[P] rebuild our cities, not dream of islands

[Marisol]




KING ORESTES OF SOLTERRA:

The sea tells me that she knows you. 

Here we are called kelpies. Here we are not entirely unrebuked. Here we come out teeth-first, or at least that’s what the children are told. Forgive me for my surprise that the prince of the desert might have once been a water-horse. The grace of the gods is one that comes with its teeth in irony, I’m finally beginning to realize. 

All this to say: if there is a day you need to come home, Terrastella’s shores are open.

Our last sovereign is presumed dead. The one before that lost her memory. The one before that has been missing for years. We have faced monsters, and magic, and untold disaster. My name is Marisol Ibarra, and I am the last of my people with mind and body enough to lead them. 

I think—I hope—you can see that now that, for all our differences, our homes have faced strifes as parallel as veins in a leaf. 

I will not grieve in advance your reply, tempting though it is: instead I wait in thrice-gorged hope that you seek the same thing I do—peace for our homes, at least a truce, perhaps an alliance. An understanding. There is war enough in our world already. I am not tempted to add to it. 

I speak ahead of myself; forgive it. But you must understand that from the youngest I have only been brave, never lucky, and the subtleties my people expect of me are behaviors I have not quite learned yet. I did not think this was my fate. If I had, I would have prepared my life differently. But fate goes ever as it must.

So, like you yourself, the shape of the offer is, I suppose, whatever you’d like it to be. Mere ceasefire. An entente. Anything that might put the world some more at peace, which I hope is not out of line for me to say I think we could both use.

King Orestes of Solterra, the sea tells me that she knows you, and she says good things.

—MARISOL OF TERRASTELLA

[Orestes]




MARISOL, THE LADY OF DUSK: 

I have heard you have eyes like slate, and you are a warrior. 

The rumour is you approached the Commander of the Halcyon as a child and told him, “You need me.” That is not a bad legacy, and it seems as if you have not stopped telling your Court that since the first day. 

I appreciate any offer from someone so steeped in honour to return home to their shores. Perhaps one day when we are both old and grey, I may be able to accept it. For now, we will talk tragedy and peace. I am sorry to hear how your past Sovereigns have faired; and I wish you a different fate. You must be aware of the current state of affairs in Solterra post-Raum. Only recently have those turned to stone by his basilisk become flesh and blood again. I am the only one who has stepped forward to attempt and rein in the chaos; so far there is an unsteady peace, borne more of lingering fear and fatigue than my own ability. Soon I hope to find a Regent, and an Emissary, worthy of the Solterra I envision for the future. 

And what I envision for our future is not fire and brimstone, tragedy and pride. I would very much like to meet and discuss your suggestions in a more personal setting, and see what terms of peace we come to. Perhaps, for once, we may be able to grasp our own fates, if only for a little while, and steer them toward a safer horizon. Would it not be the greatest gift we could bestow to our people, if only one generation might grow up in peace rather than despair? 

I apologise I cannot send an Emissary or a Regent, or truly leave my Court with any sense of security over how matters will be handled in my absence. Therefore, I would like to extend an invitation to you to visit Solterra, Marisol of Terrastella. There is no Emissary or honour guard to guide you; but if you so choose to accept, I will send my personal courtier, Charles and his bonded—a Harris hawk—to guide you through the Mors. None are so skilled as they. It is where they were raised. 

Perhaps I can share with you my stories of the sea. It is where I was born and the stories belong now more to you than to I. But more than that: I hope to know if the rumours are true, and if your eyes are the colour of slate and if you, like me, feel called to proclaim again and again, “You need me.” Perhaps we have very few differences, indeed. 

And for what it is worth, Marisol of Terrastella, bravery is worth more than luck. 

—ORESTES OF SOLTERRA