Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
It is the smoke and firelight that draws her; it is the music that makes her stay.
Aster leaves her companion in the forest, far beyond the throngs of horses. The cheetah watches her with eyes the same shade of gold as her own until she disappears among the small spring buds on the trees. He is uncomfortable in crowds, but she is drawn to them - too curious to resist, at least for a while.
She does not paint her skin, or play games, or even talk with the others her age. The pegasus slips between them all like a ghost, a spirit colored only by firelight, each flare of copper-fed green or or hungry red painting her as she passes by. Neither does she drink, or eat - it is as though she is in the fairy-country, as though she will be ensorcelled if she does, although if there is any fae-child among them it is she.
The moon is high overhead when the stranger approaches her. He is not the first to speak to her tonight, though he is the first she answers; when Aster turns her wide golden eyes to the pale skull markings of his face, she thinks that she has never seen a unicorn stallion before.
Aster doesn’t answer his first question; instead she only blinks at him, thinking that the answer is evident in the way she sways, the way her gaze has been straying toward the musicians, the fact that she is here at all. She watches a swallow of dark liquid disappear down his throat - she wonders at the flash of teeth she sees, ever so briefly, teeth that were not made for chewing hay, for cutting grass. “I dance alone,” she says.
@Arawn | <3
