[P] cinderblock gardens

[Marisol]

the tree corrupt, and so the fruit;

Oh, they have both crossed lines they shouldn’t have, and only now is Marisol realizing it.

She regards the lack of space between them bitterly, with gray eyes turned dark like coal. The room seems to have chilled a few degrees, or darkened, maybe. If she can feel the way sparks roll from Theodosia’s skin, it would be impossible to tell: she does not flinch, or turn, or blink, too stubbornly invested in her own stoicness. Stupid girl! All her training has been wasted on her, thanks to that errant animal heart. Even with the bit in her mouth she has learned to bite - 

And now she has put everything in danger for one dark, reckless kiss, and after these lines have been crossed, it is bit or be bitten, and she aches at the thought of choosing either.

I didn’t ask Asterion. Marisol’s dark lip curls in the barest facsimile of a snarl. She feels the heat of the white stripes on her wing like a wildfire: she is commander, and Theodosia is cadet, and it should be - is - forbidden for a cadet to talk to her like that. Like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Like she doesn’t know what’s best. All these years talking to God and bleeding gold just to be disrespected like this, oh, it makes her stomach turn, it makes her want for war.

Marisol has failed in her duties, utterly and entirely, if even her soldiers have not learned to be afraid of her.

Or she is simply getting too soft.

Those slate-gray eyes simmer like magma, like stone in an earthquake, and Mari’s ears tip oh-so-delicately back toward her skull; her gaze narrows, dark lashes and nostrils flaring in affront; when she speaks it is terse and pithy and carries even less than her usual tact. And I said that it is no longer my decision. There is no argument against it. She seethes in the way only a soldier can - silently, imperceptibly, with grit jaw and steely breath. 

I have failed if you still believe this is more important than duty, she adds at last, and nods to the places where they almost-touch with cold disappointment.

---

<3

aimless | kokovi