[P] the last flower [midwinter festival]

[Marisol]

it was lovely
it was awful
it was that
kind of feeling.

Fiona melts out from the dark cobblestones like a ghost, easy and gentle, invisible: like a fish surfacing to breathe, slipping to the surface of a still pond. In the dim light, she is more purple than silver. But beautiful as always. Her eyes are like moons, a soft lilac gray pitted with dark craters. Marisol can’t help being nervous about what, exactly, it is they need to talk about, but still there is a fuzzy, reverent feeling in her chest when she looks at her champion. How can someone be so good?

Marisol is strong and capable. Smart. Dedicated. But she is not good, not nearly as much so—or even in the same way—as the girl who looks back at her from the liquid shadows in the city. As they stand together, still as statues in the half-lit street, Mari’s heart warms. Pride rises in her chest for the length of a breath. Just for that moment—things are alright.

Then Fiona knocks gently at the door of her thoughts. The Commander swallows; her heart seems to drop through her chest, far lighter than air as it shoots to the center of the earth. “It’s lovely,” Mari responds, true and wistful; her voice vibrates with unrestrained warmth, even as she tries her best to keep her tone light and expression calm.

Mari dips her head in a nod, agreeing without argument to Fiona’s request. Then they’re off. She walks just ahead of Fiona, leading the way into the darkest part of the night. Out in the training fields, there is no light but the faintest silver cast of moon; not even the streetlights reach this far, blocking out by the rising skyline where the festival is continuing, raucous, behind them.

Here the world is quiet and still. Cicadas sing from the short-cropped grass, which sways as it bites at Marisol’s ankles, and there is a mixed song of birds and leaves from high above. 

When she breathes deep, the air smells like flowers and salt.

“Speaking.”

credits