[AW] Strangers in the night

[Marisol]

who are you
when it's all over?

Marisol cannot tell, anymore, whether she loves Asterion or not, whether she respects him or not, whether she supports him or not: when he parts the cool darkness like a starry curtain her heart wavers, sure, but she is not sure why, or what to call it. 

Asterion, she says, and the name is hello and goodbye and are you sure? all at once. A foam-white feather skates against her ribs. And she is not quite dense enough to miss the clot of green cud pressed against the slice in Asterion’s ear, and not quite principled enough to keep her eyebrows from quirking upward a little, but she is at least loyal enough not to remark on it in a space as public as this. 

Later, promise her silver eyes in the dark, we’ll talk. She blinks at him and shuffles the white-striped feathers on the back of her wing like a vow, an oath, and then tucks them back against her side.

The sound of her name, Commander Marisol, calms her down just a little. Commander - no matter how many times she hears it is never loses its gilded edge. She tilts her head and turns her gaze back to Mephisto then, watchful, warm, and nods in endorsement of her own title as much as Asterion’s. Some part of her stings at the difference between Mephisto’s greeting split between each of them, but she gnaws at her metaphorical wounds and stays silent about it.

…without a place in the world. Perhaps that place is here? Marisol’s gaze snaps sideways to Asterion instantly. She watches him for a second, too intense to be accidental, and then turns evenly back to Mephisto. There’s nothing to be said about it that would make anybody feel better: deep in her heart Mari wants to say no, is far too suspicious and black-hearted to take a stranger under her wing at a time like this. But her jaw aches and she knows that under Asterion’s rule that won’t be an option. 

She pauses, and then says: Perhaps, and dips her head a little, a hesitant invitation.

credits