Senna glanced up from his desk, quill hovering to a stop over the letter he'd been penning. A white falcon haloed by sunset gold perched on his windowsill, her wings outstretched as she preened her feathers with rapt precision. The motion looked oddly like a woman smoothing wrinkles from the skirt of her evening gown.
Something of significance.
A bead of ink oozed out from the nobleman's suspended quill and dripped onto the parchment, ruining the tail of a swirling capital W. He glanced at it with distaste before folding the unfinished letter in half and brushing it into a basket overflowing with similarly-fated paper. He would have one of his advisors write it over for him tomorrow. The task was of little importance anyhow — he'd simply needed something to do, unable to cope with staying idle. But now...
“Something of significance,” he murmured, “stirs in Terrastella.” It was intriguing news, and — not in the least unwelcome. Raum's tyrannical reign was driving all of the court to madness, himself included, because bloodborne tyrant kings cared exceedingly little for noble opinion. Bureaucracy wasted away to bone, and order had long fled for the hills.
He'd always believed, mistakenly, that it fled in the direction of Dusk.
Was Vespera's noble court of healers finally joining the fray of discord ignited by dear Solterra?
"Well, don't keep me in suspense." Nestor's black eyes narrowed in wry satisfaction. Silently, she glided to his desk and settled upon a stack of books ridged with identical golden spines.
The Halcyons. The name struck a spark of recognition in Senna's eyes. But it was only that. A spark. Nestor lowered her beak and tapped at one of the spines she stood upon. A Fabled History of Terrastella. You do not involve yourself much in Terrastellan affairs. Perhaps now is the time to reacquaint.
But not only did Nestor point; she had brought something for him as well. From a satchel slung over her wings, she drew out a slim book wrapped in faded brown leather. There was no title save for an insignia of golden wings stamped on its cover. The falcon opened the book to a marked page in the middle, raised it to Senna, and tapped at one of the sketches with a yellow talon. A suit of armor was illustrated on the page in stunning detail.
A hunt has begun, Seneca, for the Pegasi unit's armor of legend. They call it Prudence.
❦
Dusk was a quiet kingdom; the antithesis to her hotblooded brother of Sun. In all his years at court, Senna had never found a reason to visit their ivy-draped citadel, nor keep more than a handful of spies reporting back to him from Terrastella. Between Delumine's great library, Denocte's longstanding distrust, and Solterra's penchant for switching out sovereigns like ladies switched out their bonnets, Terrastella had sat for years like a mist-shrouded isle across the sea from a warring continent. Warships did not visit isles of peace, unless the isle had something it wanted.
And what Senna wanted, was Prudence.
His ship and most of the crew he'd chartered lay moored on a rocky strip of sand west of the Praistigia Cliffs. He'd taken only a young, palomino errand boy with him named Kite (the irony had not escaped him — with Nestor, they made a triad of raptors). Kite was Dusk-born but Solterran-raised; and if the boy was as useful as he claimed to be, he'd be well on his way to becoming House Hajakha's newest Terrastellan ambassador.
The sun hung low over the bruising sky when they at last set eyes on Vespera's court of dreams.
And what a sight it was. Senna let his eyes widen just a fraction as he stepped into a scene stolen right from the pages of Sol's fairy books. Clouds dipped in lavender and lapis, slender buildings draped with flowering ivy, bakeries and apothecaries nestled in street corners as cozy as nesting doves. It was, as Kite had regaled to him, a chiaroscuro of moonlight and poetry.
It was, as he'd assumed, entirely too much. "We will be late if we dawdle," he said. But they were not late, even when they did dawdle at a lamplit tavern for a pint of much-needed refreshment. It was when the clocktower tolled exactly eight bells, that Senna and Kite found themselves approached in the darkening streets by two winged cadets in bronze helmets.
Between them stood a woman, oil-slick black in the night. Her slate grey eyes were long lashed and cutting. Senna recognized her immediately.
