asterion,
The silence after he speaks seems to him to hang like a shroud. He tries to brace himself for anything, tries to think only of the sea and echo its rhythm with his breath as he waits. When Metaphor steps forward he smiles, but it fades from his mouth as the man begins to speak. Humbled he drops his head, curls his chin to his chest.
Because of his focus on the group it takes Cirrus’ voice too long to catch him, to steal his attention. At last he glances up, an ear turning as she calls his name in her own tongue, a gull’s rough sob. Look, she commands, and the bay turns just in time to see Marisol fall like a star to the ground.
“Atreus,” he says, and his eyes cut to the healer’s and hold them just for a heartbeat until he is turning back to Marisol, rushing up to meet her like a wave. He hopes the man follows, though that the Commander is among them at all must surely mean she’s alright, that death is not following her like a wolf haunts an injured doe.
Asterion stops just short of her, meeting her halfway. He near enough to touch, near enough to make out every livid line on her dark skin. She smells like blood, which is nothing particularly new, and she smells like the sea - but though everything in Terrastella holds that scent of salt this is more, this is most.
His eyes search for hers, his heart races as though he were the one to plummet to earth. Somewhere behind him, he hopes, is at least one healer; somewhere, he knows, is Theodosia. But for the moment it is only the two of them.
“What do you need?” he asks, and hopes she says anything other than nothing.
king of dusk.
@
