[P] wash me in the riverside [fall]

[Elena]

take this burden away from me
and bury it before it buries me

She has never considered herself to be particularly beautiful, not in the way Marisol was. Marisol was stoic, the kind of beauty you find in a museum, the kind of beauty painter’s emulate, trying to capture forever on a canvas but never coming even close to the real thing that is held there in the sharp, alluring lines of her face. She is a leader, it is clear as day when Elena looks to her. That is why everyone finds her so beautiful, that kind of thing cannot be captured by any art form, it is something alive and moving, and it crosses like a shadow over Marisol’s dark face.

Marisol would have a nice laugh if she let herself, she would be beautiful dancer if she forgot her reservations, Elena knows as much. Neither of these things are easy, Elena knows as much of this as well. Elena would be easy to love, and she would love easily in return if she let them in, and if she could stop burning everything she touched. But there are all things we have that stay tucked away. Would rather keep it hidden than risk it breaking.

She picks apples with Marisol, blue eyes scanning the branches, looking for red and green amongst the colors of fall. Her basket has a few before she speaks to her, her words falling just like the apples in to the basket.

Golden ears tip forward to catch the commander’s own words, and she would blush if she could. Though, she hardly finds herself worthy of such praise, work had been all there was left for her to harvest. She had tried to find love and it feel to ground, rotten.

Elena sighs, not loud, but there is something whimsical that twirls off her lips like the dancer she was.

“I wish a warrior like you, strong. To fight and protect. I wish I could do that for my Court, for my loved ones.” Marisol who stands with strength even on quiet days like this, like she could brace a storm and come out taller than before. Valerio had never seemed to be afraid of anything. Her father had shred apart his very body to protect the ones he loved. Aletta, would have disintegrated the world, drag it into dust to protect those she cared for, those who looked to her as their leader.

And what could Elena do but patch them up in the aftermath?

She frowns slightly, looking down at the ground and swallowing back the disappointment and the self-hate. When she glances up again, her features are washed clean of the doubt. She remembers there is hope in healing, Lovelace had taught her as much, and she had found it in every wound, ever tear cried from agony, and in every broken bone. She smiles softly then, her lips just barely curling the corners of her mouth. “I love healing, I love Terrastella and its people, I love helping them,” she says, her heart aches with how much she loves this home, her home. “Give me something to devote myself to the people, to help you, Marisol.” She is open, honest. Elena wants to become a leader, and she knows that to be a leader you must bow your head and give yourself to those who need you most.

so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me

@Marisol