[P] working on my backwards walk

[Marisol]

every night i
live and die;

Next to the barracks, the library is one of Marisol’s favorite places to be. It is often the only part of the Court proper that isn’t bustling with horrible noise, filled with bodies, or generally raucous; when the world is too loud and oppressive, there is nowhere better to go. Nowhere else to disappear. 

So at times like these—when the rain is pouring down outside in heavy, gelid sheets, when even the weakest winter sun is nowhere to be found, and when Marisol’s heart is keening in her chest, pained and swollen, like the noise of an injured dog—she does not have to think twice about where to go. Or even whether she should. Instead she rises from her desk in the citadel, legs tingling as the muscles unwind from their hours of sitting, and flits down the stairs and out into the gloom.

The streets are awash in a patina of rain: green, copper, and deep, dark blue. It is as beautiful as it is gloomy, like an oil painting  Marisol can’t help shuddering as she steps outside. Winter is in full swing, and she is not made for this weather, the biting wind and half-frozen rain—her eyes are stinging against the cold, and every step is a little more stilted than the last. But like any good soldier, she pushes through, head pulled to her chest, wings folded over her back for warmth, short hair rustled by the ferocious wind. 

The cold is fearsome, but in some ways it feels good. Like starting a fight. Like remembering what it really is to be alive.

By the time Marisol pushes her way into the library, she looks like something carved out of the snowbanks. Her dark skin is frosted with rain and the beginnings of snow; her feathers are iced together, her joints are stiff, and when she stops in the foyer and shakes out her tail, it loosens a little cascade of icy crystals that go clattering to the floor. The Commander’s body aches with the feeling of disuse. But, thank Vespera, the library is just as empty as she could have hoped, and blissfully quiet. No clattering. No fighting. Hardly even the sound of breathing to interrupt the so-slowly turned pages of Terrastella’s tomes. 

Peace.

Marisol breathes a little sigh of relief. The exhale floods out of her, frostbite and sea salt. She steps toward the back of the room—

And there is the sound of clattering, then of pages ripping, sounds that grate against her skull, and half Marisol’s face screws up in disappointment. Her lip curls; for a moment she is inexplicably exasperated, a dull ache deep in the chest as she dares to think of who it might be ruining her respite this time.

But when she dares to look, it’s only Izzie, a dainty red blotch in the back corner of the study. Marisol is surprised to hear herself inhale sharply; on her it is a sound that means, and feels, pleased. Suddenly she is light again (if, maybe, a little hesitant). Relief washes through her chest in a few faint waves. 

“Ismene,” the Sovereign calls, warmly, and not loud enough to bother the more studious readers in the room, as she makes her way toward the scribe.

“Speaking.”

credits