Juniper,
Peace permeates the world as red and pink burst over a field of gold, a field that is home to lovers and quarrels, to animals both tame and wild. Antelope skip merrily below, ignorant to the winged thing in the sky who is not a bird. (Oh, but she is a goddess, she is the pale hand of Vespera bearing love and judgement and ruination and resurrection.) Her shadow on the ground is the only sign of her passing.
Here, there are no tree boughs that hold her, that flirt with ash-strewn wings, that play games and make her dodge and dive and challenge her.
If one but looks up, would they see a girl flying fancy-free within the skies, or would she be a cloud rolling overhead in slow circles? Overy now and then she dives, swooping down closer and closer to the earth just to feel the curve of the world rise up underfoot. At the last minute she banks, turning pale cheek away from disaster, laughing green eyes shooting heavenward once more where she is held.
Juniper is the silent observer, the unbound reveler, a priestess learning a new way to love.
So when a woman she’d heard of, come to see herself, stands still and quiet in the fields where even rabbits lie together and chat, she cannot help but come down. Soft, so soft is her downfall. Circling lazily, slowly, she drifts to a stop when feet touch the ground. And how near she is!
Reach forward and she could touch Marisol, run ebony kissed lips over wing that smells of salt and battle. But she does not, she does not. “I’ve disturbed your meditation,” she observes apologetically. Times of reflection are near sacred in the temple, allowing for growth and improvement. Shame flushes pale cheeks with color, draws bright eyes down.
They cannot stay there.
Rising like the tides within Marisol’s soul, spring bright eyes dip and swoop and sway over the body of the Commander just as she had done in the clouds just moments ago. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” she confides with that ethereal smile.
In speech, my heart before her faints and diese
