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Private  - she slept with the wolves without fear

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Played by Offline Sam [PM] Posts: 306 — Threads: 50
Signos: 900
Inactive Character
#1


take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me


She had been nervous, standing there just beyond the borders of Murmuring Rivers, a land she has only heard about in stories from her grandmother. Marcelo had coaxed her from the trees she lingered by. “What if no one likes me?” She had asked, the little orphan girl with a price on her head had reduced her worries to what the others within the herd would think of her. ‘Why would no one like you?’ Marcelo had asked her in his deepening voice, not a boy, not a man, but still far too young for a kid and a crown, both of which he had been given. “Well,” she says, extending that final sound, wanting him to fill in the rest. “There is nothing wrong with being afraid.” He had said. “I’m scared too. Do you think we can be scared together?” Elena had smile then, bright like the sun she was named for, and there came a defiant tilt upwards of her head as she stared up at her older cousin with big amber fire eyes. “Lets be afraid together.”

In her mind, her father had always been her hero, and without him here, she had felt so suddenly unsure, unprotected, the ultimate damsel in distress. Marcelo was brave, she knew, and steadfast, and strong, but she could not help it, in her eyes, he was a poor replacement and it only hurt her heart with every beat it had, and every beat her father’s heart didn’t. 

The morning is in full bloom now, the sun is harsh against her golden coat. It delves deep into her bones and fills her with a feeling of warmth. It creates a cocoon of happiness around her, lulling her into a false sense of security. It is so easy beside the sea to imagine this is the way she has always lived, always felt. Her past if she squints hard enough against the sun, out on the water, she can see it drowning beneath the waves, begging for a lifeline that Elena will never throw. Can it stay away? Can it? Can it stay away forever?

No. She knows this answer already. 

Oh but it is easy, too easy, to forget. Elena moves through the sand, hot underneath the summer sun, with a quiet sort of grace. She walks into the water, letting it reach just below her knees and sky blue eyes close for a moment. If someone she knew saw her, it would be easy too, for them to forget, that Elena was not born upon these sands with the ocean roaring in her ears. She looks every bit the Terrastellan that she was becoming. There is pieces of lupin tangled in her blonde mane and tail. Her four white socks look distinctly colored with different flowers and herbs meant for healing. Elena has embraced Terrastella, and it has embraced her back.

And in that acceptance—there is a strange sort of beauty.

Elena opens her eyes and she does something she has done so much of since leaving Beqanna and making her first arrival into Dusk Court—she smiles.

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me




@Griffin pony!!




[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]

let's light this house on fire
we'll dance in the warmth of its blaze
pixel made by the amazing star





Played by [PM] Posts: N/A — Threads:
Asterion
Guest
#2

I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone

As Asterion is drawn inexorably back to the ocean, back to the beach that has known and forgotten his footprints a thousand times over, he too thinks of his father.

That is why he’d gone - to meet the man who’d made him. His sister, Florentine, had told Asterion so many stories of this figure - stubborn, courageous, loyal and loving - but the bay could never build something substantial out of the pieces. They were too foreign to the image he’d built up in his own heart, cold and bitter and gone. Why did you leave, he’d asked him at last, and Gabriel had smiled in a way that Asterion still doesn’t realize he shares, wry and sorrowful. It isn’t always a choice, he’d said.

And he understands. The bay had chosen to go, even if he hadn’t thought he’d lose a minute of time on Novus; and now he was back, without his family, without his kingdom, without Moira. The ache it leaves is persistent, a rotting tooth, and as he always has Asterion looks for solace in saltwater.

As so often happens, he isn’t the only one.

There is no sound but the waves and the gulls, and for some time he goes unnoticed to the golden mare. The bay keeps to the shoreline, near enough to be flecked with cool spray, and studies her - the wildflowers in her hair, the sun gleaming on her coat, the simple fact that she’s a stranger. He’s glad for it; his friends are as bruised by his absence as he is, and Asterion is tired of apologizing.

He can’t see her smile, but there is something about the way she stands, about the way her chin tips skyward, that suggests it. And because he is tired, too, of the thoughts that wait underwater to pull his head beneath, he breathes in softly and beckons his magic. The wave that rolls in toward them rises higher before her, becomes a swell, and just before it reaches her it parts. For a moment it hovers as still as sculpture, with the sunlight shining through, and then it shatters into a flock of birds that wheel and stretch wide their wings, and a school of fish that dart and leap, all shining like turquoise diamond. After a few seconds the birds dive below the surface of the water, and the fish swim up and up through the air, and all dissipate into vapor and memory.

