I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone
or else alone
Asterion can almost understand how feral his nephew was, when he caught him in the orchards of Terrastella with the scent of fallen apples thick and sweet around them.
He has been alone in the wilds for less long. But already he wants to stiffen like a stag, to bare his teeth like a stoat surprised in a thicket. It is hard, in this moment, to see that he was ever a civilized thing - a man taught to read, taught to pray, taught to sit for portraits and host soirees in the gardens in spring.
Oh, he knows that he is different now. But he doesn’t wonder which version of him is closer to true.
“And what misfortune,” he says, stepping nearer so that the low tone of his voice is audible over the hiss as the first drops of rain begin to strike the leaves, “brings you up here?” So far from everything else, his gaze seems to add.
The bay stallion says nothing about the company. It is clear that he was not expecting anything either, except maybe to lose himself in the chaos and noise of the storm.
@Antiope
Asterion.
