[P] glass slippers.

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow* He stands painted in the colors of dusk above him, soft cornflower blues deepening to the color of an evening sky over a field downy with snow, subdued corals that sweep to rich magenta like the sunset reflected on the sea. Heliotrope paints wind in dashes and lines up his legs, curve in whorls on his shoulders and cheeks, and kiss his neck in constellations that remind him of Aislinn’s tattoo. As the brush had touched him there, he’d thought of the kiss he’d pressed upon her. He had shivered under the paintbrushes of the children who had decorated him so, and only half because the paint had been cold and the bristles ticklish. No; it was the act itself that made his blood run quick in his veins and his nerves hum alive, alive, alive. He had pledged himself, he belonged, he was home. Now he stands, still wearing a helpless smile on his dark lips, his head still fuzzy-sweet with nerves and hope and wine. The yearlings had laughed at him, looking half-shocked the whole process, but their laughter had been kind. The didn’t know that he’d never belonged before, or that he’d never thought he would. Asterion is grateful and a kind of slow-happy he’s never felt before, but oh! There is one more thing he wants. One thing he longs for, a yearning, burning wish that has nothing to do with wine or paint or lanterns. Surely he is dreaming, then, when laughter draws his gaze and he sees a sea of horses in all the colors of the sky. They part like a river around a still figure, and there – Aislinn. The bay does not pause to think; already his feet carry him toward her and his eyes are dark and depthless as they drink her in from the snip on her nose to her wing-tips the color of clouds. But it’s her eyes he comes back to, blue as the paint on his skin; the color he dreams in. He ignores the world around him, trusting other festival-goers to avoid him. There is only one thing he cares for, and she – She had fled, the last time he saw her. They are close, now; his lips have parted to speak, to press a kiss to her cheek, but he stops quiet as a shadow just before her. He couldn’t bear it if he was the reason for her sorrow or her fear, and Asterion is not the bold and laughing Reichenbach, so quick to touch, so easy to pull others into his orbit. He is not wild, laughing night, bright with bonfires and sweet with smoke; he is the soft touch of evening, the whisper-kiss of the wind, the careful light of the first stars to shine. But his smile does not falter, and his eyes do not leave hers. “I missed you,” he confesses first, and then hesitates long enough to feel the birds-wings beating of his heart. “Will you join me? The night is too lovely to waste.” It’s an echo of what she’d said on a summer evening that still felt like a dream, and he searches her face for the things he’d felt then (the things he still felt now): wonder, and wanting, and hope. @Aislinn ahhh her post was so lovely <3