[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."

Something about him seems familiar, and Marisol struggles to place whether the feeling is real—whether she has seen him slinking through the weekend markets or reprimanded him for pilfering jewelry from some tired traveling merchant—or whether she is imagining it, and it is only that he has the kind of face she sees so often in the streets. Smiling. Self-assured. But still with an awkward sparkle of hunger, as though despite his air of self-sufficiency he is still yearning for something.

Whether she knows him or not it would not make a difference. Now is the first time she’s put a name to the face (if it even is a face she’s seen before), and her first impression has been officially cemented. A gust of wind comes spiraling off the frozen ocean, ruffling Mari’s forelock back against her ears, which flicker in careful consideration as he smiles and then speaks: New friends are always a good thing.

Her lip quirks suddenly, sharply. The gunmetal gray eyes glint in brief amusement. Some part of her—a deeply stifled part of her, which does not often make noticeable appearances—wants to make a joke: something about the two of them becoming friends, or if he’s sure it would always be a good thing, or whether that means she should expect something positive out of their encounter. Where are your friends, Caspian? she wants to ask. Why are you here alone?

But he could ask her the same thing in return, and that is a question Marisol doesn’t feel quite patient enough to answer.

She does not miss the way his eyes stray toward the ocean, or how they linger there even as he speaks again. Curiosity bullies her into wondering what is down there that could possibly be so important as to take his attention away from the queen and her dog. But even Mariol is not quite so egotistical, and so she bites her tongue against the urge to ask. 

Instead her dark head drops in a respectful nod. “If I could let you borrow mine,” she responds, grinning faintly. “I would. Good luck getting down, Caspian.”

And she turns to follow Anselm back into the fields.

“Speaking.”

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