The sky is mottled in equal measures yellow, green and purple, a bruise ripening to darkness. Dusk streaks over the horizon, sets fire to the very edges of the sun, turning them to liquid white; it should be beautiful—is beautiful—but Marisol cannot (will not) appreciate it. There are more important things to wonder at.
Prudence is back.
Not back, that’s the whole issue—Prudence is alive again, in the hearts of the Halcyon, and everywhere Marisol looks she sees it.
Smells it.
Hears it, or hears of it.
Begs for clues.
And everyone knows. Not everyone cares, of course—that’s probably a blessing—but everyone knows. Whoever posted the first clue wasn’t subtle about it. Nor embarrassed—to hang a note in a murdered Commander’s handwriting on the door of the Halcyon barracks is tactless, but it’s proved effective. She hears the whispers on the streets. She sees the bowed heads of the cadets, wrapped in fervent conversation. She does not join in herself (no, the Commander has things to do, a city to protect, a prisoner to catch) but oh, she wishes she could, feels the desire like a burning thing in her chest, wants so badly to drop her duties and take off to look for the blessed armor.
So, so obvious. Bad weather tomorrow but that’s fine.
Bad weather tomorrow but that’s fine.
Marisol’s ears are buzzing. Terrastella’s bell, in its clocktower high against the red-cloudy sky, rings seven loud, clear times.
Focus. Focus. She and two cadets (whose names she would remember at any other time) are walking the narrow streets. It is not an unusual patrol, but of course today it feels…strange. The energy is high, and stretched tight like a violin string. The cobblestones seem unnaturally shifty under Marisol’s neat hooves, but she does not stumble. The cadets whisper behind her, which is far and away against the rules, but she does not have the energy to punish them--if she were like them, still young, enthusiastic and naive, she’d be talking too.
She might be talking now, even, if the teeth in her mouth weren’t so gods-damned sharp.
The colors of the sky are starting to bleed out to a deeper, purer blue. Clouds fall away against the bright silver of new stars, and one by one the pale lanterns in their iron sconces, bolted to brick walls, flicker into dutiful light. The tiny streets are suddenly, faintly awash in yellow; Marisol and her cadets, despite their dark coats and helmets, almost look gold. (The Commander does not feel gold. She feels evil. She feels blood-thirsty. She feels like she needs a cure, and even more pressingly she feels like if it doesn’t come soon, something terrible will happen.)
The city is quiet tonight, by Vespera’s blessing. Or by Her curse. Either way, Marisol is not glad for it. Her thoughts are running unchecked, running in circles—they nip at her heels like just-trained dogs, contained but not entirely. The city is quiet. Leaves whistle on their vines, wind whistles through the old, brown bricks. Shops are still open, bleeding faint, pale light into the streets. Bad weather tomorrow but that’s fine. Gnawing and gnawing. The city is quiet. Gnawing. Bad weather tomorrow but that’s fine. The city is—
The bell tolls terrible eight. At the end of the darkening street—two figures.
“Stay close,” Marisol murmurs to the cadets. She whips her cropped tail against her flanks, and the two yearlings step forward in perfect unison. They press against each side of her hip with flickering eyes and frown-set mouths. Marisol squares her shoulders.
The silhouettes don’t present a threat—quite yet—but all circumstances considered, it’s better to be safe than sorry. The Halcyon step forward together, and just as Marisol begins to open her mouth to speak, she hears her name.
Commander Marisol.
She blinks in faint surprise, drawing to a stop. The man in front of her is a stranger, or at least that’s what she thinks at first: she looks him over with the eye of an inspector, or a huntress, gauging threat. They are evenly matched in height and build, which soothes the Commander’s nerves slightly, but his eyes—they are a strange blood red, brighter than the rest of the red of him, and they match the faint glow of his dished horn. It is when she finally takes note of the knots in his hair—and the gold-ruby collar laying heavy against his chest—that she recognizes him, and almost smiles.
