[P] sky high, girls go sky high

[Marisol]

by sword
by salt

Charlie’s weight, leaning into her embrace, is… unfamiliar, to say the least. But somehow it manages to be singularly comforting. It is the weight of the sister Marisol has never had; the weight of a different kind of duty, much lighter than the one that usually drags her down by the shoulders; the sun beats down on them and she is warm, warm, warm, more from the strange, pleasant sensation of Charlie’s shoulder against her own than from the weather itself. “Good job,” Mari says again, as the filly explains her practice tactics, and her voice rings with amusement and pride.


They are one and the same. Their differences, what little they do have, are nothing more than surface distinctions: blue and deep bay, the scarf and the white stripes, the bird that sits on Charlie’s shoulders and the white hound that so often walks at the Sovereign’s ankles. Sisters, indeed. But Mari holds her tongue; she has said enough already, perhaps too much. Her tenure as Commander has at least managed to teach her praise is best doled out in little pieces. 

One day, Marisol is sure she will be replaced by this girl with the frail wings and the fiery, orange-red eyes. For the first time, the thought of being usurped does not completely disturbed her. 

Perhaps she is merely getting old. 

Marisol shakes her head, a half-successful attempt to clear the smog from her thoughts. Not the time, not the time—today is a good day, will be a good day. Despite herself, Mari is only human, and she finds herself flattered into a stupid grin by the way the young warrior hangs on to her every word: if her cadets were half as invested, their training would be much, much easier. (One can only dream.) Charlie’s eyes blow comically wide as the invitation registers in her head, as if she thinks this is all a prank. Oh, cadet, thinks the queen drily. Soon enough you’ll realize I don’t make jokes. At least not like that.

“You shouldn’t want to be just like me, Charlie.” Her tone is light enough, but as she stands, paused for just a moment, her expression becomes far more somber and far more serious. The Commander’s gaze finds Charlie’s, and briefly her lips tug down into something like a frown. “Lesson number one is—you will only be successful if you continue to be like you.”

It is a hard truth. Perhaps the hardest, a truth Marisol still wrestles with more often than she’d like to admit. There are other reasons, oh so many other reasons Charlie shouldn’t want to turn out like her: the constant sense of choking duty; the silver webbing of scars marking a whole body; the stress, the exhaustion, the self-disgust. But those are far too heavy. Those are truths for another time. Mari bites back her sudden severity and forces the quick flash of a new smile. 

With the sweep of a wing, she gestures toward the low, squat barracks behind them. “Now, you need a practice weapon. Spear? Bow?” Of course she has her own preferences—by now, that is obvious enough—but as Marisol, tail swishing behind her, backs up toward the weapons storage room, she still wears a look of interest and waits with seeming eagerness for Charlie’s answers.

“Speaking.”

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