And for the simple joy of it, Asterion smiles too.





@Elena
Asterion.
credits










Played by Offline Sam [PM] Posts: 306 — Threads: 50
Signos: 900
Inactive Character
#3


take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me


She mirrors her pale mother in this moment, although Elena will never know it to be so. Beylani and her father had spent so many countless hours by the ocean, sea breeze tugging their locks. Elena has never seen her mother stand beside the ocean, she had only seen her gaze out across a lake towards a waterfall, leaned against mountainsides—slumbered hot with a fever on a bed of ferns. Maybe it is best she doesn't know just how much she resembles her mother on the sands of the sea, because it could just be enough to send her reeling back into a grief she fights so hard every day to escape from.

The golden girl would take comfort to remain here, beside the water, legs sinking in the soft sand. She loves her ocean, it is why she has chosen to live so close beside it. Dusk afforded her this luxury. The waves so often let her into a serenity that she never wanted to escape, the salty breeze cradled her with a warm, lover’s breath. There are often days where she rests on the sandy beach  and drinks in the sunlight while silver blue eyes stare across the ocean and digest the infinity of it.

Elena cannot say this love delves as deep and as old as his own. The sea is Elena’s new discovery, she is learning how the salt heals, how ocean spray is stronger than any baptismal water, and the cries of gulls are not haunting, but beautiful. The ocean is an ancient thing and Elena cannot comprehend the amount of time it has seen, the wars, the peace, the love, the loss. The lives it has taken (there is a story of how her great-grandmother drowned), the love it has given (her father told her he fell in love beside the sea), the friendships it has solidified (had she not found Lilli in Taiga and wept with love into her shoulder?)

The ocean is a special thing.
Special things are meant to be shared.

Asterion must know this. Why else would be set such magic before Elena’s eyes?

She sighs with a lighthearted smile still unbent on her sunshine kissed face. She sighs and the sea swells before her. A wave rises up and silver blue eyes close tightly for the impact she was sure would come, but—she peeks, she feels nothing aside from the gentle ocean spray against her. Blonde hair sticks to her face before glacial eyes open wide then, a wave parting in magic gliding around her.

The water makes shapes, beauty. Elena’s eyes are wide like she is a child, giggling and admiring. There is a breath taking, innocent moment where Elena does not know who wields this magic and does not look for them. For a fleeting time, she lets herself believe this is all the earth’s doing, the ocean’s doing. It has seen her love for it and it has loved her back.

And then it ends.

But, for once, the ending isn't regretful. It is peace.

It is only then that she turns, call it instinct, destiny, or just chance, but she spins that golden head of hers directly to him, just in time to watch his lips flow like water into a smile. And, for that same simple joy, she laughs. Laughs like a child, like a girl, like someone who has never shattered and been glued back together. Elena moves towards him, the summer sun lighting her like an infinite spotlight. “Do you smile often?” She asks him with curious blue eyes. She tilts her head upwards just slightly to admire him when she is close enough. “Or is it a special treat when you use your talent?” She laughs again, blinking blue eyes, dark lashes sweeping over them like a curtain call. “Has the water always been you friend?”

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me



@Asterion




[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]

let's light this house on fire
we'll dance in the warmth of its blaze
pixel made by the amazing star





Played by [PM] Posts: N/A — Threads:
Asterion
Guest
#4

I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone

He watches the way she falls still as an acolyte, save for the way the wind pulls her hair. Asterion’s smile doesn’t waver, but there is a moment when the shapes have vanished into mist where he wonders what she thinks, if she will scoff, if he has intruded on a private moment -

When his gaze meets hers the bay holds his breath; and then she laughs like sunlight on water and the whole world seems to sigh and continue around them.

Asterion doesn’t move as she comes to him, only tucks his chin toward his chest, still smiling, holding onto the sound of her laughter like he holds onto anything lovely and rare that he’s witnessed. He still doesn’t recognize her, and he’s still strangely relieved by it.

“My sister would say not nearly enough,” he answers with a wry arc of smile, and dips his head boyishly as she continues. “And I rarely take the opportunity to use it so…frivolously.” It isn’t the right word; his gaze speaks an apology to the sea when he looks out to it. But it is true that Asterion rarely takes the time to play; before he was a king, the world was so much less serious. Then, he might have shaped all kinds of creation from the water, or called in rainclouds just for company. But Asterion’s power had not found him until his crown had; at least he’d kept the one.

