[P] working on my backwards walk

[Marisol]

every night i
live and die;

Izzie’s reaction isn’t quite what she expected. Despite herself, Marisol is a little taken aback, a little defensive; her feelings are a little hurt by the way the red pegasus refuses to look up at her, how her crimson ears flatten back, the nervous ticking at the corner of her downturned mouth. They’ve known each other for years, been friends since they were kids. And yet the cadet doesn’t look happy to see her. 

She seems irritated, actually. 

Mari continues across the floor, but trepidation is weighing her down. Her strides are slower and shorter, tail swishing absentmindedly behind her, her attempt at a smile colored with uncertainty; the Commander’s chest has become heavy with something like dread, or perhaps it is closer to insecurity. Why are they suddenly estranged? What has she done to earn the scribe’s distrust? 

Or is this just what it is like to become Sovereign? Perhaps it is the curse of all the rulers who have disappeared before her. Now that Marisol is thinking of them, she realizes with sense of rising hopelessness that she cannot name the friends they kept as king and queen. (Did they keep any in the first place?) They’d all had their own problems with friendship. Their own loneliness, their own foolishness in love.

With a blink, she realizes she has come to a stop as the scribe’s side. She lets out a whoosh of breath, a sudden, strained exhale.

“Absolutely not,” Mari responds, voice slow, and dark, and a little roughened by laughter; the edge of her mouth curls into a faint smile. “No titles, or I’m giving your good bunk to someone else.” 

Her tone is unusually light. It sounds strange coming from her and feels even worse, an ill-fitting cloak. But since ascending to sovereign, she’s said things that sound and feel strange more often than she’s really comfortable with. The act of it is has almost become second nature. Lying, or something like it, has quickly grown into a talent.

As hail begins to beat harder against the window, Marisol takes a seat at the scribe’s side. Izzie’s yellow eyes are still turned nervously to the window, focused with unneeded intensity on the pouring rain, as if she’d rather look at anything and anyone but the Commander, who is in turn watching her with a mixture of interest and confusion. (And maybe a little bit of distress.)

She chooses to ignore the last question. Something in her is worried that, if pressed, answering truthfully would make something inside her just—snap.

“What’re you looking at?”

“Speaking.”

credits