[P] so, eden sank to grief

[Marisol]

“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”

Even the people that love—loved?—her, Marisol thinks, don’t know her like they think they do.

Isra (if that thorny red thing between them could even be called love) knew almost nothing. Back then she had been careful to keep all her cards close to her chest; so, whatever it was the Night queen saw in her, it must have been the product of her own imagination. 

There is little to remember about it except the pain. A rain-soaked dark street. The smell of cinnamon. That one long dance in the sparkling light of Denocte’s great hall, with violins moaning, and Mari’s heart beating in radiant panic, and the overwhelming but perfectly natural heat of Isra’s chest pressed up against hers like magma. Many fewer words than kisses or sidelong glances exchanged.

Then that had been it: heartbreak. Exhaustion. A quick ascension to the throne and then it was all irrelevant, anyway. Whatever Isra had thought of her was, by all accounts, likely not based in fact; and if Theodosia had paid attention to what Marisol told her—well, that would still be very little. What did this lover know about her that the others (or Asterion, for that matter) didn’t? 

The difference is that she wants to tell him. She would even trust him with it. Theoretically.

Mari surfaces from the dark water of her thoughts all at once; dragged back to the world of the living by that warm, gentle touch of his, which brushes the hair from her eyes and lays a steady, grounding pressure against her shoulder. She leans back in a soft reciprocation. In the dampness of the orchard, Orestes’ skin against hers is almost too balmy, and Marisol feels briefly blushy and overwhelmed. Heat pools in her cheeks; her gaze is warm and glassy, sliding over the apple that is offered to her without ever really landing on it, distracted as she is by the knot in her stomach that begs her not to speak. 

Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him. Why would you tell him? The voice is sharp with panic, and terribly insistent. It rings like a bell between her ears.

Marisol shakes her head as the fruit is offered, dazed, her chest beginning to swirl. She rests her head against the slope of his shoulder. Then lets her eyes flutter shut. His heart beats in her ear; he smells like sand and salt and rosemary, like freedom. The natural, dusty warmth of a living body. And when he speaks, Marisol feels it just as much as she hears it—a soft steady rumble like an earthquake. A mountain shifting. A river, rolling into the sea.

I failed my people. I made a decision that effectively killed, or enslaved, them all. They succumbed to a genocide. Mari’s heart stops. Suddenly she is frozen in place, ice cold, bolted into place by a fear that arcs through her like lightning  and a panic that squeezes at her chest like an iron lung: there is nothing in the world, nothing imaginable, that scares her more than failing in that way. I should have died with them, yet... for some reason, I was spared, and arrived in Novus. I have the blood of an entire people on my soul.

She wants to ask him how he stands it. This—this is impossible. How can life be worth living when you’re consumed by so much guilt—? What she feels nowadays is nothing in comparison, and still it seems to eat her, gnawing down to the bones until they come close to splintering. 

But of course she does not. It would be cruel, and Marisol has been cruel enough already to last her entire lifetime. Instead she slides closer, without removing the weight of her head against his neck, until she is tucked close under his cheek and says, softly:  “I abandoned someone.” 

A pause. She swallows roughly. 

“Before I became Commander, when I was still in training, another cadet—“ A sharp sigh. Mari’s eyes close suddenly. When she speaks again her voice is almost too quiet to hear, almost breaking on every word. “I had a child. Not consensually. Long—long before I wanted or was willing to. I was still almost a child myself. For a while my mother took care of her, but raising her in the slums  when there were better options, other families, would be cruel. I said I would be a decent person. And come find her after training. And I didn’t."

A sob. "I can’t.”

---

<3

aimless | kokovi