the dark is empty; most of our heroes have been wrong.
Something is wrong with him. Or: something is wrong in him.
Looking at him is like missing a step down the stairs, or getting startled awake when it’s still dark out—it’s unnerving and sharply discomforting. Marisol swears she can feel her teeth itch when she glances at him and sees that peculiar little smile still on his face, frozen there with the gaunt steadiness of a killer clown.
A chill runs through her. It rattles down every vertebrae of her spine, from the back of her skull to the base of her tail, and with every iteration Marisol feels her body growing colder and colder and colder. She tries to justify it, turns her thoughts to the wind that whips down the mountainside and the prickling threat of rain inside that breeze; of course that could be the thing that makes her shiver, nature curling its sharp, cold fingers into her flesh.
But she knows it is not the wind. She knows this—the thing that makes her shiver, and whatever sick blackness it is that hides in the curl of Asterion’s awful grin—is not natural and never could be. It is death, or fate, or something so terrible Marisol has not even heard of it yet.
She knows: it is the kiss of something otherworldly.
And she is so woefully wound up, so unbelievably on edge, that the slightest movement of his eyes—suddenly cold, flashing from her to the drop-off and back to her again—feels like watching the whole world fall apart. She sees it all. The quick blink. The sideways glance. So terribly casual. Marisol’s eyes follow. Her chest fills with a cold flash of fear as she sees the steep cliff fall into nothing; the carpet of trees a hundred, two hundred feet below, painted in a patchwork of deep greens and blues.
Marisol is strong and winged and has nothing to be afraid of, not when it comes to a fall like that. She doesn’t even have to be afraid of falling; there’s simply no chance she, a practiced soldier, will slip and lose her balance. But still something in her flinches at the sight of it, the world opening up wide as a jaw just below.
It’s better without them, he says. Marisol presses her lips together; she feels salt sharpening the corners of her mouth. There are so many problems with what he’s said—so many problems with the things he now believes, or the things he thinks he believes. But she holds her tongue. She presses down the urge to argue, pushes it to the back of her brain. She reminds herself, with eye-darkening focus: it is less important to agree with him than it is to love him.
She does not admit to him why she’s let her hair grown out; which man it is that appears in the mirror when she looks at the short, dark curls. It is that admission that makes her realize just how long they have not seen each other. Somehow he has missed a huge swath of her life, bigger than the first time he left. And knowing that, Marisol’s heart aches—it is infinitely worse to know that her dearest friend was here, right here, and still doesn’t know of her husband, her children, the faultless turning of the earth.
“Asterion—“
Her voice cracks. It breaks neatly in half: twig underfoot, heart upon abandonment. And the second Marisol hears it, the sound of her whole self falling to pieces, time reverses—
She is a child again, small and scarless, begging her father to stay;
then a cadet crushed under the weight of Eustace dying, the weight of knowing she will have to take his place while his body is still warm;
then she is herself a month ago, watching Ariel disappear over the horizon in a blinding flash of light;
the wind comes rushing in and Marisol is torn back into her cold, stiff, scared body, and she says, voice splitting almost into tears again: “Why won’t you come home?”
Looking at him is like missing a step down the stairs, or getting startled awake when it’s still dark out—it’s unnerving and sharply discomforting. Marisol swears she can feel her teeth itch when she glances at him and sees that peculiar little smile still on his face, frozen there with the gaunt steadiness of a killer clown.
A chill runs through her. It rattles down every vertebrae of her spine, from the back of her skull to the base of her tail, and with every iteration Marisol feels her body growing colder and colder and colder. She tries to justify it, turns her thoughts to the wind that whips down the mountainside and the prickling threat of rain inside that breeze; of course that could be the thing that makes her shiver, nature curling its sharp, cold fingers into her flesh.
But she knows it is not the wind. She knows this—the thing that makes her shiver, and whatever sick blackness it is that hides in the curl of Asterion’s awful grin—is not natural and never could be. It is death, or fate, or something so terrible Marisol has not even heard of it yet.
She knows: it is the kiss of something otherworldly.
And she is so woefully wound up, so unbelievably on edge, that the slightest movement of his eyes—suddenly cold, flashing from her to the drop-off and back to her again—feels like watching the whole world fall apart. She sees it all. The quick blink. The sideways glance. So terribly casual. Marisol’s eyes follow. Her chest fills with a cold flash of fear as she sees the steep cliff fall into nothing; the carpet of trees a hundred, two hundred feet below, painted in a patchwork of deep greens and blues.
Marisol is strong and winged and has nothing to be afraid of, not when it comes to a fall like that. She doesn’t even have to be afraid of falling; there’s simply no chance she, a practiced soldier, will slip and lose her balance. But still something in her flinches at the sight of it, the world opening up wide as a jaw just below.
It’s better without them, he says. Marisol presses her lips together; she feels salt sharpening the corners of her mouth. There are so many problems with what he’s said—so many problems with the things he now believes, or the things he thinks he believes. But she holds her tongue. She presses down the urge to argue, pushes it to the back of her brain. She reminds herself, with eye-darkening focus: it is less important to agree with him than it is to love him.
She does not admit to him why she’s let her hair grown out; which man it is that appears in the mirror when she looks at the short, dark curls. It is that admission that makes her realize just how long they have not seen each other. Somehow he has missed a huge swath of her life, bigger than the first time he left. And knowing that, Marisol’s heart aches—it is infinitely worse to know that her dearest friend was here, right here, and still doesn’t know of her husband, her children, the faultless turning of the earth.
“Asterion—“
Her voice cracks. It breaks neatly in half: twig underfoot, heart upon abandonment. And the second Marisol hears it, the sound of her whole self falling to pieces, time reverses—
She is a child again, small and scarless, begging her father to stay;
then a cadet crushed under the weight of Eustace dying, the weight of knowing she will have to take his place while his body is still warm;
then she is herself a month ago, watching Ariel disappear over the horizon in a blinding flash of light;
the wind comes rushing in and Marisol is torn back into her cold, stiff, scared body, and she says, voice splitting almost into tears again: “Why won’t you come home?”
![[Image: ddg6quy-9d15dab5-339c-4b09-8b57-20a99fda...jvUop12efQ]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/c175b84a-409b-40aa-8b86-49ed65b989ee/ddg6quy-9d15dab5-339c-4b09-8b57-20a99fda550e.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2MxNzViODRhLTQwOWItNDBhYS04Yjg2LTQ5ZWQ2NWI5ODllZVwvZGRnNnF1eS05ZDE1ZGFiNS0zMzljLTRiMDktOGI1Ny0yMGE5OWZkYTU1MGUucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.j-t9RuUsmMyaVL-O1rvZqbyyPYdOvtjHLjvUop12efQ)
