[P] collarbone country

[Marisol]

i opened my mouth and the night poured in-

Marisol is almost relieved to find the other mare in agreement when it comes to the stress of the climate. It’s not just her, then, overworried as always - not just her exhaustive need to militarize the surrounding world, to categorize it into the weapons and victims she knows so well, is wont to categorize everything into. It makes her feel saner. And for Mari, the feeling of saneness is a hard, hard thing to come by.

Indra is a silver-lined figure in the near darkness, built lean and white and red with the savage kind of beauty Marisol has come to appreciate in the women that surround her. She watches the girl with a  quiet appreciation; femininity is something Mari herself has never quite possessed. Sometimes she wishes she did. Sometimes, she longs to fit into the category expected of her. Wonders what it would be like to be a real girl, soft instead of sharp, collecting flowers instead of bones.

But of all Marisol’s dreams, this one seems by far the least accessible.

Both, I suppose. As much power as the gods hold, as violent is their omnipresence, as many years as Marisol has been coached and trained to fear them, she knows, truly and deeply, that they are not half as volatile as are the fickle hearts of men. That for all their snake-like watching, they are only half as likely to strike as a Court-king scorned.  And no - not technically - something like a smile, though really it’s an expression of embarrassment, crosses Mari’s face like a stone skipping water. Protecting where I can still feels… like a duty. 

That is the only way she can put it into words. Underneath that simple phrase lives every piece of work Marisol has ever put into herself or into the Halcyon unit - every silvering bruise, every drop of blood spilled, every broken bone, every hour wasted, every mile exhaustively traversed. It is years and years’ worth of trying and training and watching.

But - thankfully - there’s no way for Indra to know that.

@indra