He feels the moment when her magic reaches for him, and they both recoil. Involuntarily the stallion curls his muzzle protectively toward his chest; something in him seethes. He doesn’t realize that his teeth are bared until he, too, swallows and turns his face away.
Asterion is almost grateful when the magic of the island interrupts them. No matter what it brings, it is better than whatever is within him, this thing he can’t look at. It’s an eel in a black sea, hungry and slick and more clever than he is. Used to staying hidden.
When she says his name, he wonders if she ever said his father’s the same way. It is easy to picture them together, this graceful mare and the red man he had finally (too late, too late) met. He wonders if Mephisto, too, had found Novus too tame at first.
It seems too late to ask now.
And then it is more truly, when she say I’m sorry, and gives herself to the pool. Asterion can only watch as it gilds her in light, his heart in his throat, his breath caught between his teeth. How could she trust the gods (how could she trust him?). He almost calls after her again, a cry, another warning -
And then she is gone, and he is alone.
He cannot be angry, has no right to feel betrayed; hadn’t he told her to fly if she must, just a breath before?
And yet Asterion will not step into that pool of light. He has had enough of vanishing, enough of the gods of this world. The once-king cries out, a challenge to an empty room; he summons the depths of his own magic, that ever-roaring sea within him.
As it answers, he closes his eyes.
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?
