THE ARCHIATER.
As the sky fills with color overhead, Marisol falls deeper and deeper into the trap of wanting.
She wants this girl to join Halcyon. She wants for their meeting to continue going well. She wants to stay in this moment, where nothing is expected her, where no danger lurks just around the corner, where everything is easy and fruitful and just within reach, and it is this wanting that overwhelms her as she meets the girls’ eyes with her own gaze, a warm, molten silver.
It is more wanting than she has felt in ages. More of anything, really, than she has felt in ages.
A man who claimed to be part of the unit… she flicks back through a host of memories from her days as in training, failed cadet after failed cadet returning in shame to the Dusk Court, and the few that did make it through were bitter and emburdened by the time they’d earned their strips. Mari’s not sure any one of them is still with her now. And whatever ex-soldier this girl has met might well be from before Mari’s time, a relic of a more honorable age she was never lucky enough to experience.
Then Theodosia dips into a bow, and Marisol is so taken aback she nearly smiles, a ghost of happiness that flickers over her face and dissipates again. Rise, Theodosia, murmurs the Commander. All Halcyon soldiers stand on equal footing.
With that, she raises her head and gestures over the horizon toward the foggy skyline of the Dusk Court. Purple light envelops them now. Come. Extending the edge of a wing to graze Theo’s spine gently, she turns, now facing the city, and starts forward with slow, purposeful strides. It pleases me that word of Halcyon has spread so far - and again that specter of a smile, as quick to come as it is to leave. Terrastella has need of new cadets.
