[P] we can weep and call it singing;

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* He had not known just how tightly caught his heart was until she spoke his name. Oh, worry is still a snare that makes each muscle taut and each breath shallow and buzzes in his head like wasps – but the worst of the fear vanishes. He is not relieved, but the drowning-dread is gone. Then she stumbles, trying to reach him, and he wonders if he is wrong. The bay moves to help her, to offer the damp but steady plane of his shoulder, but something in her voice pins him. The fear in it is an arrow that pierces his heart and suddenly he is not standing in an infirmary surrounded by strange scents and strange sounds. He is in Ravos in a barren wasteland of rock and sand and it is his twin, that same fear-hurt in her voice, only she is telling him not to touch her. She is telling him she will kill him, if he does. That if he tries to help her (and oh how he wants to help her) she will hate him forever. Asterion has not seen Talia since. He does not know if they were truths or golden lies she spoke as the smoke rolled over them both, stinging his eyes and burning his tongue on ash, and what does it matter? For he has made the same mistake again, and he is frozen like a bird for fear Aislinn will tell him the same thing. Finally he finds his tongue, though even as he speaks he places the first brick of blame upon his heart. “You’re safe,” he tells her, trying to sound firm and assuring, “you’re home,” and then he is pushed aside by a healer who bids her drink. He catches the mare’s eye, inclines his head toward Aislinn, a silent question – but the healers shakes her head. No. Don’t touch. There is kindness in her eyes but there is sternness, too: they will not hesitate to remove him, he thinks. They will make him leave her, make him wait alone. But when she reaches for him he is helpless but to reach back, though a dark ear twists at the sharp-strange scent on her breath. Her muzzle on his skin steadies him like a hand and his heart fights to find its rhythm. “Of course I did,” he says, voice hoarse, hardly aware that he’s begun shivering in his soaked skin. All his attention is fixed on the tear rolling silver down her cheek. There is nothing he could have done but come to her, because - “I love you.” Now it is Asterion who closes his eyes as the words, steady and soft and matter-of-fact, fade away. Surely he is the greatest of fools (and he can see his twin, laughing at him even through her tears, careless cold gold). His love has never been enough to save anyone. @Aislinn his word of the day is 'melodrama'