When Terrastella comes into view, she might have wept tears of joy had she not been so exhausted -- she has missed her home fiercely, between her time in Denocte and in Delumine, and her brief stay there for Asterion’s meeting had not been enough to ease the ache in her bones. The scent of salt in the air is a homecoming, her feet stumbling only slightly when she finally lands on the cobbled streets, and she ignores every strange look from the others at how her flank still lazily oozes blood every time the muscle flexes.
The wounds will heal, as they have always done -- already the blood is hardening, forming a protective layer over the tender flesh.
It’s almost instinct, what drives her towards the Halcyon base, towards the cadet buildings where they often sleep two or four to a room. Her new title is still a yet-to-be in her mind, something on the tip of her tongue -- at heart, she will always be Halcyon first, reporting home to the crowded halls no matter how the other cadets might stare. Before she can collapse in her bed, however, there is still a visit to be made -- she had, after all, been sent to Delumine on Halcyon orders.
“Commander,” She murmurs when she finally reaches the doorway of Marisol’s office, dark smudges beneath her lavender eyes, and she does her best to swallow the blush that threatens to engulf her cheeks. The commander has seen her vulnerable in so many ways, sprawled out on her knees and muttering fever-truths, and it’s a terrifying thing to stand in her doorway and pretend like none of it has ever happened.
She wishes she could face it, but Marisol is still the commander, and she is still the cadet -- except now… she isn’t, is she? They’ve reached some sort of shaky ground, here, where they are both in charge of each other, and she finds it suddenly hard to swallow past the lump in her throat.
“Atreus was successfully delivered to Delumine, although I’m sure you’ve heard reports of his welcome there by now. The seeds and supplies sent were also delivered into King Somnus’ grateful hands.” She settles for reciting her report, instead, although she is sure Marisol knows much of it already -- but there is something to be said for how soothing habit could be, when one was trying to avoid words they shouldn’t say.
Marisol is bent over a map of Novus when the hoofsteps approach her office, and if she does hear them, she pays them no notice. War is on the forefront of her mind. She has heard too many stories about the Ghost overtaking Solterra and the rebellion already brewing underneath the sand to feel comfortable resting; instead she has been poring over old battle reports and scrawling little markers on the Halcyon map in charcoal, pinning places where their border is not properly watches, drawing thick bars over what needs protection most.
So she is startled to hear her title called from the doorway, and more startled still that she had not expected it.
Theodosia, she responds slowly. (If there was ever a time to be thankful for the darkness of Marisol’s coat it is now, as she feels heat start to coil in her gut, as the blood rushes to her face.) Cadets pass back and forth behind Theodosia, swarming the hallway, and she does not miss the way they peer in and remark on the scene to each other, quiet as they think they are being.
Before she can think to say anything else the cadet is giving her report, and the Commander is civilized enough not to interrupt her, if only barely. She nods absently. I am glad you were successful. Mari opens her mouth, then shuts it again: what is there to say that would not cross a line, either professional or social? For a brief moment, silence stretches over the office.
The charcoal in her telekinetic grasp starts to crumble.
Have you recovered? Marisol asks finally, with a stiff nod toward the gash on Theodosia’s flank. The hinge in her jaw tenses a little; even so, the steel of the Commander’s gaze remains blissfully even.
She can feel the eyes on her back, scraping over each open wound like daggers, can hear the whispers of the cadets at her back -- she knows she is poised on the edge of a knife, so thin is the line she walks between Champion and Halcyon, between the camaraderie she once craved and the respect she must earn now. Her future is a series of winding paths in a maze, tangled in a snarling mass of vines, and somehow just the sight of Marisol scratching at a Halcyon border map (an expected action -- solid earth beneath her feet when she isn’t quite sure where she is treading) is enough to chase away the exhaustion constantly nipping at her heels.
