The sensuality of the sea draws ardor from him in the same way a fresh wound draws blood; it dances; it covets; it rises in eagerness only to withdraw with shy sensualism. Perhaps Orestes asked her here for that very reason. The fickleness reflects their tentative affection; bold to reticent, outright to withheld. There are questions he assumes she will ask, perhaps on his prolonged absence or distant nature. It is not her, but a part of him riles with envy and the question whether her skin will smell like salt.
Orestes might explain more if only he knew how; if only he understood it himself. Instead he waits, and hopes she comes. Instead he waits, and stares at an impassive sea, one that flirts at his ankles, one backed by Terrastella’s ominous cliffs. They are just dark enough to evoke something primitive within him; a visceral fear, tied in no comprehensive thought, only the feeling he should be afraid of such a height, such a jagged edge…
Yet Orestes waits at their base, on a small beach that during high-tide must become nothing more than more sea. There is no sand; instead, rocks shift under-hoof. His eyes follow careening gulls; and then the sea; and then the sky. Ariel lounges on a distant rock spire; he, for once, is not luminous. Out of Solis’s territory and beneath the undercast Terrastellan sky, the Sun Lion looks nearly nondescript. He says nothing, but Orestes knows his thoughts are dubious. Matters of romance, to the lion, appear a waste of time. But Orestes cannot agree—although there is a part of him deeply uncomfortable in front of the spring sea, in another Sovereign’s land, with a creeping apprehension of the cliffs shadowing him.
Please come, he thinks. The invitation, sent by raven, had been brief. But they had minimal interactions since Orestes—
Well, since…
He swallows. The gulls careen overhead. The sea goes shush, shush, shush.
"Good sense comes the hard way. And the grace of the gods (I'm pretty sure) is a grace that comes by violence."
When the raven arrives, it feels like nothing more or less than a bad dream.
How can Marisol be sure she is awake? Already night is here, the world gone silent, and the sky steely with a thick film of clouds and foggy rain. The candles in her windowsill barely make a dent against the darkness. She is reading when it comes, but dozing off, only retaining bits and pieces, the pages and the carefully printed words swimming every time her eyes flutter open and closed. The soft drumming of the rain is better than music; her heartbeat is slow, so slow, and her blood has finally ceased boiling.
But then there is a sound. A sharp, hard knock. Mari startles upward, and from the other side of the window a bird is staring with beady dark eyes, a limp letter tied to its leg. Rain sloughs off all those layers of black feathers as it sits impatiently on the windowsill. A moment of dark, cool silence, then—of candlelight flickering, of the sovereign’s heart pounding in her chest.
Another knock of the beak against the glass.
She shoots up, pushes the window open and somewhat carelessly pulls the letter from the birds leg; within a heartbeat the bird is off again, frazzled and maybe a little irritated by her unusual shortness. But Marisol is already distracted by the loopy script and the name signed at the bottom.
You have many questions, Anselm remarks as they pick their way down toward the stormy beach. More than usual, sighs Mari.
The sky is still overcast, the world colored in moody mauves and grays. On the thin strip of sand below, Mari’s pulse races at the sight of Orestes, an ambiguous dark blot buffeted inconsistently by the rolling waves. Her heart beats a warning against the inside of her throat. Her blood races; by the time the Commander hits the sand her whole body is on-and-off, patchily numb, strangled by adrenaline and pain and anger.
Marisol is trembling when she comes to a stop, overwhelmed and underimpressed by the sight of him, nothing more than a man with his feet in the sea.
It does not suit a king to pine so, Ariel comments as Orestes catches sight of her, a dark silhouette nearly indistinguishable from the cliffside. He watches steadily as she nears. I cannot help it, Orestes thinks. You know that.
And Ariel, from where he lounges, rises only to recline again on his haunches. The lion possesses enough impassive majesty for the both of them, as he appraises Marisol’s gradual approach. A bleeding heart for anyone and everything.
Orestes says nothing; whatever courage he possessed drains from the expression she wears, the slight and nearly imperceptible tremble of her limbs. He would like to convince himself it is the brisk breeze that evokes such a reaction; he would like to convince himself it has nothing to do with him. But everything is in her voice when she says where have you been.
Although the golden sovereign cannot pinpoint how he knows or when it happened, Orestes is quite certain this is not the first time in his life he has disappointed someone he cares deeply for. It will not be the last.
“I have no worthy answer.”
Nothing more than a man with his feet in the sea.
It is true.
Orestes feels very small beneath the cliffs; he feels even smaller beneath her gaze.
