Once upon a time, a boy dreamed of being a hero.
Beside a sleepy shore, curled tight against his twin, he listened to his mother tell stories of gods in their greatness and men who were greater still, spinning them together like stars make up a constellation. As he drifted off to sleep he never knew whether it was the shush, shush of his mother or the sea that lulled him, or whether his breathing found its own rhythm or only followed his sister’s. And every night he went to sleep certain that he would grow to be good, and noble, and brave.
Asterion has not been dreaming at all, of late. Or rather - when he falls asleep, it is not him who dreams. Even when they were melancholy things, there was always light in them, and sound - the stars hung in a mist above a new spring sea, a forest where each leaf was beaded in raindrops like diamonds spun by spider’s feet. Stories of possibility, even when he woke from them aching. But now - oh, now when he dreams of the sea it is black, and churning, and there is no crash of waves but a moaning, a gnashing of teeth, like there is something boundless and dying far beneath the water. In the dream-sky the gulls surround him, laughing and screaming, so many the air is a fog of feathers and there is nowhere he can move. And when he wakes his skin crawls with the knowledge of being watched by a thousand pairs of eyes, though it is lonely on the mountain.
He can’t say how many days he’s wandered the peak, or how long it’s been since he parted from Euryale. He’s a winter thing now, lean-ribbed with gleaming eyes, and there is something of ice about him even as he descends below the snowline. There is something he must get to - someone he must find - he can’t remember quite what.
It’s an itchy feeling, that forgetfulness, but he doesn’t mind worrying at it, not when it occupies his mind in a way that feels safe.
But when he sees her, all else fades.
They meet on a thin part of the path, with a granite wall textured in dark cracks fuzzed with moss on one side and an open expanse to the other - blue sky, the tops of ancient trees swaying far below. Asterion measures her for a long moment, looking down at her, a friend he’d stood beside countless times. So many of the same events had left prints on the clay of their hearts, and yet what different shapes they were.
There is a flicker of emotion like a line of wind-whipped surf that moves across his face, but he has already felt all the regret, all the sorrow, all the loss he can measure. Asterion has moved on from these things; he finds there is nothing left to feel. And even at that, there is no measure of relief.
“If you’re looking for gods,” he says quietly, “there are none left.” On his mouth, a peculiar little smile blooms.
Beside a sleepy shore, curled tight against his twin, he listened to his mother tell stories of gods in their greatness and men who were greater still, spinning them together like stars make up a constellation. As he drifted off to sleep he never knew whether it was the shush, shush of his mother or the sea that lulled him, or whether his breathing found its own rhythm or only followed his sister’s. And every night he went to sleep certain that he would grow to be good, and noble, and brave.
Asterion has not been dreaming at all, of late. Or rather - when he falls asleep, it is not him who dreams. Even when they were melancholy things, there was always light in them, and sound - the stars hung in a mist above a new spring sea, a forest where each leaf was beaded in raindrops like diamonds spun by spider’s feet. Stories of possibility, even when he woke from them aching. But now - oh, now when he dreams of the sea it is black, and churning, and there is no crash of waves but a moaning, a gnashing of teeth, like there is something boundless and dying far beneath the water. In the dream-sky the gulls surround him, laughing and screaming, so many the air is a fog of feathers and there is nowhere he can move. And when he wakes his skin crawls with the knowledge of being watched by a thousand pairs of eyes, though it is lonely on the mountain.
He can’t say how many days he’s wandered the peak, or how long it’s been since he parted from Euryale. He’s a winter thing now, lean-ribbed with gleaming eyes, and there is something of ice about him even as he descends below the snowline. There is something he must get to - someone he must find - he can’t remember quite what.
It’s an itchy feeling, that forgetfulness, but he doesn’t mind worrying at it, not when it occupies his mind in a way that feels safe.
But when he sees her, all else fades.
They meet on a thin part of the path, with a granite wall textured in dark cracks fuzzed with moss on one side and an open expanse to the other - blue sky, the tops of ancient trees swaying far below. Asterion measures her for a long moment, looking down at her, a friend he’d stood beside countless times. So many of the same events had left prints on the clay of their hearts, and yet what different shapes they were.
There is a flicker of emotion like a line of wind-whipped surf that moves across his face, but he has already felt all the regret, all the sorrow, all the loss he can measure. Asterion has moved on from these things; he finds there is nothing left to feel. And even at that, there is no measure of relief.
“If you’re looking for gods,” he says quietly, “there are none left.” On his mouth, a peculiar little smile blooms.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
See, they return, and bring us with them.
