in sunshine and in shadow
At first he is only vaguely aware of the voice rising in song beside him, for his eyes are still closed and his head still turned to the sun. But his laugh settles to silence and a soft curve of smile as the words drift low and smoky like incense over him.
His dancing falls to near-stillness as he listens, and it is his own mother he thinks of, humming ancient melodies to Asterion and his twin. He can’t remember, now, if there had ever been words - but her voice made music, though none of them had ever heard a fiddle or a flute or a drum.
When the words fade away, when there is quiet again over the street, the king at last opens his eyes. He is not altogether surprised to find them just a little wet, a little silver-limned, but he blinks the sting of memory away as he turns again to face Samaira. “I am grateful that you do,” he says, and nods deeply at the fiddler as she thanks them. Asterion is glad to live in a place where there is music in the streets - today that alone seemed worth the burdens that came with a court.
Before she can finish her question the bay is nodding, still wearing a smile wrought of memory and music. “Of course,” he says, “it would be my pleasure.” With a tilt of his jaw he gestures toward the heart of the city and begins to walk, as the musician (now he has found himself with an even larger audience) begins to tune his fiddle for another song.
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