[AW] october kiss. [festival]

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* There is still a part of him, even with Florentine at his side, even with the autumn sun low and golden and the air sweet and crisp, that expects the day to turn. To become something dark, uneasy with feral magic – a threat, a challenge, a mystery. It’s the only kind of gathering he knows, and so he does not stray far from his half-sisters side, despite her assurances that this was nothing like the places they’d come from. There has been so much change since first he set foot here; the twilight bay still feels like he’s wandering through a dream more fanciful than any he could manage. This place – the Dawn Court – only adds to those thoughts; the sky is streaked with pink and dusky blue, and there is a sound like hoofbeats, a sound like humming, a sound like he’s never heard before. Asterion has never experienced music made from instruments. He feels half-wild himself among the festivities, dark eyes wide with wonder, an uncivilized pilgrim. Everywhere there are horses with adornments beyond any he’s seen, with braids and shorn hair, with cloaks and weapons. It smells like woodsmoke, which makes him think of her. Aislinn. He has told Florentine nothing of that moonlit meeting by the lake, but each night he’s dreamt of the down of her feathers, the curve of her jaw, the blue of her eyes. He flicks a look, a smile, toward the golden emissary, and then away again – And then he sees her, as though he’d conjured her himself. The boy falls still, forgetting all the strange and lovely things around him in favor of the loveliest of all. Oh! She looks like she belonged here, with this music, these people. His heart is a bird beneath his ribs, and he is already stepping toward her uncertain as a fawn when another stallion reaches her first. Uncertainty makes him hesitate, and he swallows down his jealousy (where had it come from? They are nearly strangers; he only has her name) at her greeting with the other. He was striking, dark and handsome, his dark points a perfect counterpoint to her light ones, and again Asterion realizes how terribly out of place he is, in this world. Even so he motions to his half-sister, forgetting the feast and the festivities. “Florentine,” he says, voice steadier than he feels, “Come with me, there’s someone I want you to meet.” Without waiting for a response he presses forward, walking through drifting smoke, slipping through twirling dancers, until he stood between the two warriors. The bay gives a cursory glance to the other stallion, a polite weighing, and then his dreamer’s eyes are only for the gypsy girl, as lovely when lit by bonfires as she had been by fireflies. “Aislinn,” he breathes, and his lips shape a smile, remembering. After a heartbeat too long, he gestures back at Florentine, hopeful that these new pieces of his life might fit together. “This is Florentine – my sister.” @Aislinn @Florentine and apologies to @Ulric for the drama he's unwittingly present for xD