“By her Hand,” she says mildly. “Welcome to Terrastella.” Her slate-gray eyes glimmer slightly in the light; it could be humor, or suspicion, or a mix, but it is something more than her usual apathy. He is lucky. (If not lucky, at least unique.)The cadets behind her have no reaction; instead they hold perfectly still, statues at her side. I’ll have to remember to praise them later.
The golden boy at Senna’s side is just that—a boy—and Marisol gives him no more than a glance and a nod before turning her gaze back to Senna with a slight tilt of her head. “Senna,” and her voice is something between calm and wry, “You’re a busy man. What do you need here?”
She cannot tell if the feeling in the pit of her stomach is excitement, fear or defensiveness; it whirls like an ocean, But her stance is strong and she meets Senna’s eyes with ease. @Senna <3
From the few that knew him, or the most that knew of him, the general consensus when asked to describe the Head of House Hajakha was this: here is a man who is utterly unable to be summed up in the course of a few words. Unable to be summed up, period.
It was the same reason why no respectable king carried less than three official titles. Great (in the magnitude of their deeds; their temperament was another topic entirely) men were always a great many things, and to attempt to pare them down to one-word-titles was an attempt to sully their very legacies.
Senna—and he was quite aware of this—was a man more myth than flesh. Tales of his political maneuverings and outright scandalous marriage to Princess Zofia had swept the Solterran court off their disgruntled feet for years, accounts of his actions—painted black and hideous or red and heroic—spreading farther across the fractured kingdom than his own four hooves would ever take him.
Attempts to title Senna had been made, however, and they went something like this: half-breed prince. Sand snake. Ruthless tactician. Bloodsucker. A living embodiment of cold-hearted ambition.
They were noble attempts; he couldn’t have done much better himself. And yet —
Never had these descriptions pegged him as the pious man he was. All of Scarab, especially the princes, had been. The biggest shock to him when he'd arrived in far-away Solterra, was seeing how unpious this desert kingdom was. They did not pray, or at least not to a strict schedule, and they did not sacrifice. He'd barely seen any shrines to Solis, or to the three other gods, anywhere except the pitiable altar and near-crumbling statues on Veneror.
Over time, as all feelings do, the shock had ebbed. His devoutness had faded in the face of tragedy, and he'd never since had the heart to rekindle it.
Knowing this about Senna, then, makes it much more understandable as to why he found Marisol's greeting such a phenomenon. How utterly casually she invoked the hand of her goddess, he thought. How utterly devout she immediately made herself out to be. It was not a display Senna saw with any regularity, and his crimson eyes darkened with intrigue as he dipped his head to her in courteous acknowledgment.
It was to be this small occurrence, the Halcyon commander's unexpected greeting, that would stay with Senna long after the chapter between them closed.
His gold-plated collar glinted weakly under the fading dusk. Marisol's gray eyes (so similar to what Sol’s used to be) gleamed in what Senna discerned to be anticipation when she inquired after his arrival. She'd recognized him from a glance, and therefore, if his famed reputation did him any favors, she knew he wasn't the sort to journey all the way to Terrastella to sightsee.
He passed his gaze roughly over the two cadets flanking her, found their discipline impressive, and, after a beat of consideration, gestured for Kite to take out the book.
“You are looking for something, Commander.” The spine of the aged journal groaned in protest when Kite smoothed it open to a marked page and angled the book towards Marisol. Under the light the thin paper was almost translucent, yet the illustration had been done in bold charcoal strokes and seemed to leap off the page. Prudence, glorious even in her echo.
“And soon enough there will be hunters and common thieves turning up at your doorstep searching for it.” He watched her carefully, though to her credit her expression was schooled in trained neutrality. It was always difficult with the military types. Bureaucrats turned over squealing with the lightest pressure applied on their tender spots, but for those like Marisol—discipline ingrained into their marrow, honor worn like a medallion around their necks—manipulation was a foolish route to take. She had to trust him. It was a delicate balance.