He smiles more openly at her third question, though it turns soft and almost faraway. To him the sound of the waves is inexorably linked from his mother; the same breathing sighs, the same ceaseless rhythm he heard in his sleep even before he was born, salt and blood. “It has always called me home,” he answers, staring out at the line where the water shifts to darker blue. “But it took a long time for it to listen in kind.” Asterion might have turned more serious, then, except for the sound of her laugh. It is like bells ringing, and the color of her eyes is like the sky above the sea.

For so long he has been so serious, so weighted with duty and guilt, that already he is near to thinking I would do anything to hear that laugh again.

“Have you been here long?” And he leaves the question broad - it could mean the shoreline, or Terrastella, or this world altogether.



@Elena
Asterion.
credits










Played by Offline Sam [PM] Posts: 306 — Threads: 50
Signos: 900
Inactive Character
#5


take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me


Elena had never learned to fear the monsters that lurked in the day. And so she had not learned to quiver when she pressed her muzzle into their shoulders and it came away red. She had not learned to shake when they sent demons her way, to try to poison her mind. She had not learned to fear they would look upon her with lust in their eyes. She did not learn to cower when they whispered words to her, so many of them all but saying they would kill her at the end of it.

Elena has never been afraid when the blade was against her throat or an arrow pointed at her heart.

It is hard to be fearful when you have been told that monsters only live under the bed and behind closet doors.

She laughs and the sound is clear and melodious, with a quick smile. A faint smile that tickles the corners of her mouth. She has the smile of a mother she barely knows, if only because she hadn't had long enough for her to get to know her. Elena has always been delicate, like spiderwebs burdened by morning dew. Maybe that is why she has broken and reassembled herself so much. When you are fragile, you learn such things.

Everything they have been through is painted there in the spaces between their laughter and their words. But maybe they can let them go out to sea with the low tide, it is a temporary thing, so heartbreakingly temporary as high tides return and Elena stands ankle deep in her worries and sorrow.

She lets the silence sit a moment more between them before she gives a light laugh, the sound kind and gentle, bells on the wind. “Well, I think she might be right,” she says to him, looking up at the stranger with something like affection if only for his ready kindness and unfamiliar face. “Your gift?” She clarifies, taking a step towards him. “It’s so beautiful…why wouldn't you want to use it all the time?” She asks him with big blue eyes full of something that is more often seen in children. She does not know that he once had a crown and a kingdom, a kingdom that Elena now lives in and serves under another. Maybe if she had known she would have asked why he left. Or maybe she would have just smile and asked if he had ever had the opportunities to visit the garden in the city, and if the flowers that grow there now are the same ones that had been planted when he was king.

Elena follows his own gaze out onto navy blues that ripple and wave with mystery. She blinks blue sky eyes against the light. She wonders if it was the ocean that made her parents fall in love, or if fate would have brought them together regardless of sand and surf.

“I found my way to Terrastella last winter,” she answers him. “The sea has quickly become a good friend of mine,” she adds, closing her eyes for a moment with sweeping lashes before turning to look at Asterion. “And what about you? Just wandering through? Or are you here to stay?” She asks him brightly, unaware of what roots lay beneath the stallion’s feet. “I am glad you are here,” she says. “One should never have to spend a day at the beach alone.” She says gently, genuine warmth and care in her voice. Her smile grows almost shy, there is an innocence that speaks from her words of a childhood that made Elena grow too fast at times and too slowly at others. “Can you make the water dance again?”

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me



@Asterion




[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]

let's light this house on fire
we'll dance in the warmth of its blaze
pixel made by the amazing star





Played by [PM] Posts: N/A — Threads:
Asterion
Guest
#6

I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone

“I’m not sure,” he admits, and wishes he had a better reason for her than the truth. “It never felt like the proper time, unless I was alone…and for a long while I was not alone very often.” Not when there were meetings and duties, planning and reassuring, letters to write and to read - not when he was king, and his time was not his own, but belonged to the people of this court. Now he has only himself, but it is a freedom with a bitter taste.

The flowers growing in the city now probably are the same ones; they’d all been replanted, after the flooding.

