asterion,
He should know now what it is that’s driving her down to madness and violence, with the blade on her tail and the crooked bolt of lightning carved across the red of her skin. He should know, having come from the Rift, having felt the pull of its magic and watched the chaos of it form world after world and monster after miracle, its fever ever changing. Gabriel would know, at once, the thing that plagues Thana and whispers for her to hunt.
But for all he’s been through Asterion still views those worlds as two separate things. That here is Novus and there, unreachable, is the wilds of a country shredded by magic. As though Florentine was the only one who could open that door. Oh, he should know better.
If nothing else he should recognize that this world, the stars crashing down, the void reaching out, the smooth cold glass of the floor - it is not a place Novus should ever have birthed.
Only when he hears the howl echo across the ground like scattered stones and echo across the emptiness like a dreadful secret does Asterion look away, lifting his head toward the source of it. He can’t yet see what comes, only the sparks of light thrown up by its feet. His heart trembles, and tenses like a fist. Had he thought it was beautiful, this amphitheater to creation?
You should not have.
“Why?” It is soft, softer than a moon going dark or a star falling, but it is a challenge nonetheless. Has he ever challenged her before? It lives in his eyes, too, when he turns back to look at her, and she lowers her horn, another sliver of darkness in a black world. The stars on his coat are the only ones not wavering.
But it is not Thana’s horn that pierces his heart surely as any ever has ever found its target and bit deep. A year. Asterion almost gasps in this airless space; for the first time he feels like withering. His magic, no further away than a beckon of fingers, recedes like the tide as her own moans, hungry.
He lowers his head then, a weakness, even as a creature that belongs more in the Rift-world than Novus emerges from the black. A year. The knowledge devours him, more unspeakable than her magic. He thinks of Marisol - of Moira - of Isra and Eik - of everyone left behind. His worry grows teeth. The stallion blinks into the darkness and his eyes reflect dim stars.
For a moment, he envisions offering himself at the tip of her horn. For a moment, he almost says Do it, Thana, do what I can see you threatening every time you look at me. Instead he only sighs, as long and faraway as an arcing comet, and squares his shoulders and meets her violet, violent eyes.
“And what is this place?” he says at last. “It feels like…like the other world. Like some part of it is bleeding through…”
And that thought does make him afraid.
Tho' much is taken, much abides;
@Thana