“Prudence is rumored to be so great a treasure,” he continued, thoughtfully, “it has attracted even the likes of me. But make no mistake. I am not here to be a threat.” All around them the citizens of Terrastella milled about like drowsy ants, either returning home or sneaking from it, but Senna did not miss the inquisitive ears turned slyly towards them. Neither, he thought, would Marisol.
His arrival was no doubt becoming the evening's freshest piece of gossip. It had been his intention. News of the Halcyon’s desperate hunt was, as he'd insinuated, well-known now by the public, and he wouldn't attempt to keep his involvement hushed. Senna had discovered early on in his career that secrets had a nasty habit of attracting the fattest, hungriest flies.
“I would like to propose a deal.” His voice, deep and accented with the Solterran clip, drew to an expectant halt. He blinked slowly, the glow of his horn washing Marisol’s fine, if solemn, features in an ominous shade of crimson. Nestor’s presence crept into his awareness like slow-descending fog. She was somewhere above him, circling silently in the dark velvet sky. Always watching.
Her wings are a pretty color, the falcon commented blithely.
Yes, Senna mused back, dropping his eyes momentarily to the commander’s white spotted wings. A faint smile crossed his lips. I've never seen anything like them.
Despite Marisol’s trepidation, she does not flinch from the darkness of his voice as he addresses her, nor the burning, hellish red of his eyes. The more superstitious part of her wonders if those are his real eyes or the side effect of some demon’s curse; granted, she has her own skeletons to hide, and she can’t help but pity him that hers are more easily kept out of view than his. Marisol can curl her lips as low as she wants, but Senna is doomed to see forever.
She knows he has his own reasons for being here, and she has a gnawing, aching feeling it will not be a reason she likes or approves of. For centuries Prudence was the Halcyon’s most prized possession, and to hand it off to a Solterran snake-prince would be… unfortunate, to say the least. (It won’t happen, she reminds herself. Even if he finds it—and that’s a pretty big if—Marisol has…ways, of getting it back, and a dedication that must far outmatch his. She can fight dirty, too.)
(Or can she? Maybe it’ll be different now, maybe the ocean in her won’t know how to hold back. Isn’t that it’s nature—to be wild, uncontainable? Will she have to work twice as hard for half as much restraint? Will her steel expressions melt for good? Maybe it’s all over, maybe she’s just an animal again, the rabid, snarling thing Vespera made her in the very beginning, maybe it’s just a return to savagery, maybe—)
The book opens, and though Marisol does not gasp, the sudden flare in her slate eyes says she may as well have.
Prudence is as recognizable to her as the pattern of her own wings, as old and familiar as her mother’s voice. Marisol has spent far too much time researching not to recognize the fabled armor from so little as a spectral echo. And even this is not quite an echo. The drawing in Senna’s book is ash-dark and intricate. Mari can practically see the shine of the opal headpiece; her face is cool, but her heart is bursting.
“Hunters and thieves,” repeats the Commander. Her eyes are still watching the diagram on the leaf-thin paper. “Nothing like you, then, Senna.” When her eyes finally look up toward his they are serious as ever, but the lightness of her tone implies something that sounds like no matter, as long as it’s found. She smiles, genuinely, briefly. “I hadn’t realized politicians needed armor, too.” It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.
Marisol is not naive. She is well aware that while Senna’s desire for Prudence and her own might be similar in ferocity, their reasons are vastly different. She cannot begin to imagine what a disgraced half-noble would want with Vespera-blessed armor, but want it he does, and might help her in the process. So who is she to turn him away, when the luck of her god and her people are on her side?
She snaps her cropped tail against her right hindquarter. The cadets know their orders—the one behind her on the right moves to stand aligned fully at her side, squaring his hooves in a slightly wider stance, and the one on the left snaps her head and clicks her tongue at Kite, beckoning him away from the crowd. “She won't hurt him. We search bags that cross the border,” Marisol explains, her voice both mild and clinical. Her stance relaxes; her weight shifts slightly backward, spear a stiff brace against her hind leg.
