[P] love's a shrine, or else a scar

[Marisol]

THE ARCHIATER.

A bird and a letter, theoretically. 

Isra —

Isra, I — 

Hope you’re alright, and I miss you, like a wild thing; like how I’ve been missing my iron now and the smell of salt—

Isra, I’m in trouble for going to see you, and I almost don’t care, which worries me immensely— 

—like old yellow wine. Like a book I’ve read a million times.  Like how fish always know where to go home. Like flying. 

Of course none of them are sent. A bird and a letter, but only theoretically.

---

It’s hard to sleep. It’s always been hard for her to sleep. But now it’s worse.

She sees Ard’s face (which is Erd’s face)(which is basically a tragic mask) whenever she closes her eyes. If she doesn’t keep her jaw clenched her teeth fight to breathe outside her mouth. The smell of blood makes her drool, which is inconvenient, considering the Halcyon training schedule. When the night sets in the quiet does too, and so there is nothing to distract her, and so everything that hurts—her torn muscles, and her heart that begs to be let out, and the saltwater in her blood—hurts a hundred times more than in the day when the world is loud and bright and not so open to interpretation. 

It’s night. She should be sleeping. She wishes she were sleeping—her bones are heavy, and her drooping eyes. But now it seems impossible. 

The city is cool and dark. Spring is settling in, but not without a fight—the wind has sharp, cold teeth and dawn is still a phantom object. The moon is out of sight over the mountains, signaling the nearness of daybreak, but the sun has not quite kissed the sky yet. Instead the light that streams down is pale, watery yellow from lanterns fading out of their sconces, washing the cobblestone streets in faint webs of gold. Marisol feels like she’s been walking in circles for hours. Has it been hours? Who knows, who cares—

She wouldn’t be sleeping anyway.

There’s a bakery at the corner of two wide streets that Mari stops at. It’s small, tucked between two other shops, but feels homey; the lights inside have been turned on, as if somebody is already starting a batch of dough in preparation for the morning rush, but the store itself is perfectly still. Tables stacked. Displays empty. A vase with calla lilies sits on a lone shelf. Something about being witness to a scene so simple makes her heart hurt so bad she wants to cry.

Marisol feels like she’s floating. Her head hurts so badly it seems to have been thrown off-center from her neck. She remembers this bakery from when she was a kid, a real kid, a real little kid. Little enough o have been spending time with her parents. They had sold these pastries she scarfed down by the basket, braids of buttery dough studded with raisins and spices she’d always thought of as coming from Denocte. (Of course she had no evidence. Again—this was a kid thing. But it was a nice thought, that her Terrastellan family could eat Denoctian food without starting some kind of war.)

She can hear someone clattering around in the back. The door is unlocked, and a gust of warm wind comes flowing out, like someone has just turned on an oven. Marisol closes her eyes. She smells the spices.

She thinks of Denocte.

She thinks of the bird.

@isra <3