[P] not strong enough to stay away

[Marisol]

hallelujah
I found
jesus when
i drowned

Marisol knows that whatever the answer is to her question, it will not be a pleasant one. It will not be black and white, or an easy thing to accomplish, or even anything that comes naturally to her; but she should know, she needs to know, and so as he begins to speak she listens with wide eyes and her ears swiveled forward, head high, posture belying the intensity of her attention.

Don’t try to repair it. How can she not? There is so much to repair—the hole left by their king’s disappearance, and the dust that coats their hospital, and the fact that alliances with other courts have not been made since the very beginning of her time here.

Listen to your people. But how can she possibly know who to listen to? Who to trust, just how suspicious to be. Where does the line cross from trusting to foolishness and from listening to being manipulated?

Be yourself. And this one, she knows, will be by far the most complex. For one, it must be possible, if not probably, that who she is is not the person they think she is or the person they need her to be. And even worse than that is that who she is is still unknowable even to her. The reflection in the blade of a sword or on the surface of the lake, her name and title, these are things she recognizes but does not know how to reconcile with, like a painting of something made in all the wrong colors.

“Thank you, Rhone.” Her voice feels numb in her throat, strange and cold like it belongs to someone else. The wind is starting to pick up and the salt is beginning to bite through her coat with needle-sharp stinging teeth. She gives him a quick, small smile. “I should be heading back now, I think. But—really. Thank you. If there is ever anything you need from me, just ask.”

And then with a huge swoosh of her wings she’s off and into the air again, tumultuous in the cold sea-breeze.

“Speaking.”

credits