There are gulls on the beach (as there always seems to be), and one swoops low over the water, its cry mournful. His dark eyes track it as the palomino speaks; if his heart tightens a little, thinking of another old friend now gone, his expression does not betray it. Asterion wonders if he will grow used to the feeling of loss. Sadness could be its own kind of companion.

“It’s very loyal, to those it likes,” he answers, and turns to meet her gaze again. Of course, the ocean was loyal to all; it’s not like it could go off from them, like other wild things could. He smiles at her question, or rather the statement that follows it. “Just wandering, today. But I’m glad I’m here, too.” Asterion sees no reason to mention his long history with the ground beneath their feet; even when he was king, he almost always found a way to skirt the fact.

Her question charms him, both the phrasing and the way she asks it the way a child would, shy and eager. “I’ll make it do more,” he says, and a slow smile spreads across his dark lips. “If you care to follow me-”

And he walks back to the beach and steps into the foam, and further out, until the water rises to his ankles, and laps over his knees, and cools his star-marked belly. With a thought he parts the sea, and it withdraws like curtains on a stage, revealing dark sand studded with shells and crabs and starfish, a little path cut off by a wall of water a few feet before them. Around them the water arcs up, almost meeting over their heads; the shadows of fish dart by and the sunlight streams through the water like it is colored glass.

It takes hardly any effort for him to suspend it there as he looks over his shoulder at her, searching her expression, and asks, “Is there anything you’d like to see?”



@Elena
Asterion.
credits










Played by Offline Sam [PM] Posts: 306 — Threads: 50
Signos: 900
Inactive Character
#7


take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me


She had thought of returning to Paraiso, to the waterfall and the lake with the stars trapped inside its glimmering surface. To the cave, with its illuminated crystals, to the love of a family. Maybe even to a man she could have loved, still does love in some fragile way that she knows isn't real. But she knows that they could never be the same as they once were.

When she was young and loved that man in the same way she loved sunshine and flowers.

It would be different now.
Too different.

Maybe it is just the old aches for home. Elena maybe had stepped into this new life in Novus, in Terrastella too quickly, leaving her old one behind. There are pieces of her that mourn for her home, that grieve the family there, which, in the next instant, she feels guilty for. You shouldn't mourn and grieve that which still lives. It was just that, in a way, it all felt dead to her. But there are still pieces of Paraiso there with her, and Elena tries to bring her old life into her new one. It sits there in the echo of her voice, and the shadow of her smile. Maybe this is why she looks to Asterion with some sort of adoration, because he reminds her of something ancient, even if he isn’t. And he feels like childhood magic brought to life. He reminds her of a waterfall, moving the water.

“You aren't alone now,” she points out to him, like some precocious child, but she really means it with such good and pure intentions. A seagull swoops down, low and elegant, like the pegasus, like Rishiri, like Cherish and Starlett, like Divina. “My godfather controlled the wind,” she says, isn't sure why. How long has it been she had spoken of Valerio to anyone. “My great-grandfather did as well. Air walkers, wind talkers,” she says off handedly, all the names were the same. “Are you a water whisperer?” She asks then almost mischievously. ‘Be careful what you tell the river Elena,’ Ori had told her once. ‘Water is a terrible gossip. One drop tells another, tells another, and tells another.’ She sometimes hoped it was true, maybe all the secrets and wishes she told could reach all the way to the Taigan shores and into the hands of her best friend. “Although if you are, you should show restraint in what you tell it.” She smiles like Ori then before she speaks her words, Ori’s words. “I’ve heard water makes a terrible secret keeper.”

Her eyes find his, and Elena is already promising that this would not be the last time she sees him. “Wandering today. And what about tomorrow?” Wander again, and tomorrow’s tomorrow. She asks things she shouldn't ask strangers, but Elena never changes, as much as she thinks she does. Elena is always Elena.

His smile says everything, even when his words speak it. He invites her towards him and the palomino is quick to move to his side. The water caresses her ankles, as if begging for secrets. Her body stands close to him, innocent, like how she once looked at her godfather when he had been around, when he had been there for her. It is like magic, it is magic and Elena is swept away in the beauty of it. Breathless, she realizes she was suddenly, so she takes in a sharp inhale. “Dolphins,” She answers softly. “Can I see them?” Her parents have always talked about the magic of them, but Elena has never seen them except too far out in the distance. “Please?” She says, as if that one word could bring any magic in the world onto her shore.

