[AW] strong and bound for glory, cursed with a thousand stories;

[Marisol]

"this hour I tell things in confidence. 
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you."

The deer-track is beaten down by many hooves, the grass dead, the dirt packed. Anselm lopes ahead of his bonded but avoids the path. He bounds instead through the rustling waves of dried grass, over splotches of yellow petals, and purple, and white; and Marisol watches him with half a smile, trailing behind him without hurry.

Fog rolls in from the sea and coats the cliffs in mossy, pale gray. But the sun is shining overhead, high and bright, and its yellow light is burning through the mist without much difficulty, letting drops of dew collect on Marisol’s feathers. Today the world is quiet. Today there are only a few wanderers, with the vast majority of her people happily sequestered inside their stone homes. Out here the earth is as silent as the Garden of Eden; birds twitter overhead and rabbits ruffle the grass, but the plain is empty as far as the eye can see, and the roaring of the sea covers all other little noises.

Today Marisol is trying not to think of anything. Not her people, not Orestes. Not the spear she has so unwillingly left behind this morning. She tries not to think of anything but the weight of her hooves against the dry ground, the sound of Anselm’s heavy breathing, the warm gloss of the sun as it comes down in curtains. Her skin feels surprisingly warm.

Anselm barks. Then growls—a low, stormy sound. He slows to let Marisol catch up, which she does at a trot, and gestures with his broad white head toward the silhouette that stands over the edge of the cliff, a small, slight figure painted in dark blues and grays. But he seems comfortable here, and does not smell foreign. Quiet, Mari admonishes the dog, and he presses his ears back at her, indignant. 

“By Her hand,” the sovereign calls out, though her voice is half-lost in the salty wind, and walks toward him. 


“Speaking.”

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