I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone
Asterion almost does not recognize his sister when the flash of gold catches in the corner of his eye like a tear.
At once he turns, a cry of warning already forming on his tongue, but it never passes beyond his teeth. Something has transformed Florentine; she is not the sad and bruised girl that has walked Novus for months like a flower crushed by summer heat. There is no mistaking her - he has never met a girl so gold, could never miss the shape of her wings or the bright purple thick in her hair - and yet this is a sister the bay king has never met.
Oh, she gleams against the blackening sky, and even without her dagger (without her magic?) she cuts a figure of power and awe. Here is the queen that Dusk had looked up to, here the princess of a world intent on destruction; he had never doubted her stories but he has never so readily believed them as now.
For all the magic that lives in him, it is not a word that has crossed his mind since seeing that billowing cloud of ash and darkness. Destruction, and the gods, and another disaster in a parade of them - all these things he had thought of, but never wonder, never awe. Not until now.
He lets himself remember, as he crosses to her (and the shallow water of the beach parts to let him by) the day that they had met. The storm that had blown in then, proceeded by lightning that splintered the sky and ate up the shadows, by thunder that shook the trees and made their leaves shiver beneath the drenching rain. How alive she had been then, and how remarkable - and how his heart had leapt alongside her own. Asterion lets himself turn his back on the terrible darkness to press his muzzle into the crook of her throat, the curve of her cheek; he presses the star-marked plane of his forehead against the soft gold of her neck and inhales the scent of hyacinths.
When he leans away again there is a new shine to his eyes, like some spark in her blood has caught in his own.
"What comes next?” he asks his sister, and there is no fear in him even as he wonders and how will we survive it?
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Never has she longed to take something from Lysander like she does now. Upon that day, even as she hung her dagger about her throat, she knew that moments like this would come: moments when she feels so utterly detached, only one piece of a pair. Her dagger is a part of her missing and how her magic howls like a wolf to its dagger moon!
The child is a vibrant thing. It twists and turns, coiling and unfurling like the volcano’s breath that blots the sky. The magic that blooms here, at this volcano’s stirring, is nothing like what novus has known before. But Florentine knows it. This is a girl born into and raised upon wicked, changeable magic. There is no normal without a world ready to change and twist and morph itself into something so dangerously other.
Is she the only one smiling upon the beach? Is she the only creature that stands upon the edge of the cliff, leaning out as it crumbles in warning beneath her feet. Stone cascade into the thrusting sea, they rattle their voices like bars upon a cage. How loudly they urge her back and warn her, even as the roaring sea rises up to swallow them down, down, down beneath their frothing breakers.
Her heart is a storm summoner, it roils in her chest with the lightning, it laughs in her veins like thunder. Her head twists and swings, wild, imploring, keen. Exhileration makes her numb, it steals her breath and makes her ragged. She rears and the electric lightning strking from the volcano’s lungs illuminate her in a picture. An image that turns her into a statue, fierce and beautiful and pulled out of some other-world temple.
Other worlds are speaking, they are roaring through their volcanic mouthpiece and oh Florentine hangs upon their every word. She might have spread her wings then, she might have dared to throw herself from the cliff and fly as near as she could to the terrible island, were it not for Asterion.
He comes, steady as a rock to the wild of her sea. She turns to him with a gaze as bright as stars, she moves to his side, pressing against him, breaking upon her brother with the loyal adoration of an ocean upon land. In her ears is the crescendo of her blood and it is more than a hurricane’s howl yet she manages to hear him still.
What comes next?
She laughs timeless, endless. When did she begin laughing – was she always laughing? Would she ever stop this chiming laughter that ripples like bells and resounds like falling stars? “Who knows.” She says into his skin as her eyes close and she drinks in the smell of her brother. He is night and day and everything in between. He is the dank of the swamp and the gypsy dark of the Night Markets.
“But I think I have far more frightening news.” Florentine says, breathless and bright. She steps from him, to where she can hold him in the amethyst of her gaze, turning him into a boy held by petals and leaves. “You are to be an uncle and Lysander doesn’t yet know.” She smiles but there is a darkness behind it, worry for a father that has no idea of his destiny.