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me




@Asterion




[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]

let's light this house on fire
we'll dance in the warmth of its blaze
pixel made by the amazing star





Played by [PM] Posts: N/A — Threads:
Asterion
Guest
#8

I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone

Once, Asterion had been like her - guilty for what he had left behind, and how it had been left. How strange it was, that distant past - how feral it seems now, that wild world with its gods who tended their pastures and flocks, and no walls, and nothing but water to drink. Everything had seemed holier then, though sometimes he thinks that Novus would have found them all heathens.

But then living had felt more like living, and less like worrying. Funny how a world with castles and knights could feel less like an adventure and more like a burden.

He smiles at her statement, and nods, the way he would at a precocious child. “I’ve grown since then, I like to think,” he says. As she continues his dark ears flick forward, interested: here is something more like that distant world of Ravos, the gods and horses he knew there. “What a beautiful lineage,” he says. And your father? he wants to ask, but does not; for fathers are on his mind, of late, but she would have told him, if she felt it worth telling.

Asterion huffs a laugh as she continues, thinking that she, in a way, is a little like water herself - a laughing stream, on to the next riffle, the next little tumble and fall, the next bit of conversation. “Sometimes a whisperer, but sometimes a shouter or a beggar. And I try to stay clear of secrets, myself.” Now it is his turn to be mischievous, even when she asks about tomorrow. “I’ll let you guess,” he says, and it is not sorrow, not dread, but a boyish excitement (just a kernel of it, like a memory) at the idea of a day unfurling unknown.

At his invitation she comes nearer, and he sees that she is not quite so young as she sounds - even as her long lashes and the heart-shaped mark on her brow bely the knowledge. She’s a little like Florentine, in that regard, with a laughing youth even into womanhood; it endears her to him the same way she thinks of her godfather. And it is good, it is good, to be close to someone who expects nothing from him.

Nothing but dolphins, that is.

Asterion grins even as he shakes his head, sending his forelock tumbling over his eyes. “I’ll try,” he says, and if he says a little prayer for dolphins then, well, who could blame him? That please would undo anybody. He turns back to the sea, pressing his tongue to the back of his teeth in concentration; first he makes little waves, the kind of surf that begs for playing on, and then he shapes water-dolphins that shine like stars in the sunlight. These leap and tumble, eager and acrobatic as the real things, but they are only a decoy. And he hopes, and waits, and hopes again for a dorsal fin -



@Elena
Asterion.
credits










Played by Offline Sam [PM] Posts: 306 — Threads: 50
Signos: 900
Inactive Character
#9


take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me


Her father had always been her hero, his shadow a constant presence to her. She had thought his voice to be like a summer storm, and his being was eternal. It had never once crossed her mind that her parents may not be with her forever. And why would it? Her mother was magic (she always found the flowers hidden away) and her father would battle any foe, including the monster in the closet. To lose her father (and worse, to lose him by someone’s intent) was more than she could bear.

He towers before her now, like her own father once did. There is a piece of her that is taking everything in her to not to fall against his shoulder, to wrap herself in the warmth she knows he could offer, to soak in whatever faint resemblance he holds. And he smiles at her like her father once had and she wishes for a moment his face was darker like his had been, and then she wishes it wasn't so dark, so that maybe she might not be reminded at all. But it is just wishful thinking, and she is grateful that she doesn't have to choose one or the other.

To be reminded, or to have him forgotten, they are both heavy on the soul.

“It’s old,” she comments, thinking about the stories. “Goes back and back and back,” she says, and wonders if there are ancient lines in her face that had been put there by her ancestors. If a crease in her brow was etched by Legado, if the curve in her cheek was sharpened by Tal Daray, or if the way her lips tilted was drawn by Fawn. Her face is entirely her own, but that is not to say the ones before her did not help to construct it. Placing what they thought she needed, letting the sun shine on her body until she gleamed gold. If it was them who brought her into this world when the sun was at its highest. If they all gave her such gifts, it was her mother who gave Elena her first breath.

She laughs, soprano notes, and sounds younger than she really is. “And you do not frighten the water when you shout?” Elena asks, there is an impish smile turning like a ballerina on her lips. “Hmmm tomorrow,” there is contemplation in the tilt of her chin, the roll of her blue eyes. “I suppose my guess would be that you wander, you wander, you wander some more,” she so refuses to let the humor die. “Before you come to a tree, the perfect tree in which to have a picnic under,” she says, the scene set, she is nearly satisfied as she adds one more touch. “You snack and look out and think about what a wonderful stroll you’ve taken.” Elena finishes. “But tomorrow’s tomorrow, now, that will be a day indeed, but I think I will keep it a secret for now.”

