch with that violent want, still facing away, pretending to watch Ereshkigal circle overhead. “The pressure’s off, at least,” he replies, making light the same way she had, and only meets her eye glancingly when he carefully turns toward her again.
His gaze falls to the sword, but he doesn’t ask about it. He doesn’t ask about anything, only lets the questions toss within his mind the same way they do in hers, and wishes there was more comfort in their solidarity. Where before he’d been at relieved to see her, and a little curious, now he only feels unsettled. Strange in his own skin.
Her question, expected as it is, does nothing to help.
Still, he is quick to answer; he’s told the story enough times, and he gives her the abbreviated version now, tight-lipped. “Florentine convinced me to go with her to meet my father. But the island’s magic was stronger than hers.” It should have been a good thing - but of course the moment the dagger shattered, the moment the twins were left behind, the moment they knew they couldn’t get back, it shifted like a dream turned inside-out. Like the island.
Softer, less defensive than it might have been, he adds, “It was only meant to be a moment.” I would never leave them, he might have told her once; and anyone who’d known him would know that truth, too. But now he says nothing more, only bares his teeth in a brief flash of pearl while she’s still facing the sea, and then his expression is placid again, a still deep lake at midnight. Until he says, “I think the better question is - why did you come back?”
And is is not hard to imagine that he’s asking himself the same thing.
It is not only her hair, or the way she hovers above the sand (does she even notice? Can she control it?). It is the expression in her heterochromatic eyes. It is the way that she, like him, hasn’t aged, not really, not in the places where it shows. Asterion wonders what it is they are haunting, or whether they only want to be found. Maybe he, like a spirit, will only keep walking the same path again and again, performing the same actions, falling in love and falling short. Again, again, again.
When she nears, it strikes him how similar their scents are - sand, wind, cold. Nothing of hearth or a true home, no mingled scent of loved ones. Had Reichenbach come to this point, too? Had Rannvieg? Did any rulers die with their families surrounding them, or were their failures just particularly damning?
He, too, has never taken easily to touch - not like Florentine, or Moira, or any of the others who so effortlessly embrace. But when Seraphina brushes against him an urge swells up inside him like a wave, a compulsion to strike, to sink his teeth into her shoulder or neck. It is strong enough, sudden enough, that he recoils from it (and her), startling back and twisting his head away.
For the first time he wonders what is happening to him, specifically, instead of generally. And he isn’t sure how to recover; he licks his teeth as they itch with that violent want, still facing away, pretending to watch Ereshkigal circle overhead. “The pressure’s off, at least,” he replies, making light the same way she had, and only meets her eye glancingly when he carefully turns toward her again.
His gaze falls to the sword, but he doesn’t ask about it. He doesn’t ask about anything, only lets the questions toss within his mind the same way they do in hers, and wishes there was more comfort in their solidarity. Where before he’d been at relieved to see her, and a little curious, now he only feels unsettled. Strange in his own skin.
Her question, expected as it is, does nothing to help.
Still, he is quick to answer; he’s told the story enough times, and he gives her the abbreviated version now, tight-lipped. “Florentine convinced me to go with her to meet my father. But the island’s magic was stronger than hers.” It should have been a good thing - but of course the moment the dagger shattered, the moment the twins were left behind, the moment they knew they couldn’t get back, it shifted like a dream turned inside-out. Like the island.
Softer, less defensive than it might have been, he adds, “It was only meant to be a moment.” I would never leave them, he might have told her once; and anyone who’d known him would know that truth, too. But now he says nothing more, only bares his teeth in a brief flash of pearl while she’s still facing the sea, and then his expression is placid again, a still deep lake at midnight. Until he says, “I think the better question is - why did you come back?”
And is is not hard to imagine that he’s asking himself the same thing.
I see the winter, she's crawling up the lawn;
