[P] we all have our reasons

[Marisol]

hang on to your dreams
until there's nothing left of us

Marisol doesn’t mind the dark as much as the cold. She is hot-blooded and thin-furred, not made to withstand the chill of the wind as it sweeps sharp off the water, unaccustomed to the way it feels to shiver under the light of the moon. As soon as she steps out of the body-heated warmth of the barracks and into the frigid streets, she is trembling, wracked with a shocking wave of cold. The hairs on her spine rise; her short mane bristles. With narrowed eyes she steps further into the alley.

All around her the city is still and dark. The nights have become basically endless. The only light to illuminate the streets is the cool stream silver shed from stars overhead, and in certain places, a bumpy, almost threatening yellow cast on the stone streaming from the flickering lanterns that sway like dead branches in the breeze. As Marisol goes stalking through the streets, she slips in and out of visibility. Her skin shifts: earth brown, bright orange, blurry filigrees of silver. But none of this light is warm. None of it makes her feel any more secure. Instead it sinks its teeth in, and pulls until she feels too vulnerable to bear.

She is full from dinner and should be sleepy, but the chill has knocked the fatigue from her bones. Now they just hurt. 

At the end of the street, Hugo’s forge is alight with a warm orange glow. The heavy thing which was sitting in the pit in Marisol’s chest begins to rise—relief tingles, a mild electric current, from her heart down her legs and then into her spine. Already she is quickening her pace. With long, fast strides, she pushes headfirst against the wind on her way toward the tent; the breeze nips at the thin skin of her muzzle until she thinks her nose might be running.

She debates trying the door herself. Hugo is probably asleep, or drunk, or both—why not just let herself in? But even Mari understands the concept of privacy, and so with a little sigh of resignation, she raps against the heavy door. Knock knock. From inside the forge, there is the sound of a dull crashing, and Marisol doesn’t know whether the laugh or wince, so she does both, suppressing a dryly amused smile. Hold on! comes Hugo’s voice, and then there is another stumbling-noise. Marisol has been waiting longer than she’d like to by the time the door finally opens.

Hugo looks back at her, backlit by the orange of the smelting fires. As usual, he is awake in a kind of dizzy, half-tipsy way, the unnerving violet of his eyes glinting bright, wearing a shit-eating grin as he curls one striped wing toward his chest and gasps in mock surprise, did you bring me mistletoe? His smile is more than mischievous.

“In your dreams, Arkwright,” Marisol drawls derisively, and with an amused roll of her eyes shoulders past him and into the forge. “I’m glad I caught you… awake. If that’s what we’re calling it.” She pauses mid-step, glancing down at the central table, which looks like a tornado has blown through a suit of armor, then turns over her shoulder to look at Hugo.

One brow arches, as if she is accusing him of… something, though not quite in the bad way.

“Speaking.”

credits