[AW] this is a call to action

[Marisol]

blessed in spirit
are the poor

The morning is quiet for the longest time.

Marisol walks careful loops around the edge of the court. Her hooves crunch-crunch-crunch against a thin layer of snow, and frost bristles along the edges of her bicolored feathers. She shivers against the bite of a cold breeze as it washes through the country. Overhead the sky is an amalgamation of pastels, washed in some places bright yellow, in some deep blue, in others pale pink: a sheer white veil of clouds covers the sun as it rises and burns through the mist, casting Terrastella in a prism of gentle, colored lights. Underneath the soft sun Marisol is no more than a pre-darkened canvas for the many ways it preys upon her.

The only noise that breaks the peace is the movement of the wind and the song that Marisol is humming under her breath. Something she had learned as a child, about rabbits and foxes, and chasing in snow - it seems apt now, for the day and the time.

Then the scream breaks.

It is a raw, horrible sound, dark and bloody and feral: it sends chills up Marisol’s spine, the fear spiking so deep it ratchets against her bones. Her throat closes and her pulse kicks up three notches. Oh the sound - it makes her teeth itch, it makes her heart hurt - she pins her ears against her skull, trying to drown or at least muffle it, and with a chalky locked jaw she spins in the fine snow and goes tearing off toward the source of the noise, pounding the hard tattoo of a gallop into the ice.

The world goes quiet again briefly, and that is worse than anything else. Marisol is even eerily relieved to hear voices (broken though they are) as she skids around a corner and finds them:

Theodosia and Erd. No - she stops - Ard. 

What is this, Marisol says icily, though it is only a thin cover for the fear that rises in her tone against her will. Her voice pitches uncomfortably high. Slate-gray eyes go flitting from Ard to Theo and back again, and she flattens her wings to her sides and steps forward slightly, squaring her feet and dipping her head to Ard’s level: We will find him, she says, a bitter promise, and nods to Theodosia. Did he tell you what he was doing?

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