[P] we're not meant for history;

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* A breeze sweeps in from the sea, bright with the promise of spring, but Asterion is less like the wind and more like the water. Calm in moments and crashing in others, a mixture of emotions all churning together, riffles on an ordinarily serene surface.   It is bright midmorning and he has only just heard of the events of the festival. His own Midwinter night has been a fairytale thing, paint and fireflies, something out of a storybook; he had fallen into exhausted and contented sleep some time after dawn. Still he smells of birch-smoke and wine as he hurries through the corridors of the keep, the echo of his hooves the only sound. It, too, is slow to wake today.   Worry sings in his heart, a current pushing him along, but it goes far deeper than sorrow for Florentine, for Reichenbach, for his new people. In his head is the memory of another fire, of another promise, of another golden sister. A twin he had sworn to help, would have given anything for.   Do not follow me. I will kill you if you do.   He knows, knows in his coral bones and his salty blood, that Florentine is nothing like Talia. That they share gold and a father and nothing else. And still he trembles as he goes to her chambers. Beneath that, a colder current, a worse worry: that she would be right to push him away. For what could he do? What has he ever done?   Outside the castle a shadow passes, a dragon straight from a childhood story. Inside, he gently swings wide the door to her rooms. She is clean of blood, her hair still damp; it smells terribly sweet, a spring bower after a rainstorm.   Asterion bows his head to his sister, his queen, but his gaze never leaves her, and the thought that he’d been so happy, so blissfully unaware, just hours before is a little deep wound that stings and stings.   He had thought, meeting Reichenbach in these halls just nights before, that he was glad to know nothing of politics. Now he realizes he knows just as little of love.   “Flora,” he says, and in those scant syllables conveys all his sorrow and all his worry and all his fear and anger, too – fear that she’ll rebuke him the way Talia had, anger that anyone would hurt her, would hurt any member of their home. “I am so sorry.” His eyes are dark as the space between galaxies and he wants to press his muzzle to her shoulder, hang his neck over hers, but he hovers a few feet away instead. Afraid to push, afraid to comfort.   “What can I do?” @Florentine