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

[Marisol]

THE ARCHIATER.

If things were different—

(They are not, and Marisol tries very hard to remember this; things are not different, and there is no use in wishing that they were. Isra is a queen of a country far, far away, over so many mountains Mari can’t begin to cross, queen of a country baptized in dragon-fire and flooded by the sea. She can’t pack up and leave home, can’t follow her heart away from the scene of the murder. And Marisol is Commander of warriors who don’t like to be kept on short leashes fighting for a nation whose only play is to keep its belly up: she can’t quite afford to let them loose while she goes gallivanting around drinking the spoils of love.)

And anyway, why is Isra here? In the empty streets of a court that is not hers when the sun has barely touched the sky? Of course Marisol is pleased to see her—too pleased, really—but now hardly seems like the time to. Be leaving home. Their continent is in shambles, Isra looks like she hasn’t slept in days. Her cheek is cold to the touch and when Fable circles overhead, it is with all the pleasant continuity of a river, a bloodstream, an ouroboros threatening from deep in the sky. There is very little that is right about Marisol’s life right now, and for a brief moment she lives in gladness that this is one of those few good things, come to kiss her on the cheek.

And then Isra’s mouth moves. 

I’m going to be a mother.

The thing that flashes over Marisol’s face is ungodly. Bright as a candle, curled like a golem. For less than a second the stone of her eyes melts from pure stone into soft, bloody red, and the smell of saltwater seems to pour from her skin, and her head snaps back like she’s flinching in fear. I’m going to be a mother. Mari thinks she might throw up. Her stomach clenches like a fist, and every nerve feels like it’s fraying at once. She searches Isra’s expression for—something. Desperation rises in her like an awful-white fire, and her eyes are still searching, searching, searching. For anything that says there is a way out. Anything that says nothing will change or I still love you.

And she cannot find it. Not a word of humor, not a blink of shame. Just a too-pure seriousness that makes Marisol feel like she’s falling so fast and so hard she’ll never stop.

Her body tenses like so many tight strings, like plucked wires, like running water—somehow she is taut and melting at the same time, falling through her own cracks, struggling to stand up straight. “A mother,” she says, and almost does not realize she is talking, for the hoarseness of her voice and the way it seems to come from the other end of the alley, too far away to comprehend. “Who?”

She does not think about whether it will help or hurt, knowing who it might be, who has become her replacement. There is not enough left in her to fight against that most base of all urges—to ask why, and who, and couldn’t it have been me?

@isra <3