[AW] disaster hearts

[Marisol]

he who wants loses everything.

It’s near winter, and so cold now; colder than Marisol remembers it being last year, but maybe that’s just the grief, indomitably powerful even in the physical realm.

She shivers. Her wings are folded tightly over her back, and still the chill leaches through, carried on the wind and sharp as biting. Overhead the sky is tinged with strange, warm orange and pink as the sun sinks down over the horizon, and Marisol has only just left the barracks for her nightly patrol. For the first time since the events of the island, she feels normal. Ish. This, at least, is familiar: stepping from the hot, crowded barracks into the cool-dark wind, wearing the requisite stripes of shining white and red, knocking the weight of her spear into the space between her wings.

What isn’t yet familiar (but soon will be, she hopes) is the presence of Anselm at her feet. Long-legged and scrawny, he follows her at a happy trot; he weaves like a clingy lover in between her legs as she walks, his bright-white coat shimmering like a ghost in the dim lights of the lanterns on the streets. His pale eyes are doleful, unbelievably affectionate. The weight of that doting gaze almost makes her nervous.

I don’t deserve you, she thinks, and he breaks his toothy mouth into a kind of smile and says, yes, you do.

Down the streets they wander, Marisol stoic, Anselm prancing in excitement as he dashes around her and she pretends not to notice. What a game! he says to her, laughing, and she does not have the heart to tell him this is not a game at all.

They turn a corner, and the sovereign notes with muted interest the figure coming toward her. She is suspicious, as always, but at least not more than usual: whoever is approaching her is quite small, both in height and in bulk, and is not accompanied by anyone or any weapon, only a full-to-the-brim bag slung over her shoulders. “Hail Vespera,” calls Marisol; her voice carries through the air with the resonance of a church bell. The sky is dark now, navy verging on black. Stars prickle overhead.

Anselm slinks behind her, just a bit. He is somewhat less visible following the movement of her dark legs. 

Marisol is too tired (or too soft) to berate him for his cowardice now.

"Speaking."

credits