At last he sighs and the sound is quiet, broken. “I woke up one day this winter and couldn't remember where I came from.” Orestes glances towards the sea, unable to hold her gaze. He is not the same man as when they first met. “My memories were tied to magic belonging to a different world and… they’ve been fading all along. Now? I only remember waking up on the shore. I’ve been trying… to remember… and the harder I try the more it seems to vanish...”
Orestes trails off, a dreamer’s voice—and then abruptly he is brought back to the present. When he glances at her, his expression is raw.
He has mentioned this to no one else. That vulnerability frightens him. But rather than voice the fear, he says:
“But that does not excuse my distance from you, Marisol.” He would apologise, but Orestes knows there are things that cannot be said sorry for. There are things the only answer to is ownership and so he stands, ready for a storm.
"Good sense comes the hard way. And the grace of the gods (I'm pretty sure) is a grace that comes by violence."
Marisol does not meet Ariel’s eyes—she is too distracted by the sight of the golden sovereign—but the weight of his gaze drags her further and further down into the sand, until she is not sure she is breathing at all, or even that she can. His look is cold, judgmental; he must be thinking of her with disdain. Who is this girl that thinks she can kill a king, or bring him to his knees?
When she swallows, it is painful against the dry scratch in her throat. The sky, a dark blue-gray, presses in far too close for comfort. And Marisol is not sure she has any right to feel this way, but she feels it anyway: heartbroken. Lonely. Even though he is standing but a few yards ahead of her.
I don’t know you at all, she thinks, and the realization—true or not—sends a spear of ice all the way through her chest and out of her ribs on the other side.
Marisol flinches. Her eyes half-close against the cold, dim light that streams from overhead, and in her vision Orestes suddenly is little more than a puddle of gold, burning bright against the muted, pale sand. The roar in her ears might be the sound of the waves tumbling over one another, or it might be blood. The difference would not really matter.
She would like to be angry. She is, a little. But oh, the look in his eyes—how could anyone ever be mad at him? He is at least as heartbroken as she is, maybe more. He is the only person she has ever met who understood at first glance that underneath the steel-gray eyes, underneath the battered skin, she is softer than almost everyone. He understands this because he is the same way, and how can she fault him for that and still want to be loved?
His eyes will kill her. The sad, tired turn of his lips. The way his ears fall back, the very small sound of his voice. It will all kill her.
I couldn’t remember where I came from, says the small voice. The harder I try the more it seems to vanish. The hinge in Marisol’s jaw is aching now, her eyes are prickling with unwanted warmth; she thinks of her mother in the slums, of gravestones, of rose bouquets, of thunder and Asterion. But that does not excuse my distance from you.
“Well,” Marisol says quietly. Her mane, grown out longer than she ever meant to let it, grows snarled in the salty wind, and she blinks hard to clear her vision. “Of course it does. You only have to tell me.”
Ariel, as he watches the scene unfold, comes to intimately know the weakness of man.
It is love.
He feels it through their Bond; the sudden, elated palpitations of the heart, the childlike nervousness that floods his Sovereign. What is any girl, if not an element to bring a man to his knees? What is any man, if not an object to incite the weakest sentiments of love and devotion in a woman? Among his kind, “love” is a the devotion of a mother to her cub and that is all. Perhaps that is why his disdain becomes analytic. It is only one more pitfall to guard his Bonded against.
Ariel, quietly this time through their Bond, more a suggestion of a thought than a real thought: She is only a girl, Orestes. Do not allow her to bring you to heel like a pup. But Ariel knows he will not listen; it is one of the few moments when the Sun Lion doubts Solis’s choice of Sovereign; one of the few moments if he wonders the over-wrought, empathetic heart that exists within Orestes’s chest is not, in fact, a great and terrible shame. Ariel turns from the pair, retreating to a more hidden alcove as Orestes begins his admission.
And Orestes feels that over-wrought, empathetic heart—the one that may be a great and terrible shame—turn in his chest. A figure of speech, of course; but it feels as if it beats in his throat, as if it makes his words come out choked. He expects condemnation.
More importantly, he wants it. If Orestes has earned anything, it is for someone he cares deeply about to look him in the eye and say, nothing is okay, nothing can ever be okay again.
But she doesn’t. And in that refrain there is a fierce duality; he feels relief like he has never known and guilt that is insurmountable.
Well, of course it does. You only have to tell me. Then, she steps close.
In that moment, it is the relief Orestes chooses to take hold of.
