[P] She walks a lonely road

[Marisol]

blessed in spirit are the poor

In summer the citadel gets hot, hot, hot. The high stone walls bake in the light of the sun and let the rooms grow warm, beating with the midday pulse of a heart. Sometimes Marisol’s temper rises with the temperature, and today is one of those days; by the time the knock on the door comes announcing that someone has asked for a visit, the Commander is already prickly from the heat.

It’s a pegasus, says the page who comes to find her, dressed in shades of brown and blue. Asking for an audience with (here he smiles awkwardly) the king. It takes Mari a minute to think of who it might be. And when she does she can’t help a blink of surprise, a startled question—“Mephisto?” The messenger only shrugs, meek in his lack of an answer. 

The Commander nods to dismiss him. When he disappears from the doorway and back down the hall, she lets out a soft sigh—frustration mingled with a true, insistent curiosity—and follows in his path; trailing slowly down the spiral staircase, through the long shale-walled hall and into the foyer, whose stained-glass windows, shot through by beams of sun, spill pools of pastel-colored light onto the ground. Mari’s dark skin becomes iridescent as she passes through their tinted glow.

The chamber is silent when she enters it, filled with a calm, dusty yellow light; and it is indeed Mephisto that she finds waiting there, wings held loosely at her sides, head held high but a glint of worry in her bright blue eyes. Marisol’s mouth twists slightly as she comes to a stop in the middle of the room, tail swishing sharply back and forth. A heartbeat passes in surprised silence.

“Mephisto,” the queen offers finally. “…Her mercy meet us.” Her expression is cool but not unkind, and in the sunlight her gray eyes narrow with a look of unguarded puzzlement.


"Speaking."

queen marisol

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