Matteo Sun

Story so far

Matteo receives Darrow in the concealed asteroid hangar with a hug rather than a military screen. Beautiful and courtly even in the bleak facility, he has watched the Archimedes since it entered the Belt and immediately makes time for what the desperate visitor has lost. He sees Mercury's scars rather than averting his gaze, then mourns Theodora, Orion, Alexandar au Arcos, and Dancer with the personal understanding of someone who knew Darrow when he had first been remade into a Gold. His words let Darrow allow grief rather than harden against it.

Matteo also brings Darrow and Sevro to Quicksilver's study and gently restrains Quicksilver's instinct to withhold the truth. When Darrow asks for the war resources hidden in the asteroid, Matteo says that their friends deserve to be shown the project even if they will hate it. His loyalty is not passive obedience to his husband; he holds Quicksilver to the agreement that Darrow must understand why they chose this course.

That course is the Tabula Rasa, the self-contained generation ship where Matteo and Quicksilver's unmarked children grow among trees and automated teachers. Matteo presents it as a future in which their children are simply human rather than Color-bound. The tenderness he extends to Darrow's dead and the tenderness he extends to these children are the same moral impulse, though its consequence is to leave the present war without the help Darrow came seeking.

Appearance

A slender, beautiful Pink with shell-smooth pale skin, jasmine-scented darker hair, and sunset-pink eyes. He looks more suited to a Venusian court than a stark asteroid hangar, but his composed grace carries genuine intimacy and resolve.

Role

Matteo is the refuge's humane conscience, ensuring Darrow is seen in his grief and told the truth about the radical future he and Quicksilver have chosen.

Relationships