THE ARCHIATER.
They eat at her, the memories of the festival, as she walks.
In Marisol’s head plays looping images of torches and candlelight, of flowers tied with ribbon and wax, of the bodies that she pushed through, so callous, so uncaring, and would never see again - it eats at her, physically, a sharp, hot gnawing in the pit of her stomach. The Dusk Court is a prison now. After that disastrous meeting with Florentine, the whole of Terrastella has descended into quiet and gloom. When citizens pass each other in the streets they look away, only mumbling their hellos; the Court itself is silent and unwalked, the streets empty in the darkness of an unexpected summer storm.
How strange, she thinks, to love something. If even briefly.
The coolness permanent on her features is the sharp-edged work of a desperate illusionist, one so good at her work that it is natural now, that she has grown poor at recognizing her own discomfort. Now is one of the few moments in which she analyzes herself and finds that discomfort obvious. A freezing wind blows overhead as Marisol draws to a pause at the edge of the field, at when she sees the blackness of the sky ripping itself in two, the bodies that tumble to the ground as a sharp snap echoes across Terrastella: she looks inside herself and is afraid, and that, of all things to know about herself, is the worst.
Still, her composure does not flicker. Her stare across the sea of grass is nothing but cool. For a moment, she does not move, just watches: poised in a half-step, wings pressed tightly to her ribs, the blunt crop of her hair barely moving in the wind. A statue. Then she catches the movement of one of those broken silver bodies, and in one swift movement powers herself straight up into the air.
Since childhood flying has comforted her, and despite the vicious bite of the cool air, the frost that starts to touch her skin, the heartbeat that has gained painful speed inside her chest, some part of her is soothed by unfurling those spotted hawks-wings, the familiar motion of soaring above the ground. The dirt rushes away beneath her. A blur of brown and green, and she reaches the pair in less than a minute, but does not land. Like a predator she hovers momentarily above them, observing: identical faces, eyes, faint luminous glows, same stench of fear. Blue and silver and white. And strange.
She lands heavily, suddenly, hooves slicing deep into the dirt. Her wings are still unfurled - held perfectly poised at their full width away from her sides, the brown-and-white spotted feathers ruffled barely, gently, by the breeze. Around them the world is cool and dark and utterly, utterly silent, and Marisol is a strange, divine effigy, tall and stoic and proud, gazing down at the boys with those bright gray eyes as she says, nonchalantly: Hail Vespera.
A beat passes. She thinks, for a moment, about societal courtesy. I am Marisol, comes her brief, raspy introduction, and then she falls silent, silent as usual.
@Ard @Erd
