[AW] Nothing's wrong but nothing's true

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* She speaks of war as though it’s a foregone conclusion and he looks at her more sharply, the lines of his own body soft in comparison to her attentive stance. He’s looking for a shadow of Calliope, but there is nothing feral about Israfel. She reminds him more of Raymond, the red blade-tailed stallion he’d met a world ago, but he wonders how someone so young could be so world-worn. “It’s hard to imagine any kind of trouble, in a place like this,” he says, indicating the battlements they stood on, the court spread out around them, the mountains in the distance. There is no rogue magic, no physical, vengeful gods (Asterion has still no notion of the gods of this place), no reason he can see to take up arms. Not somewhere with books, and pillows, and festivals, and tea. His brow has furrowed at the thought, nose wrinkling as it remembered the strange curling scents in Isorath’s office, the way the kirin seemed so entirely other. He is glad, then, when Israfel’s laughter draws his attention again, and he steps nearer to her, close enough the bite of winter can’t reach the space between them. Himself is not one of his favorite topics, but knows what she means, and so he obliges as best he can. “I don’t know much about anyone either,” he admits, “but then I’ve always been…bad about that.” He breathes a sigh that is snatched away at once by a breeze; down far below them, snow is blown into an eddy that glitters like diamonds in the sunlight and then is gone. There is little else but the washed-out blue of the sky and the dark shapes of a distant v of geese. ¬No windswept, laughing flower-queens; no enemies. He thinks of meeting the stranger on the shore, the confessions he’d made to himself as much as Eik, the way he felt cleansed afterward. The honesty had stung like saltwater on a wound – maybe it would sting less the second time. And so he glances back at her, though his face is still mostly turned to the plains, and offers her a smile. “This is the first place I’ve stayed for more than a few weeks, though I never saw anywhere like this. I was always looking for…something. Adventure, excitement.” Not sleepiness, and not peace – but then, he hadn’t been looking for a half-sister, either. He hadn’t known he had one. Asterion tilts his head toward her then, dark eyes curious, thinking over what she has said about her many lost homes. He wonders, of course, at the stories behind him, but shares her unwillingness to pry; it is another question, though, that curls tight around his heart. “These places you mention - what made them all a home?” A home; not just a place, like Ravos had been to him. As for Novus - how can he say?   @Israfel awwwww poop post from me but he'd love to be her friend (people keep vanishing on him too xD)