He is relieved when she listens, even as something within him wants to order her to run. To leave him, to leave the island - never mind which was more dangerous; they both had something dark at the heart of them. Later, in a moment of clarity (one of the waning ones), he will wonder if it born of the same place.
And later than that, he will realize the foolishness of not realizing before that if horses could travel between worlds, other things could too.
The chimes toll a soft farewell when Mephisto steps from the doorway. The bay curves his muzzle toward hers when she greets him with a touch, half wanting to shiver; touch is a comfort here, proof of something real, but even so he wants to warn her away.
“Too long,” he answers, glad to be brief, grateful when she doesn’t press him for more.
Together they turn their backs on the shop with its soft, strange music and begin to walk. The wind keeps them company, rustling the dead leaves that cling to the crooked trees, moaning through shutters and swinging signs above shops. Asterion almost starts when her voice breaks the silence, and his gaze follows hers to the rabbit. ”Maybe there was no other life to begin with. Maybe the magic’s only made the illusion of a city.” Lapsing into silence again, he wishes the rabbit good luck; it is hard to say which of them will have the better chance of escaping the island unscathed.
As they curve inward, tighter spirals as they reach the center of the city, weight grows on Asterion’s mind like pressure in the ocean the further a man sinks. There is a question waiting on his tongue, one something holds him back from speaking. And as he at last turns to Mephisto to ask it, it’s a chestnut stallion he pictures, with the same dark brown eyes he has.
But when he looks at Mephisto, it is clear she is in no position to attend.
Asterion stops at once, reaching toward her as though to shake her awake. He retreats again when his thoughts urge him to bite, to strike, to seize her - thoughts he can only suppress by biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. Sudden pain overrides his synapses, and the sharp taste of blood wells in his mouth; a moment later the pegasus’s eyes are darkening again, her breathing catching before returning to normal, and Asterion averts his gaze under the guise of watching for danger and swallows down his own blood.
“What did you see?” he asks, his voice just above a whisper, as she pushes her weight into his side. He wants to tell her he needs no protection, and internally reaches out to his magic, reassuring himself those still, deep waters are there and ready. “Are you all right?”
The castle, she says, and though his brow furrows he breaks into a canter, not looking behind them where the shadows are thick and shifting. The spires of the castle are bleak silhouettes a half-mile ahead, and from somewhere there is a drumming - or perhaps it is only the echoing of their hooves.
He knows the castle is not safe. But where else have they been going, following this spiral, drawn down the current of the city like a dead leaf in a stream? Even as they run, he wants to stop, to stand and fight whatever watches them - but oh, he doesn’t want to turn his back to the castle, nor his feet from its pull.
“Did you ever see anything like this in the Riftlands?” he asks, a little breathless - the beginning of those questions that weigh on him, things only Mephisto might know. And within him, something dark and slick as an eel writhes.
through the first gate,
into our first world, shall we follow
the deception of the thrush?
into our first world, shall we follow
the deception of the thrush?