“I am quite interested,” she says with a grin, “To hear of a deal which both benefits you and does not threaten us, as I’m having a hard time imagining one.”
Give and take. Someone—one of Zolin’s spineless advisors, of which he’d had ten too many—had once remarked to Senna that diplomacy was a dance of give and take.
“We are selfish creatures, yes. But you will be surprised, Lord Hajakha, at just how obliging, how decorous, someone becomes when they feel... indebted to you. Give mercy and take obedience. It’s a wonderful little principle, wouldn’t you say?”
He’d chuckled amiably with the man, though if the old fool could see more than three feet in front of him he wouldn’t have missed the sneer curling in on itself on the young nobleman’s face. Give and take?
That tidy little principle vastly underestimated the ones indebted.
If diplomacy was so cut and dry, so push and pull, Senna never would’ve fought as hard as he’d had to please his dear father. No son was so noble as to live entirely for their bastard sires; half of the pleasure had been in the pursuit. And as young as Senna had seemed when the advisor gifted him that wisdom four years ago—
Scarab had been locked in a holy war for centuries. The seraphim had never shown them mercy. And if they had, the obedience so owed to them would’ve arrived in a chariot of swords, a symphony of battle horns as fanfare.
He watched Marisol’s reaction to the sketch with grim satisfaction. She was far more unflinching than most, but he’d been at this longer than the young commander had known how to walk. He knew what desire looked like. Knew the color, knew the shape.
“I like to believe I don’t fall into either category, no,” he replied wryly. The gold leaf-shaped plates of his collar clinked together when his shoulders conceded a shrug. Her banter, slighting if it were anyone else, instead invited a quirk to Senna’s mouth. The stoic commander as described by Nestor's reports wasn't quite who was standing in front of him.
“Most do not. Words tend to serve us better.” He returned her smile with a cool one of his own, but his eyes narrowed as if to say: until they don’t. A stillness settled over him when he remembered the last time words had failed, and what that failure had cost him.
(Would armor have saved her instead? He'd asked the same question to himself a thousand times with a thousand substitutions: would more guards have saved her? Would more time have saved her? Would ___ have saved her?)
He was glad when Marisol signaled for her cadets to escort Kite away for inspection, and bid the boy off with a curt nod. The inspection would take little time, but that was all he needed. His proposition was meant to be heard by the Commander alone, but he was more than willing to give her enough time for deliberation. After all, he hadn't yet drawn up the papers.
To Senna, the only key that came close to fitting into the lock of diplomacy was this: patience. Patience to consider every facet of every side, machinations traced from bud to leaf to branch; patience to inspect far into the past, estimate far into the future, to see how fate has set her board.
Patience, to watch for the moment one’s opponent realized that the starting pieces were already in place.
“Take my word or not,” he began softly, “but I assure you, Commander, that such a deal is indeed possible.” The deal in question had taken form the moment Nestor had imparted to him just how desperate the Halcyons were to find the legendary Prudence. The armor and its history had intrigued him, but desperation… that was what shifted the sands of empires. He'd just needed to find a way to wield it.
“You asked what a politician has need of armor for. Truthfully, I have very little I need... and Prudence is not one of them. Even Excalibur did not keep Arthur from dying at Mordred’s hand, if you know of the tales.” Senna paused, his gaze alighting on a star in the Terrastellan sky. For the first time, he allowed an emotion to surface and swallow air. One breath, two. The corners of his lips tightened as weariness poured into his grim features like oil on water. Sitting, but never sinking.
“My deal is this. If I find Prudence, I shall return the armor to you without delay nor hesitation. In return, I ask for an alliance with the Halcyon unit, with concession for Prudence to be invoked for my cause should I need it. Naturally, I would never provoke hostilities with the Halcyons nor Terrastella.”
