The night sky reflected quietly in the glassy waters. 'Look, Altair, it's like you're walking on the sky,' she mused quietly to her companion, emeralds intently watching the cerndyr slip silently through the starry waters. He glanced to his star swathed bonded, smiling and bumping his muzzle against her shoulder amicably. 'So do you,' he responded softly.

The maiden smiled back, moving her ebony legs rhythmically, accelerating her gait and leaving her companion to leap lackadaisically behind the Haruspex. Here, amongst starry waters and crisp, night airs, all her problems felt far away. Here, she was the moon, the wind, the sky, the stars, the galaxy, the cosmos, and everything in between. She was nothing, and everything, a phantasm that everyone could see.

It was only when her lungs began to scream for air and fatigue infected her legs that she slowed her pace, and was reminded of her body, of her transience. However, Frost remained determined to keep the worries of today for tomorrow. Her cloven hooves came to a standstill, her tiara tilted towards the moon, emeralds transfixed on the sky.

"Altair!" she called behind her, speaking to him aloud, an abnormal action for the maiden. "Do you remember all the constellations?" her lyrics were soft and joyful, her expression the same. The cerndyr replied with a snort, finally catching up to her side and tilting his own diadem at the sky to recite the constellations he remembered.

--

for @Astarot <3

'Andromeda, Antila, Apus, Agua...Aqua?' The stag grunted, his silver gaze slipping from the sky to his hooves, defeat weighing on his brow. The mottled maiden smiled sympathetically at her companion. 'Aquarius,' she piped, holding back a laugh. A dejected sigh fell from the cerndyr's lips as he lifted his diadem once again, preparing to recite the rest he knew.

He found himself incapable to go on, however, for a bit of incessant splashing disrupted his concentration. Frost's ears flicked back, taking note of the presence of another as well. She tilted her tiara over her shoulder, dark lips parting slightly, emerald's inquisitive, prepared to behold a more formidable sight than the one she was met by.

A boy.

His eyes, one of the noontime sky and one of a flesh wound, lingered on her tail. She self consciously wound it around her hind leg, wondering what had driven the bone marked boy to approach her. They listened quietly, with dainty ears pressed forward, relaxed smiles on their dark lips. Her heart fell when the boy asked her what a constellation was, but she wasn't surprised. She learned of the sky from the dream drunk lips of a squalid nomad she met on one of her ventures outside Helovia's borders. Part of her regretted leaving him without a goodbye, the other part of her regretted not leaving sooner.

No matter, 'the moment is now,' she reminded herself quietly, removing her tail from it's tangle around her leg to beckon the boy closer. She raised her horn once more, emeralds scouring the night sky. "When you look at the night sky, what do you see? The stars? Our Lady, the Moon? I see a map. The sky is divided into sections, into groups of stars that connect into pictures, into beings." She paused. "There," the Haruspex exclaimed, eyes alight and lips turned in a grandeur smile as she gestured toward a dazzling little group of stars, "that's Cassiopeia, the Queen! It looks like a zig zag. A friend told me that long, long ago the Queen Cassiopeia bragged that she and her daughters were more beautiful than all the Goddesses and all the Goddesses' daughters. Of course, the Queen's arrogance angered the Goddesses tremendously. As punishment, the Gods hung Cassiopeia in the sky to be humiliated for all eternity." Her lyrics never lost their exuberance, even though the tale itself was a disheartening one, she was happy to tell it.

Frost turned her dark head back to Astarot, a grin still settled on her dark lips. "My name's Frost Fyre, Haruspex of the Aurora Basin. You can call me Frost," She declared at last. A wet nudge on her shoulder and a grunt from her companion caused the unicorn to roll her eyes at the attention seeking cerndyr. "And this is Altair, my companion," she added as the rune encrusted elk stepped away from her side to give the boy a friendly grunt and dip of his head.

@Astarot ^^