His eyes are full of her and nothing else; even the sea seems dim when she steps close, and the smell of her city assaults him in a way he does not terribly mind. It is the first time he has thought that perhaps, all along, Terrastella has been more suited for his disposition. Orestes still has trouble meeting her eyes; but at last he raises them, to say, “I am very sorry it has taken me so long to find the words.” There is a break in his voice, like striking flint. He feels himself come just a little more undone; and in that unravelling is, for the first time in weeks, a strange respite.
Orestes holds her eyes, steady, steady, blue to gray. Are they not the sea and the overcast clouds, together? He presses the soft spot of his nose to her neck, to her mane, longer than he has ever seen it. In his softest voice yet, he admits, “I’m not sure I know who I am any longer, Marisol.”
"Good sense comes the hard way. And the grace of the gods (I'm pretty sure) is a grace that comes by violence."
Marisol will not—cannot—pretend she understands.
She has always known who she is. Often she has hated it. More often than she would like to admit, even. But even the hatred was real because it was a kind of knowing; surety that I am this, and this, and this. I am these many horrible and disappointing things I will never grow out of.
But still. That is its own kind of conviction, and a stronger bond than Marisol has with almost anything (anyone) else.
Nothing is okay. That is true enough. Every night the world falls apart, strained at the places it fell apart the last time and black-eye bruised. The shaking of it renders her sleepless; recently she has been dizzy with insomnia, paranoid that the earth will give way, that the walls will collapse in, that the sky will split in two. The apocalypse feels increasingly inevitable. To live in this world is to take a long walk off a short pier.
Every night the world falls apart. Every morning it is just strong enough to stand and withstand being knocked down again. Nothing is okay. Certainly.
But it might be tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that; and this small, fearful knot of stubborn optimism is what Marisol feels most strongly when she looks at him, a conviction that in scientific terms, even the impossible is bound to happen at some point in the future.
When the Commander steps closer it is with an uncharacteristic nervousness. Her heart trembles lightly in her chest, its pulse a weak, flighty thing like a hummingbird. Even caught in the brisk seaside air her skin feels far too hot, her muscles wound up far too tight; and when she catches the blue shine of his eyes straight on it feels like dying. Like losing your footing on the edge of a cliff, like swallowing against the silver of a blade; like surrendering, surrendering, surrendering.
The sea roars behind them, and Marisol cannot help but wonder (with a sinking feeling) which one of them he would choose, if he had to.
She is still overwhelmed by that sinking feeling at the moment he reaches out to touch her. For a brief moment her body fights a civil war over what to feel—disgusted with herself for wanted to ask such a question, horrified that she feels so possessive, relieved that he has still chosen to want her—but at last her posture loosens, drawn out of its stiffness by the pleasantly unfamiliar feeling of Orestes’ nose against the arch of her neck. Mari blows out a long-held breath that ruffles his salt-caked hair.
For a moment there is nothing but the comforting weight of his head resting on her shoulder, the empty woosh of wind. Clouds turn the sunlight a soft dove-gray. Behind them the ocean rises and falls, rises and falls, moans and sighs, and she squeezes her eyes closed, overwhelmed.
“I know who you are,” Mari says finally, softly. “And—I love him."
The confirmation of her love should be what assures him; it should be the thing that seals all his cracks as if with concrete, to prevent the bleeding of his heart, the fissures of his soul. But the affirmation causes his guilt, his sorrow, to well. In a voice thick with emotion, Orestes says, “Thank you.” There is some comfort in the fact she smells of anything but the desert; but the sea will not leave them, he knows, and in the constant song of the ocean at his flank—he wonders if he has failed his ultimate atonement, which is suffering. Does loving her means he loves the others less? Orestes still knows these things: he had been a guardian, a keeper of souls. They had trusted him, and he had loved them, and Fate had given him an impossible mission; he could not save them and, even knowing that, Orestes still believes he could have. If only he had done something differently—if only he had tried harder…
And now, all of that is gone not only in actuality but in memory. Who was he meant to save? What could he have done differently? Would the forgetting mean he was destined to repeat the same mistakes, only with Solterra to fail this time?
But Marisol says she knows him.
But Marisol says she loves him.
Even knowing he does not deserve it, Orestes’s relishes the sentiment. He pressed, now, his forehead against her; he inhales her warm scent and after a long moment the tension ebbs from his shoulders. Orestes chooses to accept it; Orestes chooses to believe, quite fragilely, that he deserves this love. Despite everything. Despite what he can remember, or can’t. Despite Solterra. Despite Terrastella. Despite the gods, and magics, and everything that can and does go wrong.