Loathe as Senna was to admit it, he no longer controlled the Solterran court. It was no longer able to be controlled. Raum’s decrees ran amok like a rat-carried disease, and soon enough, the disease would begin to kill its host. From what he’d seen, it already had. What atrocities would the king commit next? He could dedicate lifetimes to guessing the whims of madmen.
But he would be damned if he lost again.
“You can also consider it reciprocal. House Hajakha’s unlimited support would be yours, for as long as the alliance shall last.”
He didn't think it necessary to tell her what he would do if she refused. He intended to hunt regardless of the outcomes of his deal. If he found Prudence then, he would scratch out the line about "returning without delay nor hesitation" and negotiate his alliance over again. Only this time, through a series of slow, bureacracy-standard letters and on-behalf-of visits.
And if he didn't? Patience, still. Reparations could invariably be made. Plans invariably drawn. Whatever the outcome, he thought, I would not be so quick to call it a loss.
@Marisol | "senna" nestor | notes: diplomat(?) senna has come to call
As they talk, Marisol watches and categorizes. Takes everything she knows about him and puts it into her neat little boxes—advantage, disadvantage, danger level.
Advantage: Senna of House Hajakha is a lone wolf, no matter how much he might try to convince her otherwise.
Disadvantage: Lone wolves are more often rabid.
Advantage: Solterra is in fiery ruins, barely able to keep itself in one piece, much less wage a war. House Hajakha itself cannot be much stronger.
Disadvantage: Prudence might lend a significant hand to its repair.
Advantage: If what he’s saying is true, it won’t matter, anyway.
Disadvantage: Marisol does not know enough about this man to be sure he does not have any manner of tricks up his sleeve.
Advantage: If he does, it is anything she and her Unit cannot handle?
Danger level: Not high enough to warrant a complete dismissal.
Some part of her finds it amusing that Senna asks her if she knows of the tales. If—Marisol’s every waking moment outside of training is spent poring through bibles, tomes and poetry volumes, the oldest dramas and sets of riddles. If. She knows those stories like she knows her own heartbeat. And he is no hero, nothing like those stories.
Although neither is she.
She is a predator, like him, and she does not miss the way weariness flickers over the lines of his face, the exhaustion way below the surface and the soft downturn of his lips. The first lesson of diplomacy. She wants to chastise him with a disappointed shake of her head and a click of her tongue, like an exasperated mother, but—if he wants to show weakness, it will be much more of an issue for him than for her.
“I hope you’re not offended by the need to draw up a more legitimate agreement on paper. Thief or not.” Marisol turns back toward the barracks. She does not beckon him, but she is sure that he is following—there is no way he wouldn’t want to know what she will tell him next. (She thinks briefly of Asterion and what he might think of her making deals with a Solterran snake; but this is older than either of them, as old as Terrastella itself, and is Marisol must defend her actions, then, well, they are simply a means to an end.)
Overhead the night has gone perfect black. Stars just barely shine, lost in the depths of the endless sky. The Commander picks her way across the uneven cobblestone with a measure of confidence comparable only to a lion patrolling its territory: there is no place she knows better than Terrastella, and every street, every corner, has been burned into her memory. “If there ever comes a day, Senna, where our needs are at odds, you must understand that Terrastella takes… precedence. But—“ And here she smiles—“I will do my best to believe that you would never act against us, at least until I have proof otherwise.”
“We are not mercenaries.” They pass by the citadel, whose panes of stained glass stream deep pink and yellow onto the blue-black stones underfoot. The faint drone of a harp sounds from a high window; Marisol glances up at it with a brief flick of her ear. “And I think—hope—you understand that solely personal vendettas have little place in an alliance as explicitly… defined as this one.”
