asterion*
As Cirrus harries Po, and Odet harries Cirrus, and Asterion watches, and all of them at last come to a halt - all his tension runs away like water, leaving him laughing like a boy.
He is grateful when the other man joins him (it makes him feel a little less like a madman, or a fool) and he shakes his head, spraying droplets of water and bits of plants, and butts his star-marked forehead gently against Ipomoea’s shoulder. The touch is brief but heartfelt, a brotherly clap of a hand on a back, before the king is leaning away again, surveying the empty field before them. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little relieved not to have another scar in the making,” he says, and his grin sobers into a smile. When his dark eyes meet his friend’s they are considering, returning to thoughts of woes and wonders, all the things in their strange world that is growing stranger yet.
“If you want to spar again,” he says, “maybe something more physical, I’d be honored to meet you here again.” Then he thinks of the others he’s met on the Steppe, and the scars and lessons they’d left him with, and his mouth curls once more into a rueful grin. “Though I can also recommend some partners far more skilled than I.”
The king glances up at Cirrus, and tilts his muzzle toward home. And then, alongside the painted man, he walks from the battlefield, leaving nothing but footprints, and torn soil, and bright spots of fallen wildflowers.
@Ipomoea
