[P] wonderland.

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* For long moments, lovely silver-lit moments, Asterion goes unnoticed by the girl. How rare a thing, to see a stranger so unguarded; the bay would blush if he were able. Worry touches him like a shadow, wondering what she will think of him when inevitably she turns and catches him watching.  But though his dark legs tremble and urge him to go, he can no more draw his dreamer’s gaze from her than he can fly. His breath comes soft as prayer as she tucks a flower behind her ear, and suddenly he images he can smell it, slow and sweet and floral. Foolishly he wonders what starlight might smell like, wonders if she knows.  The boy hadn’t realized how fast his heart was beating until she turned and it caught in his throat.  Her eyes are a bright, vivid blue and they pin him with a gaze that burns hotter than he’d expected; he cannot read her expression. For a strange moment, it mirrors what he imagines his own must be; surely it’s nothing but shock that causes her dark chest to heave, nothing but anger at his spying that makes her eyes accuse. Asterion, who had been standing tall and bold with wonder, curls his chin toward his chest shyly, the tangle of his forelock slipping across one dark eye.  He’s just about to make some soft apology - has opened his mouth to - when her smile returns, outshining the moon. He’s never been met with a smile such as this one; not from his twin, not from the unicorn, not from any of those he might count as friends, if only they’d had more time. It only deepens his surety that this is some strange dream, but at least there he is at home - Asterion has had a thousand such adventures, in his dreams.  Even so, he does not step forward, but lets her draw nearer to him, watching the way the night shapes her. Without the full reflection of starlight on the lake, she becomes nearly fierce: the shadows love her, cling to her, highlighting the silver of her hair, the bold clear blue of her eyes, the light feather-tips of her wings. She’s taller than he’d thought, of a height with him —and what strikes him more than anything else is the way she reminds him of the unicorn, a slender, night-colored blade.  She might laugh like ringing bells, she might dance with only fireflies as an audience, but it is clear to him then that she is a wild thing in the same way as Calliope. A warrior.  But oh, is she a dreamer, too?  It’s nearly unbearable, the way she looks at him. Not only was it the absence of the anger he’d feared, but that smile, the joy there - he smiles in return, a slow draw on dark lips, and finally he steps forward, too.  So it is that he comes to face her, the water laughing soft around her ankles and the coins she wears laughing like starlight. When she turns her head, he admires the snip on her nose; when she meets his gaze again, he tries not to falter.  His smile is still at the sound of her voice, and her question makes him shake his head, rueful, the gesture so grave as to be almost amusing on such a young man and such a starlit night.  “No,” he answers her, and his voice is soft and grave, too. “I would remember.” It’s then that he places her first expression. It had been recognition, and he wonders who would have cause to make her react such a way. The question rises to his tongue, but he is jealous of this moment, this meeting; he does not want to share it, not with the memory of somebody else.  Instead he tilts his head, regarding her shyly as a deer. It belies his words, which are spoken more boldly, though still quite serious. “But if we had met, it would feel like this. Like a dream, I mean.”  @Aislinn omg it's so long, I'm sorry