A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
He will never, it seems, be able to stay his feet from the sea.
When he sleeps there is a part of his mind, fitful and restless, that cannot be soothed so far from the murmur of the tide. It is difficult to dream, so distant from the waves; when the moon rises and the frost silvers the plain he wonders why he had traded the beach for anything, even a tower full of wonders, even a sister. Asterion had spent the last year of his youth in a quiet fight to escape the saltwater in his veins. Now his power is lost – his lifelong tie broken – but the ghost of it haunts him.
And so, ghostlike himself, he drifts once more for the coast. Above him the constellations turn, still unfamiliar, and he gives his own names and stories to them as the moon sets. He is well-enough acquainted with this path that he half-sleeps as the sun rises, as the frost burns away, as what winter-birds there are begin their singing.
The sun does not linger, in this season; it arcs, low and feeble, and sinks into a scarlet sunset just as the calling, crying gulls make his ears flick forward, his head lift. When he breathes in, it tastes of salt; the bay smiles, tosses his head, presses himself into a lope to shake out weary muscles.
Almost immediately he draws again to a halt, flinging sand, tucking his dark chin toward his chest. There stands a figure, overlooking the glinting waves, visible only by the color the sunset threw onto long, star-colored hair. Asterion is too far to see him tremble, but the wind is a fierce, hungry thing even on his own dry coat.
Curiosity starts him forward just as the boy turns, eyes flashing the burnished orange of the setting sun. Their gazes meet and the bay pauses, caught by the stark vision of the colt, just as dark but very different from the sea-slick rocks that jutted up from the beach around him. It is a lonely scene, and lovely.
And then he closes the distance between them, brows first rising then furrowing as he sees the stranger is soaked to the skin. This time of year, it’s a wonder their breaths aren’t mist already. “You must be freezing,” he says, and wishes for the first time that he could control fire.
@Ossian
