[P] the price of being remembered

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* “It’s only that that’s rare, for me.” He says it a little wryly, an echo of the self he used to be. “I have to admit it’s nice.” He smiles, when Vercingtorix gives his name - a slight curve of his mouth, quick to be blown away again by the wind - and he does not give his own. He would like to stay strangers, for once. He would like not to leave a piece of himself in another’s care, or carry anything beyond what he already does. And he has never much cared for sarcastic humor. The bay’s attention returns to the dragon as it stoops. Immediately Asterion wonders if the reach of his power was enough that he could cup the sea like a hand and take the creature - drag it down to the cold and dark. His next thought is a backlash to the first, and he might have recoiled in horror from it, until he sees what the dragon has caught. There in his claws a dolphin wriggles and flexes, like a salmon caught by an eagle. Asterion thinks only of Elena, bright-eyed, soft-voiced, asking him if he could conjure dolphins. He’d done it, and the false ones had drawn the real, and the simple, warm happiness he’d shared with her was something he had not felt in years. He wishes he had used his magic, then. And it curls up within him, deep and cold and huge, when the beast turns toward them. Without looking back at Vercingtorix he says (all the softness gone from his voice), “Is it yours?”   @Vercingtorix