A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
There is such a weight in the boy’s sad smile; Asterion meets his eyes as he begins to talk but soon turns his gaze away. An ear and his attention remain settled on the paint as he listens, but he watches a swallow dart and drop and swiftly turn, wondering if he will ever be so sure of himself as that small bird. His sigh when Cynix pauses is almost lost on the breeze.
“I’m starting to worry the times are always tumultuous, here,” he says, and though he still wears a soft smile a shadow passes over his gaze like a cloud over the sea. It’s gone by the time he looks back to the boy, his gaze considering. “That was a terrible thing for them to say, especially when they couldn’t understand. I don’t know much of love, but I’m not sure it’s something we can choose, and I know it doesn’t always make sense.”
Certainly his own experience proves this. Asterion could no more stop his feelings for the gypsy warrior of night than he could stop the constellations from returning each night. Any recent…complications…between their two courts had no effect on his love for Aislinn.
And so he nods, as the boy continues speaking, and feels a pang of sorrow. A boyhood should not be spent under such a shadow. When he had first arrived here, he had though Novus to be so civilized, so elegant, compared to the feral lands and feral horses he had known.
Now he wonders what makes those that live here so slyly savage.
There is a moment where Asterion almost presses his muzzle to the boy’s shoulder, but in the end he refrains; he is not a man to touch when he is not sure he is welcome, even to comfort. Instead he only offers another smile, and hopes it is enough.
“I can understand that – getting to be who you are, and not who someone has decided you must be. You’re welcome in this court any time, Cynix.” He pauses, his gaze shifting ahead to where the stones of the citadel rise above them, and this time his smile becomes nearly a grin. “Though you may find us boring in comparison.”
@Cynix I can too! though he should totally find out eventually :p