But, ever changeable, ever so easily distracted, she returns her gaze to the volcano. “This is the most normal I have felt in a long time. Things are meant for change, always. Enjoy what the magic brings us.”
I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone
She has no answers for him - it would be foolish for him to expect any - but her laughter is enough to give him hope, anyway.
Oh, how many heroes has Asterion raised up for himself, only to see them fall? Reichenbach, Aislinn, Raymond - time has swallowed them all, these giants who built and broke his heart, closing over them like the ocean over the rocks when the tide rises. They only live in his memory now, echoes that act more like shadows, warning him of a thousand follies he might fall into like a pit.
But not Florentine. Whether a golden queen or a shattered girl with a stolen memory his sister has only been true, and the bay could never give voice to how grateful he is to be standing with her now. Yet even as he presses his forehead against her, and feels the eager trembling of her skin, that old fear rises up in him. Oh, his begging heart beats out the rhythm of the words - Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me alone. He knows that Florentine is like a wisp of dandelion fluff, made to ride the wind, a girl with a gift for going.
Asterion is glad, then, when her words fall to fill up the space they make between them. When he lifts his gaze to meet hers he is wary, though her tone belies what she says; his heart quiets, his breath is even, and he forgets the doom waiting on the horizon like a wolf at winter’s door.
She does not hold him in suspense for long. Asterion stands, slack-jawed, his mind slow to catch up even as his heart leaps, light as smoke, rising, rising, joyful.
“An uncle?” he repeats, and a smile begins to bloom on his lips like a small dawn. “Congratulations, sister.” Oh, and then he is beaming, laughing, shock and joy and love, even as lightning makes the world stark, even as darkness crowds closer, closer yet.
His sister turns back to the sea, but Asterion is not yet ready to look; instead he rests his jaw upon her withers, closes his eyes and breathes deeply of flowers, a constant promise of spring.
“I have forgotten how to believe it will bring good things,” he says at last, soft as a guilty admission. When eventually he opens his eyes it is the sea he watches, changing, endless, steady, wild. The king imagines Flora with a foal at her side and hope stirs in him, sweet as a June breeze to chase away the fog. “But I am ready for change.”
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Closely, closely she watches her brother. The scent of lavender rises soft and strong between them. Her gaze wanders over the curve of his lashes, eyes that remind Florentine of a father she has not seen for too, too long. A twinge sings and singes its way through her heart. It throbs a beat, and then two, out of time and the girl misses her father then. How she wishes to tell him as she tells her brother. How she wishes to see his smile curl upon his lips and laughter seep out in joy – like the coming of spring, warm and bright and full of life.
But Gabriel is not here. Nor is her mother and how empty Florentine feels then. How the love of her brother and Lysander is enough, enough and yet never enough to fill the hole that her parents have left.
Magic thrums, thrums around her and the landscape trembles with the roar of a volcano. But through it all her brother smiles and she turns her wide smile upon him and lets laughter join his until, for a moment, their laughter is a vital song loud enough to drown out the roar of magic.
Lightning splits the sky, it bathes them white, white, white. But neither sibling lifts their gaze to look, neither startle as the world groans at their feet. The weight of Asterion’s head is familiar upon her spine. It is welcome, soothing yet her lips curl as she huffs, playfully, ‘That’s it, you just add to the weight I am carrying.” Her muzzle nudges beneath his chin in jest, yet she makes no move to urge him away. If he dared she would only follow to see her own embrace.
“Have you?” Florentine asks after his admission. “You know the magic always brings the good with the bad. Always.” But oh the bad has been terrible sometimes. She should know, still she remembers what it is like to die and taste blood as you feel the creeping cold of death’s great darkness…
She is quiet, for a moment lost in magic and memories. The Rift lies at her fingertips and her skin sings with its presence. Her dagger warms, waiting, answering, read. “I miss Daddy.” Florentine whispers, time for her confession due. “I want him to see her, or him… Will you come with me when I go? I shall have you back in a blink, no one will even know you are gone.”
