THE ARCHIATER.
How long has it been since she walked like this with another person? Step in step, with no end point in mind. The city sleeping around them, just barely-torchlit; the well-worn cobblestone under their feat, bricked down in patterns always familiar. There is something magical about the Dusk Court when it is quiet like this, undisturbed by civil disagreement, by merchants bargaining for higher prices, by the looming threat of a dragon, a war, a revolt. And it is even calmer, Gods help her, walked with somebody else. The faint warmth of another body is, as much as she hates to admit it, comforting, especially in the cool blackness of the overhead night.
And in this nighttime quiet is when Marisol is most herself. The stripes on her wings will dissipate when tucked into her side, covered by gauzy shadow, and then she is just a girl, just some young soldier wandering the streets of the city she would die to protect at a time that doesn’t make her feel like she’s about to die, though she knows full well danger might lurk in the blackness, or around any corner. She is seamless within the blue night. Dark and fluid, serene and civil. Even the hard bristle of her mane, so angry in the daylight, is somehow softened by the wavering yellow torchlight. The bright blood in her veins is cooled by the wind. The rise of her cheekbones is no longer a weapon.
Asterion has fallen dead silent at her answer, off-put by the honest admission. The dense air between them makes the hair on the Commander’s neck stand up straight. Silence, still. She notes his discomfort and dismisses it. He should’ve known, even before he asked, that she wouldn’t bother lying to him, especially about a thing like this, at a time like this. Still, infuriatingly, something like guilt bubbles in the back of Marisol’s mouth.
Look how easily you fucked that up - something like guilt. She swallows it with concealed effort.
I suppose peace wastes the skill of commanders.
Her nostrils flare in contained amusement, her step slows, nearly falters, and then, magically, strangely, unexpectedly, a smile curls the edges of her sooty lips. Asterion could almost miss it in the dark, but Mari knows he won’t. A smile from her is rare all on its own - the way it reaches to her eyes for a split second is yet rarer. Sometimes I think that is a skill better wasted. Heat courses through the stripes on her wings. Marisol thinks, that she must be allergic to everything that lives inside her. The emotions, and the trauma, and bitterness - it all must be eating her alive, burning from the inside out - what other explanation is there for the strange blackness that overwhelms her when she opens her mouth out of choice, not necessity?
As for always, she continues, half-whispering as they walk, only Tempus could answer you. I have known nothing else. But - and then that radiant smile again, just for a half second - then again, I know very little.
@asterion