Excitement blossoms in her bones, tulips open in the white of them, unable to tell the difference between bones and snow. “I know you will,” she says sincerely. She cant quite explain it, but she thinks Asterion would try to harness the moon if the right person asked for it.

And the magic leaps before her very eyes, twists and turns. It dances and sparkles. It dives and frolics. She squeals like a child might during a game of hide and seek, when they finally seek what was hiding. A dorsal fin appears, and another, and another. Magic and life intermingle as the dolphins greet their dance partners of water and light. There is an echo of a memory that is not her own. When her own parents stood on a beach, watching a sight so similar to this one. “Thank you,” she breathes, watching the display. She leans against his shoulder, letting her weight rest against his own, she knew he was strong enough to hold her, he had to be. In that same instant though she suddenly realizes what she is doing, it is so familiar an action, one she hadn't done since she had been so small, resting against her father’s obsidian shoulder as they watched the fish jump out of the lake. She pushes herself off him, embarrassment making her grow hot. The embarrassment is an innocent as a child, and those blue eyes look at him with a child’s longing, an orphan’s longing. “Sorry, I’m—sorry.” Which is of course a lie, because she does not feel sorry at all for being near him. The more she looks, the more she sees her father in the line of his face and strength of his build, and she wonders if she is now seeing ghosts in strangers.

It’s been a long time.
She tells herself she is no longer grieving, she has made peace.

She lets herself believe it.

Elena watches the dolphins until the quiet, return back to wherever it is they go. Where they love, where they have children, where they grieve, where they try to find themselves and their pure. Wherever it is they go. She press a golden muzzle into his shoulder. It isn't a kiss so much as it is a butterfly landing upon a flower. “I have to be going,” she says suddenly, but it isn't said in such a sad way, just—at peace. “I am due at the hospital.” she says with something distant. “If you find yourself in Dusk, ask for me, I’m Elena,” she says and her voice sounds bright blue like her eyes. “Maybe I can give you a tour or something.”

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me



@Asterion




[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]

let's light this house on fire
we'll dance in the warmth of its blaze
pixel made by the amazing star





Played by [PM] Posts: N/A — Threads:
Asterion
Guest
#10

I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone

Back and back and back. He smiles, hearing that; there is something comforting about that line of ancestors, an unbroken chain who, for all their failures or victories, their rising and falling, succeeded in one thing at least. They carried on. Asterion wears a few of his mother’s stars, and the rich-earth color of his grandfather’s coat, and that is only the beginning. Back and back -

“Oh, the water shouts too,” he says, and thinks of the tumble and laugh of whitewater, or the thrash of waves, or the thunder as they pummeled the cliffside, patient enough to eat the rock away. “And I can’t imagine it’s frightened by anything.” Least of all himself, or any man.

But it is hard to think of the sea, or how small he is before it, as the palomino continues. His dark lips twitch into a smile that only grows broader as she speaks, until she says you snack and he laughs out loud. “I look forward to it,” he says, and means it.

They are not there for stories only, though he thinks he would spend an evening (a night, even, until tomorrow, or tomorrow’s tomorrow) turning from topic to topic with her as quickly and seamlessly as a school of fish turning. When the dolphins appear - the true ones - his sigh is laden with gratitude. It is followed, quickly, by a grin at her reaction, though he does not turn to look, this time. His focus remains on the saltwater creatures, on making them live, and even when she leans against him he only blinks in a moment of surprise. Oh, he thinks, how nice it is, to touch in a way that is not asking or expecting anything. This is what he would miss, if he were ever truly alone.

It isn’t until she pushes away, apologizing, that he looks at her and, for a moment, the dolphins he made fall back to foam. “Don’t be,” he says, but it is, perhaps, lost in the sound of the surf.

Eventually the dolphins go, as all things must. Eventually they are alone again, and when she touches his shoulder Asterion wishes it was something he could tuck away, and take out again in moments of need.

Any sadness in his smile is hidden by the reflection of the sunlight off the water when she offers him a tour of what had been his own court. “I will,” he promises. “Thank you, Elena. For letting me share the beach with you.”

When she is gone, he remains in the ocean for a long time, but the dolphins do not return.


@Elena
Asterion.
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