[P] i'll be fine, i'm alright, it's my body

[Marisol]

dying moon
keep me up
keep me waiting

She sees the shadow as it drifts down in its perfect, lazy spirals, sees the shape of its wings, too large for a bird. It is behind her, but she does not turn. Does not fear. The world is quiet, and the smell of the stranger is the dusty rose-and-honey of Terrastella, anyway. Marisol’s cool, dark eyes remain trained on the way the shadow twists and turns, warps and flips, until it becomes too large to ignore and settles on the ground just ahead of her.

Then she moves.

The Commander twists her head over her sable shoulder and the rest of her body follows in a motion smooth as the curve of a river. The girl that faces her is light everywhere she is not—the not-reflection of something Marisol might have been, as a child, but damn well isn’t anymore. 

And the girl that she isn’t is pretty. Small, winged, well-built. Bright-green eyes swathed in ink that trails to her lips. Light seems to unfurl from the horns behind her ears. She blushes as she speaks, and it’s so sweet Marisol almost trusts it. 

“Well, the meditation didn’t seem to be working, so.” She flicks her slate eyes up and down the girl like she is gauging something, though it is impossible to know what. “You didn’t interrupt much.”

She is not altogether surprised that the girl knows her. Marisol’s duties as commander involve more time than she’d like to admit spent shaking hands and signing treaties; her walks around Terrastella are more often interrupted by gossip than turmoil, and the Halcyon itself is so old, so deeply ingrained, that not to know the Commander’s name would be odd for anyone not sparkling-new to Novus. “I’m flattered,” she says in that cool, raspy voice, and something almost humorous is in it. “Well, now that you’ve found me, what can I help you with?” Her eyes darken a touch.

But not threateningly. With something faint, with something else.

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