A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
He counts himself at once as lucky; her reaction has him loosening even if he can’t forget his momentary lack of grace. The way she blows back a crimson lock and the poppies nestled in her hair remind him of his sister. It settles him enough to offer her a smile.
“Blessings?” he echoes, and casts his gaze again over the gathering, the range of emotions the revelers wear as wide as any he’d seen. Certainly, all those bearing ink looked as though it had changed more than the hue of their coats. At least in this moment, they are transformed. His brow furrows briefly in thought, but it has smoothed again when he turns back to her. “I suppose they are.” His smile is soft as the touch of night.
At her next question he breathes a laugh, even as he shakes his head in a spill of midnight and silver. “It’s not the drink that’s the problem...except for my coordination.” If anything, that earlier taste of wine has emboldened him – enough, at least, to consider her words and the activity around them more seriously. She made it seem like such an easy thing, pledging himself, asking for blessings.
Ah, but it would be so much easier just to slip away, back into the midwinter night. To dancing and wine and frivolous things. The coolness outside the courtyard beckons him even as he bends his head nearer to the stranger.
“I’m too afraid of breaking a promise to make one,” he confesses, and can’t quite keep the worry from creeping into his voice, the quiet little shame. His gaze studies her again and what he finds there reassures him: there is only kindness in her golden eyes, and the scattered gleaming on her wings makes him think of the summer fireflies he’d danced in months ago with Aislinn.
They are grounding thoughts, good ones, and it is enough to keep him honest. “I want to belong here, but I don’t know how.”
@Cyrene <3
