—
Aster likes Delumine - the great, imposing forest, the castle with its spires, the wildflowers that tumble over and over each other to the horizon. And she likes the festival, the dancing and the music (she has always loved music, the one thing that might draw her to the cities), all the laughter of strangers.
She likes the way they look at her a little nervously, when she walks between them with Teak at her heels, winding between her feet, making a silent snarl any time a boy tries to approach her.
But when the cheetah makes a little chirp from behind her when she sees the unicorn, Aster bids him stay with a look. She does not smile, when the girl with the sea’s colors comes toward her, but her eyes are vivid gold.
At first she thinks that Avesta is reaching toward her for a kiss. When she realizes she is not, she offers up her cheek just as eagerly as she would have before. The paint is cold, and tickles, and does not smell like blood - but she feels a little like a hunter, anyway, like a thing that has won its meat.
“When,” she says, and it is insistent, a demand in the voice of a doe. Aster wants to know specifics - had she thought about her, bedded in a field the night before a battle, with new constellations overhead and her silver sides softly rising with the faraway thoughts before sleep? Had it been before she plunged her horn into resisting skin, or been struck for the first time?
Aster takes the brush from the unicorn and, lightly as butterfly feet, paints a sliver of crimson moon below the base of her horn.
“I told the sea to bring you home,” she says, then touches her lips more softly still to the sleek curve of Avesta’s neck. “She left her scent on you.”
@
She likes the way they look at her a little nervously, when she walks between them with Teak at her heels, winding between her feet, making a silent snarl any time a boy tries to approach her.
But when the cheetah makes a little chirp from behind her when she sees the unicorn, Aster bids him stay with a look. She does not smile, when the girl with the sea’s colors comes toward her, but her eyes are vivid gold.
At first she thinks that Avesta is reaching toward her for a kiss. When she realizes she is not, she offers up her cheek just as eagerly as she would have before. The paint is cold, and tickles, and does not smell like blood - but she feels a little like a hunter, anyway, like a thing that has won its meat.
“When,” she says, and it is insistent, a demand in the voice of a doe. Aster wants to know specifics - had she thought about her, bedded in a field the night before a battle, with new constellations overhead and her silver sides softly rising with the faraway thoughts before sleep? Had it been before she plunged her horn into resisting skin, or been struck for the first time?
Aster takes the brush from the unicorn and, lightly as butterfly feet, paints a sliver of crimson moon below the base of her horn.
“I told the sea to bring you home,” she says, then touches her lips more softly still to the sleek curve of Avesta’s neck. “She left her scent on you.”
@