Volcanic skies and glowing seas reflect in her gaze as she stands, silent, thoughtful. The child kicks and she trembles, “The baby is moving – do you want to feel it kick?”
I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone
It is easy, standing there with Florentine at the edge of the world, watching the place where all the things they know fall away. It is easy to nod - I know - even though his knowing is a lie. Asterion doesn’t know the magic the way that she does, has never seen anything like the rift has shown her. He knows gods and he knows the power in his own bones, the magic in others’ -
but he has never been in a place where time works backwards, or turns plants into machines and stone creatures into real. He has never sipped from a pool and found himself borne away on a dream that alters him forever. He has never met a Sphinx with challenge flashing in her eyes and offered her a bargain.
He is not Gabriel, yet he thinks himself ready for what the world might bring.
They are quiet, as the storm across the ocean is quiet. Lightning flashes in that tumultuous cloud that grows as it collapses, reaching outward, reaching up, but no thunder follows. The sea is vengeful against the rocks, striking them with sounds like slaps, sending up great froths of foam. Asterion is already holding her breath when she asks her question, and then everything else in him falls still except for his heart, which is already answering yes, yes, yes.
The bay doesn’t even know if his father is aware he exists. Is it worse or better if he doesn’t? What does his face look like, what might he say? What do they owe to each other?
He takes his gaze from the volcano across the water, maybe ending, maybe beginning. “I will,” he says, like a vow, and he feels like he’s plunged off the cliff, salt-spray stinging his face, falling, falling, flying.
But Florentine grounds him, as she always does. At her other question - far easier to answer! - he grins again, though his heart has fallen somewhere below the sea. Now it waits, a treasure chest well-locked. Full of fool’s gold, or real treasure?- he can’t say. “Yes,” he says, and presses first his nose and then his cheek against her golden, taut side. For a moment there is only breathing, and then - movement. A ripple, a kick. The king withdraws, startled, and wonder and joy make wide and shining his gaze.
“That’s a different kind of magic,” he says softly. “Do you know when-?”
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She waits and it feels like an eternity – even for a girl for whom Time is a navigable sea to anywhere.
But Florentine waits, she waits as if she has sailed to the ends of Time and clings as she gazes, nearly toppling, into nothingness. Worry trembles in her stomach. Her nerves are as choppy as the sea, her heart made of things as easily swept aside as spider silk.
What if he says no? Such thoughts shadow the outline of her gaze. They set shadows billowing in her gaze. So soon her lungs are aching with the breath she dare not exhale.
Though eternity stretches in her gaze (as she looks to him – to where he watches the volcano) his answer comes swiftly, his gaze chasing it as he looks back to her. It is no answer alone, but a vow, a pledge and it has his sister smiling. She presses her grin deep into his neck, until her lashes close beneath the tangle of his mane.
Here she is buried until it is only the scents of family that ground her. Here where the bonds that bind her are not just magic and Time but family and blood. Asterion is sea-born and home.
“I did not think you would say yes,” She murmurs into his skin. Her smile will not be moved, it is a rock and Florentine thinks it might weather any storm. “You are by far the more responsible of us both.”
For a moment Florentine is content, silence hangs between them and though they are still, though a volcano darkens their sky in violence and drama, her mind is full of other things. Meetings and reunions have her spirits drifting higher. If his heart plummets, Florentine’s might be the one to lift his up. “I will hold you to that, you know.” she says slowly, slyly, her gaze searching out his. No longer is her smile wide and joy, but smaller, more challenging. “I will have my reunion, brother.”
And her laughter rings as the volcano groans. Magic swells within her, within the bowels of the rising island. Asterion’s muzzle presses against her side and the child kicks again, protesting against the touch.
Magic. He says and Florentine’s nose wrinkles her laughter growing shorter, more rueful. “I am not sure magic so much as irresponsible love making.” Yet she is touching her side too, gently, joyfully. She draws back as the child falls still – such a spirited creature already. “Daddy was not around to tell you, so let me, always be responsible Asterion. Always. Otherwise unplanned surprises come kicking.”
