[P] claw marks and clouds

[Marisol]

heaven talks
but not to me

Above, clear starlight glimmers. It is wet, quicksilver gauze sloping down onto the both of them, and in it, for the first time, the Commander sees Asterion as night more than dusk: that one bright star against the darkness of his skin, the way he blends into the blackness, how the purple on his ribs is not the color of twilight but a shade of true night, like the sky overhead.

It makes her feel sick.

Denocte is too wild, too hard-edged, too strange. Mari cannot feel safe when every corner is sharp and every road is cobblestone, not dirt, and where not an inch of the air is not tainted by music, where there is no courtyard not pulsing with crowds and no alley not filled with conversations. Even when she stalks the borders in the early morning, so early the sun is still hidden by fog and soft darkness, there is no respite from the livelihood of the Night Court.

Even now her head spins with the noise and the light and the heat. She gazes at Asterion from under long, dark lashes, and perhaps the only real chink in her armor is the way she watches him, with far more obvious, heated ire than her usual demeanor would allow. When he speaks - too lighthearted, too casual - her frown deepens, blackens, grows stormy and awkward. 

Absolutely not, Marisol retorts sourly. If she at all recognizes the humor in his speech, it’s completely disregarded. Duty is not optional. She flicks him a watchful, obvious glance. Or shouldn’t be. 

Almost she feels bad for the way it comes out - bitter, harsh, baritone. After all, he is her king.

But only in Terrastella.

Are you alright? This time it is a little softer, a lot less cruel. Maybe they deserve it, anyway: a day without disaster, a skin not covered in mildew. But Marisol wouldn’t know how to take a day off if it was offered to her on a silver platter, and it never, ever has been.

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