[P] Awestruck

[Marisol]

he who wants loses everything.

Every time someone new shows up, Marisol feels a little less competent. I should see them when they come in, she thinks; I should know all these comings and goings. Asterion would have known. Or Florentine, or anyone that came before them. With every new stranger whose arrival she misses, there is a new element of danger added, a new degree of heat, rising in the atmosphere. 

But Marisol does not feel any of this when she sees the girl standing in the street. The newcomer, whoever she is, does not spark any kind of fear, or even suspicion. Perhaps that is foolish, but she is so small, and so delicately built: she is colored like the sunset, too, and Vespera does not so reward those with wicked hearts. To look like Her is the highest of all honors.

The city is totally still, somewhere between too late and too early for its residents to be awake. Marisol likes it best this way. It is far more peaceful without the revelry of the citizens at night, far cleaner and more civilized than the dirty noise of the barracks as the soldiers toss and turn in light sleep. 

Marisol breathes in deep, deep, deep: the air smells of a dark green like pine needles, and when she exhales her breath makes a soft gray plume in the cold air, swirling like so much cold smoke. 

Finally she steps forward. At her side, a just-baked loaf of bread wrapped in thin paper crackles in the cold, exhaling steam and the smell of salt. It was to be her breakfast, but there’s enough to share. The girl in her sunset colors is still staring at the citadel, spiraling up into the cloudy sky, and Marisol feels sort of intrusive for watching it. But she is also pleased, not to be the only person in the world still entranced by the sight of civilization.

“That’s the citadel,” Mari calls. Hooves clicking over the cobblestone, wings folded to her side, she moves slowly forward in an effort not to startle her. 

"Speaking."

credits