Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Aster shivers at the doorway to the castle, not in fear but expectant thrill.
How long has it been, since she was anything other than out-of-doors? The only roofs above her head have been clouds and starlight and the intertwining arch of branches. She remembers a small cottage, full of moss and jars and smells both wild and tame, that she went into as a girl with her twin by her side. That had been the last time.
But when the slender girl steps between the stone mouth, she finds it as lush with gardens as the world she left behind.
Aster laughs with delight, a loud, bright sound like bells against the hushed and sweet-smelling darkness. Light as a candle she drifts in the slow current of other horses, bending her head to blossoms and beds of ferns until they tickle her cheeks.
She does not yet look for the little-queen, the unicorn she had met by the seaside not so long ago. She wonders what she’s dreaming now.
And Aster wonders, too (for dimly, dimly she remembers that she was born a princess) if she might have had a castle like this, or grown gardens up the walls, or looked down at a sea of others who all bent their heads to her.
But she forgets these things as she wanders this forest both false and true, bars of moonlight striping her body.
@any
