[P] lie down by the slow river;

[Marisol]

with sword
and salt

A girl might get the wrong idea.

Oh, if she could laugh—there is so much to worry about, so much to panic and obsess over, and still Israfel manages to get the wrong idea, maybe purposeful, maybe not. Marisol grins. Really grins, a wide flash of teeth. Her heart is not pounding, but something light and almost pleased does thrill from her chest all the way down her spine. Brimming with energy, Mari slashes her tail behind her. It comes down in a crackling arc of dark hair.

She lets out a short huff of warm air. They have passed through the center of the city and are now coming out the other side, walking shoulder-to-shoulder down the cobbled, frosty streets as the sun continues to crawl higher overhead. For a moment, Mari lingers on the comment. She muses on it, turns the sound of Israfel’s voice over on her tongue, and finally forces herself to decide that it does not matter whether the comment is sincere or not. There are more important things to attend to.

The response to her question, then, is one of the most important. Marisol is waiting, almost with baited breath, to hear Israfel’s recommendation; it is the thing she’s struggled with the most, too bogged down with other duties, head far too full to manage any critical thought beyond the most time-sensitive matter at hand. She listens thoughtfully. Or attempts to—her close ear flickering, tail swishing, lips slightly downturned as she processes.

Then her processing is partially interrupted; the air has become newly warm. Partially to check if Israfel has noticed it too, Mari’s head turns, mouth opening as if to speak, but she is caught far more off guard when she notices how the distance between them has closed even further. Israfel has stepped in. Now their shoulders are almost brushing, and the air seems to sizzle with heat. The hairs on Marisol’s flank stand up. When Israfel speaks again, it is in a purr, and the Commander comes quite close to saying sardonically: a girl might get the wrong idea.

“Mm.” Mari’s gaze coasts the Terrastellan skyline without landing on anything in particular. She clicks her tongue, half-submerged in thought, and finishes: “Thank you, Israfel—for your insight. We’ll talk soon.”

The voice is clipped but not unkind. Most of all it seems like she has once again become lost in thought. With a bow of her head, with a playful graze of her shoulder against Israfel’s, Mari flashes her an almost-devious kind of look and turns back out toward the training fields.

credits