[P] everything's coming up green

[Marisol]

i wish i could say everything i've done and still be loved.

When she arrives, there is no drama or fanfare to follow. Her descent is steep and noiseless, punctuated only by the crunch of her hooves against the frosty grass as she lands.

Delumine is beautiful. Some part of her is surprised, and another part knows she shouldn’t be. The air is biting-chilly, and the swathes of trees that bristle against the rising silhouette of the citadel are painted in bright strokes of wine-red, goldenrod, moorish deep purples. Underfoot the ground is brittle with ice and dying flora. For once Mari is without her regalia, free from war paint or signias: all things considered, it seemed a little trite to come discuss politics as if she were already prepared for war.

By the time she makes it into the inner city, it’s well past dawn. Thin sunlight streams down and coats the cobblestone in pale shine. Mari is acutely aware of the gazes that follow her as she walks through the streets, how they watch with the intensity and suspicion of a people scorned, the way they know, instinctively, that she does not belong here: the scars on her shoulders and the hard lines in her expression belie her strangeness. 

(She tries not to mind, but it’s hard. It’s hard. How did Asterion do it, all those years in power? And Florentine before him? It’s been but a few weeks, and the weight of it is already starting to crush her. How long before it pulls her down completely?)

The guard at the front of the gates gives her a look that says explain and nothing more. The wariness in his eyes tightens the muscles in her shoulders. Marisol draws to a stop; nervously she squares her stance and meets his eyes, and in a voice that manages to give the illusion of calm, asks to see Ipomoea.

By the time she’s let inside and sent to meet him, she still doesn’t know exactly what to say.

"Speaking."

queen marisol

credits