After a long moment, Orestes opens his eyes. “Thank you,” he repeats, more strongly, and draws away so as to meet her gaze. “I love you, too.”
He loves her as one loves salvation; as one loves the raft upon which they cling. Yet Orestes does not admit that; nor does he even, perhaps, realise it.
“Perhaps—“ he hesitates, before regaining confidence. “--Let us return to the cliffs above? Maybe we can visit your Court, and—“ he does not say, hope it does not go as poorly as last time. For the first time he allows a delicate, mischievous edge to take over his expression. “Perhaps I can make up for lost times.”
Meanwhile, Ariel has already begun his journey up the cliffside. In his own emotion, the Sun Lion glows too brightly to look at directly; and through their bond Orestes feels not only his disapproval, but his anger. Orestes's bonded has expressed more than once his disapproval for the relationship; yet there is something, too, like a momentary blockage between them.
Ariel will never admit that while Orestes cannot remember, Ariel does through their bond. Everything Orestes had felt, had known, had transferred to the Sun Lion. But how could Ariel admit he knew, intimately, all of Orestes's past?
It was better left dead; and so the lion leaves and Orestes ignores the tension between them choosing, instead, to smile even as he knows, deeply, and fearfully, just how fragile such happiness is.
"Good sense comes the hard way. And the grace of the gods (I'm pretty sure) is a grace that comes by violence."
Nothing has ever been so beautiful as the man she is in love with.
And perhaps she did not even know she was in love with him until now, at least not in a way that dared to rise up against the black weight of duty that holds her mind so tight; but when she manages to say it, without even thinking of what she will say before it comes out of her mouth, it makes sense. It sinks into her like teeth. The weight, though not lifted, is shifted to the side to make room for that feeling. Marisol’s pulse pounds hard in her chest and her mouth runs dry.
I am in love with him, and he is so beautiful. Her heart swells in her chest until it is the only thing she can feel, pulsating viciously, making her whole body throb—and she is cowed into silence just by really, truly looking at him.
His eyes, a darker, truer blue than she has ever seen of the sea. The statuesque slope of his cheek, the way his throat moves when he speaks in a voice stretched so tight Marisol fears it might break. The smell of the desert follows him the way waves follow the light of the moon. Wind ruffles his hair into a cap of white seafoam, his face briefly caught up by the storm of it, the curve of his lips briefly hidden, and in this moment she can do nothing but think with a heart-sinking dread of the day he will leave her, or she him.
Her body runs cold, then numb, then goes completely lights-out. The world blasts open like the unfurling smoke of an explosion and Marisol recognizes at last that it is bigger than she will ever have time for. It kills her. Right now she is dying. Right now she is in the awful moment of realization, the feeling of the bullet hitting before the sound of it reaches you, of watching the sword be unsheathed, of knowing you will die and doing nothing about it.
Marisol bites her lip. Iron seeps from her tongue. Thank you, he says, and—
her heart plunges out of her mouth and through the bottom of her chest and into the dark, cool, center of the earth, where so many of her ancestors have been laid to rest.
But then: Thank you. I love you, too. And the blood rushes back into her head and her heart soars back up from the dirt to meet it, and Marisol smiles the trembling, nervous smile of someone just saved from the guillotine. Her eyes glow dark with relief. There is no other version of this story, she tries to remind herself; but it is useless against the overwhelming tide of a feeling like deliverance that washes over her in that next breath. There is no other version of this story, she dares to think, except, maybe, this one.
He presses his forehead against hers. The bite of the wind fades away and Marisol can feel nothing but the stubborn, living warmth he exudes, the light of the sun intermingled with the light of the body.
Something gnaws at her. Something with teeth, a deep-seated knowledge of how many ways this could go wrong. For a moment it sinks into her and shakes like a dog would do with the carcass of a rabbit; for a moment in makes her blood run cold.
But they have both suffered enough. “Yes,” she says anyway, and turns to lead him back into the city. “Let’s.”
![[Image: ddg6quy-9d15dab5-339c-4b09-8b57-20a99fda...jvUop12efQ]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/c175b84a-409b-40aa-8b86-49ed65b989ee/ddg6quy-9d15dab5-339c-4b09-8b57-20a99fda550e.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2MxNzViODRhLTQwOWItNDBhYS04Yjg2LTQ5ZWQ2NWI5ODllZVwvZGRnNnF1eS05ZDE1ZGFiNS0zMzljLTRiMDktOGI1Ny0yMGE5OWZkYTU1MGUucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.j-t9RuUsmMyaVL-O1rvZqbyyPYdOvtjHLjvUop12efQ)