When she clears the doorway, she shuts the door behind her with a more decisive ‘snap’ than she quite means to, staring for the briefest moment at the wood and wondering if it might be that easy to block out her own doubt in herself.
“Yes,” she answers back even when she knows it is a blatant lie -- the wounds are still fresh enough to be tender, but there is no time for recovery, not when there are whispers of war on the winds, not when a ghost threatens to consume everything in his wake, not when the scars of the disasters are still so fresh in her mind. There will be time to rest later, she tells herself, and she knows herself well enough to know that she is lying.
She steps forward to peer at the map laying across the desk with pale, keen eyes, and their shoulders brush in the limited space of the office -- there is a deep hunger gnawing in her stomach, an inferno between her ribs, an ache in her chest that she can’t quite place her finger on, words on her tongue that she dares not speak, and so she swallows them down like razor wire.
“Where would you place me?” She asks instead, staring down at the map as though it might hold a secret to how to manage straddling her two worlds, or how to navigate the minefield that only seems to grow between the two of them by the day. She wonders if Marisol can hear the question between her words -- am I still useful here? -- even as she waits to be told that the Halcyon is no longer her concern.
She thinks that hearing those words might gut her in a way knives never could.
The sound of the door closing is the sound of an ending. The hoofsteps and the whispers and the clattering fade away behind the slab of oak, and Marisol almost flinches at the volume as it latches in place.
She watches Theodosia cross the room with large, dark eyes; the dim light webs the cadet’s pale skin with ribs and circles, so that in some places she is lavender, violet, then pure white. There is no space to run. To hide. Even if she could, it would go against every second of her training. The word run makes her teeth itch, foreign and bizarre as it is to even say.
But it takes immense effort not to lean away when Theo’s shoulder brushes her, even more to keep her breath steady. Every time they touch she is reminded of the night they spent together, and the acid that bubbled up in her throat, and the smell of lavender, and it is nearly impossible, even for her, to ignore that bone-deep memory.
Marisol forces herself to focus on the map, the dips and grooves and greens and blues. She recognizes everything. Her homeland, her well-being, her own deeply botched sense of duty. And so when Theodosia asks her where would you place me? Marisol wants and wants and wants to say here, right next to me, and clenches her teeth and pushes it down.
It seems likely, now, Mari starts carefully, not moving her eyes from the detail of the map, that Asterion would place you, and not I. Her inhale is measured and steely, but beneath that, deep, deep beneath, something like bitterness reverberates in her voice. <3
She has never been entirely stupid -- a bit too reckless, even now, perhaps with a strong lack of caution, a startling disregard for common sense -- she is starting to catch the way Marisol reacts to her very presence, and she wonders if the commander has the same memory running through her head of that night.
(The thought makes static roll from her wings, close enough that any time they touch, Marisol can likely feel the literal sparks -- she has trapped herself in here by closing the door, and she’s starting to wonder if maybe that was a mistake. Her tongue feels like a traitor, like she might only be able to bite back the words she wishes to say for so long -- they burn the back of her throat like ozone caught by a storm.)
She aches for Terrastella, for the land that has been ravished and rebuilt, spread out before them on a map -- for the kingdom she has vowed to protect, no matter how much her opinion of their goddess might be in turmoil.
“I didn’t ask Asterion,” She rebutes, and she is starting to catch the edge of bitterness buried in the commander’s voice, starting to realize that maybe she can walk the thin line she has been presented with, and she dares to press closer to the Commander, to stare her down with eyes pale against the bright crimson of the ragged warpaint splashed across her face.
“I asked you, Commander -- where would you place me?”
She pauses, and it feels as though the static builds across her wings, rippling out across her back and digging into the wounds at her hip and shoulder -- she does not flinch, does not break her stare, even as her traitorous tongue speaks once more.
Oh, they have both crossed lines they shouldn’t have, and only now is Marisol realizing it.
