THE ARCHIATER.
In the dim yellow gleam of the low-slung lanterns, they are flame and soot, fire and ash; Marisol is her own black cloud opposite to Raymond’s red burning, cool and dark in the glimmering light. For all her practiced suspicion, she still doesn’t quite distrust Raymond. Something about the faint twist of his smile or the smart-sharpness in his eyes. They are warped mirror images of each other, double-edged swords sharpened on the same stone: only where Mari has rusted, Raymond glows, socially adept and unafraid and okay in a way she hasn’t ever quite been able to grasp.
Harp floats through the air, and over it comes, again, the sound of the stallion’s voice. It’s almost comforting now - the way they have shuttered off the outside world, contained absolutely in their own conversation. How do you expect to spot any vipers without walking through some tall grass? Amusement flares in Marisol’s gray eyes,
and a brief huff of air, the ghost of a laugh, escapes her lip: I have, comes her easy reply, delivered with the loosest, barest edge of silvered humor, and her gaze glimmers sharply in the near-darkness. My whole life, Raymond.
His name, in her mouth, is strangely sacred. She’s careful to handle it without too much force. Despite all Marisol’s bluntness, her boyish force of will, still she knows there is something magic inlaid with every word, that language is more powerful than even the knife usually strapped to her leg, more powerful than the hard black beat of her wings in high air. If only she could wield them better: often she finds herself envious of Florentine, of Asterion, so collected, so diplomatic and easily liked.
Since the very first moment Mari stepped into her training clothes, she’s been hated. The company bitch. The hard-ass little girl. Her body all sharp knives and hard teeth - the black whorl of hair in the center of her forehead an invitation to dark matter. Exhausted by that omnipresent worry, the Commander pushes it toward the back of her brain and, at a loss for something else to say, bursts out brazenly - Your blade. Impressive.
She jerks her chin toward the tail that swishes behind him, laced with slate and danger, and the curiosity in her eyes is less morbid than it is childish, entranced.
@Raymond