Now her eyes drift back to the volcano. Was it building and pushing them toward an unknown destruction? Her dagger feels warm against her chest, she is glad to have it, “Soon.” The girl murmurs, “And yet, nowhere near soon enough. I have been having terrible heartburn and hot flushes and I need to pee every five minutes. The midwife says it makes some women feel glamorous but what glamorous whales do you know?” And at last her smile is gone, a pout drawing along the curve of her gilded lips. Her eyes glimmer, laughter lingers there – oh, this baby may have been unplanned, her pregnancy a challenge and yet, it was safe to say, she would not change it for the world.
I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone
There is nothing as easy as standing beside her, feeling the press of her nose against his neck, grounding him, smelling like home, smelling like love. Even the sight of that billowing black cloud ahead of them, the fire a red eye against the distance, the yawning uncertainty - even that does not frighten him now. She reminds him with her presence alone that nothing matters so much as those he cares for, and that magic is adventure and hope and oh, not always disaster.
There are whole worlds out there, and so much none of them will ever know. Not even Florentine, for whom Time is choice with every possibility stretching endless. And somehow that makes what faces them feel…less.
“You should know me better by now,” he says softly back, and nudges at her cheek. “I’m not sure I could say no to you, little sister.” His grin is a half-moon and his eyes are not black as they reflect the horizon; there are stars in them yet, and a little smoke will never be enough to cloud them.
Asterion does not get to ride such a feeling for long. Flora laughs and speaks again, and at first the ear turned toward her twists back, and then he’s shaking his head, wrinkling his own nose. By the time she says responsible the king is snorting, feeling at once mortified and like laughing. “Florentine,” he says, “please, as your brother and your king, I beg you to stop. And never mention it again.”
But what her talk turns to next (her words are always flowing, quick an bright as a stream) is not much better. His nose is still wrinkled when he glances back at her, but he notes the laughter in her eyes, the smile hiding at the back of her pout. “Can’t you just…skip to the end?” he asks, half-joking, but when the volcano shudders and booms again his eyes go back to the sea, the island, the unknown. Asterion’s smile fades. “Though I suppose some things are better seen through,” he says, and lays his chin once more across her neck. Shoulder-to-shoulder they stand, and he thinks of the life within her, all the love and joy and potential. “I’m happy for you, sister. And I’ll be there for you all. Whatever comes.”
Soft are the words, and softly close his eyes, as together the siblings watch the world fall to unnatural night.
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Ah, her older brother cringes. A blush flushes along his cheeks, his head shakes, as if to rid her words from his ears, the pictures from his mind. His nose wrinkles and Florentine laughs, nudging him with her shoulder. “Who is the older sibling Asterion?” She chuckles and presses a fond kiss to the muscular curve of his jaw. It is as light as a peck, as whimsical as a fae kiss.
“I shall stop.” Asterion’s sister says wryly, “but only because I think you have the idea of what I am saying.” Again she is laughing, even as she turns her gaze to a volcano that rages and the unfurling of a yet unknown future. “Never mention it again?” She asks suddenly, turning her gaze back to her brother. Gone is the face of a girl who was a queen, gone is the face of a girl on the verge of motherhood. Instead she presses her lips to the curve of his ear and breathes as any annoying, little sister might, “No can do brother, how else will I embarrass you now? Just be thankful I decided to have this chat in private and not in the midst of the Court. Though I should have loved to see Mari’s face as I bring up the merits of responsible sex during a Halcyon council meeting.”
She nips his ear playfully as she draws back, more a girl than a mother and a once-queen. “There are merits to being a once-queen and that is embarrassing the current king.” And she grins and laughs and… sighs wistfully.
Oh to skip to the end of her pregnancy…. “It would be nice.” She muses, feeling so much like a whale as Asterion lays his chin upon her neck. Florentine curls into him, at once at home ad restful within his embrace. “I love you, brother.” Florentine murmurs, at once serious and sincere. “I am glad you will be with me.”