She regards the lack of space between them bitterly, with gray eyes turned dark like coal. The room seems to have chilled a few degrees, or darkened, maybe. If she can feel the way sparks roll from Theodosia’s skin, it would be impossible to tell: she does not flinch, or turn, or blink, too stubbornly invested in her own stoicness. Stupid girl! All her training has been wasted on her, thanks to that errant animal heart. Even with the bit in her mouth she has learned to bite -
And now she has put everything in danger for one dark, reckless kiss, and after these lines have been crossed, it is bit or be bitten, and she aches at the thought of choosing either.
I didn’t ask Asterion. Marisol’s dark lip curls in the barest facsimile of a snarl. She feels the heat of the white stripes on her wing like a wildfire: she is commander, and Theodosia is cadet, and it should be - is - forbidden for a cadet to talk to her like that. Like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Like she doesn’t know what’s best. All these years talking to God and bleeding gold just to be disrespected like this, oh, it makes her stomach turn, it makes her want for war.
Marisol has failed in her duties, utterly and entirely, if even her soldiers have not learned to be afraid of her.
Or she is simply getting too soft.
Those slate-gray eyes simmer like magma, like stone in an earthquake, and Mari’s ears tip oh-so-delicately back toward her skull; her gaze narrows, dark lashes and nostrils flaring in affront; when she speaks it is terse and pithy and carries even less than her usual tact. And I said that it is no longer my decision. There is no argument against it. She seethes in the way only a soldier can - silently, imperceptibly, with grit jaw and steely breath.
I have failed if you still believe this is more important than duty, she adds at last, and nods to the places where they almost-touch with cold disappointment. <3
The sparks roll across her wings, faster now, and there is something dark and vicious that rears up inside her ribcage -- and she had thought nothing could be more painful than her almost-death and the fever that had burned through her veins, until she has faced the cold weight of the Commander’s disappointment in her. It’s a sharp, sudden jolt to her heart, bleeding ichor inside her chest as though it might wash away the sudden bile in the back of her throat.
She had known, after all, that she was playing with fire -- she should have expected it to burn. She hadn’t, and it was her own foolish fault she is in this predicament.
“Of course. My apologies.” She grits out instead of all the words she bites back, the bitter howl of haven’t I done enough to prove myself to you? that echoes inside her ears. She pulls herself away from the bay mare, tucking her wings neatly against her sides and pulling her head up, her stance all tense lines and battle-ready -- standing at attention as she furiously shoves every bit of hurt away until her face is devoid of any sort of emotion.
“May I be dismissed, Commander?”
She can lick her wounds later, in the privacy of the air above the Sea or perhaps by bleeding them out on the training grounds -- for now, she only hopes to salvage the tattered remains of her pride.
The space that erupts between them when Theodosia steps away is abrupt and uncomfortable. Marisol watches the inches widen with a dull kind of disappointment, the soft frown on her lips speaking of regret - though if it is for the harshness of her words or the initial lapse in judgement that lead them to this, even she can’t tell. Everything that brought them here has slowly started to feel like a terrible idea. But what is there to do about it now?
Nothing, but watch and let it consume. The sparks fade from Marisol’s skin and the pulse of dread in her chest fades into silence. She sets her jaw. May I be dismissed, Commander, asks Theodosia, and Marisol meets her eyes with a slate-gray gaze both sorry and sharp. She is not sure what to say. Forgive me? But she is not sorry. Stay? But she must go, or condemn them both to failure. There is no ending here. that does not involve something broken or hurt; Marisol should be used to that by now, but it still hasn’t quite tamed her.
Yes, she answers. The word is rough and low. It burns in her throat like she has swallowed something unsavory, pouring bile into the back of her mouth until it stings even in her nostrils. The darkness of the office is suddenly as oppressive as it is omniscient; it knows her - the traitorous heart, the bright dread in her veins, how every muscle begs to be released.
No one else has to, though. Thank you, finishes the Commander tightly, and with one last wary glance turns back to her papers. <3
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