The barracks rise up ahead, still humming with movement and light against the still, dark city. Marisol’s pace slows. The cadet that has been following behind them pulls ahead and slips into his room unnoticed as Marisol comes to a stop outside the door. When she meets Senna’s eyes, her gaze is confident, unperturbed. “But I’m sure you’ll use your better judgement as to when waging a war becomes necessary. If everything goes as smoothly as you seem to think it will—“
We can only hope—
“Then I see no reason not to agree.” Shadows go rushing past the barrack’s dimly lit windows. Marisol's voice is starting to rasp more than she'd like it to. “I encourage you to stay in the city. It will be much easier to relay any information, or to find you, if need be. There is room here, though I can’t promise we won’t wake you up sickeningly early.”
She smiles at him then, a brief, real smile. (No reason to catch his suspicion this early; besides, he has impressed her, a little.)
"I have half of one written already." A wry smile glanced upon Senna's lips when the Commander considered—and did not decline—his offer.
To be sure, he hadn't expected her to accept the proposal with his standard degree of confidence (split neatly between odds of 70 to 30—any more, and that teetered into arrogance; any less, incompetence). But consideration was all he asked for.
He did not bother thinking any deeper about the reasons behind Marisol's decision. A starving man had no right to be picky, he thought darkly, and Solterra had long passed the point of starving.
Instead, he followed behind her as she crossed the lamplit square and began navigating towards what he presumed to be the barracks with a confidence he had never been able to cultivate in his own court. (But perhaps he had never tried.) Lanterns hanging from distant balconies shone through the starry night like the fields of the Steppe in midspring, rife with the glow of lightning bugs.
Everywhere he looked were signs of a court bursting with life. Mothers shouted out doors to call their children to supper. Nightingales crooned from trees laden with glistening purple fruit. Window boxes burst with flowers of every color, their heady scent infusing the air with a soft perfume.
He tore his gaze away from the lights as he listened to the Commander's terms.
"I never take people at their words, so I will not ask the same of you," he began, lengthening his stride to walk quietly besides her. "But I have not maintained a position in the Solterran court through a career of backstabbing, unlike... some of the other lords," he said, repressing a grimace as he thought back to a particularly bloody attempt at a coup launched during the tumultuous months after Zolin's demise. How many good soldiers he, as well as the head of Azhade, had lost quelling it. He had been forced to disband the Hajakha's private army after the ones remaining abandoned their loyalty in a heap at his hooves.
"Treachery is a lazy, unstable method. I understand your obligations to Terrastella, Commander, and I have no intentions on breaking it. Truly," he clipped, glancing up towards the ever watching moon as their hooves tapped a four tempo beat on the cobblestones. "I wish I never have to make use of your troops."
His gaze caught upon the rose stained windows of the citadel as they passed, and darkness flickered across his shadowed face. Is this what Solterra could have looked like, he wondered, if they had trodden down another path?
His gaze hardened beneath the canopy of stars. Sentiment. And here I'd thought myself immune to it. Solterra's path had been scoured deep into the earth decades, centuries, before he had ever set foot upon its golden sands. His fate was not to challenge it.
It was to see it through, to the bitter end. He owed Sol—and Zofia—that much.
They paused at the foot of an entryway leading up to a row of curtained windows. The barracks. At once, looking into the lamplit windows, Senna was reminded of his room back in Scarab. Stationed in the twisting halls of the "little palace", scathingly dubbed to a shoddily constructed row of shingled roofs lashed to a foundation of varnished wood. The only sign of royalty it bore was to be found in the blood of its inhabitants.
The king's discarded princes, provisioned with one servant each and a visit to the inner court once a moon to attend the Lunar Revelry, or whenever summoned. He had never been summoned.
Clenching his jaw, he sealed the memory back into its iron shackled vault. The Terrastellan air was turning his mind to clay.
"I shall send Kite to deliver the contract tomorrow morning." Arranging his features into somewhat of a smile, Senna turned to the young Commander and bowed. A deep, princely bow.
"I shall enjoy this hunt. If you ever journey to Solterra, send a hawk ahead of you and I will extend to you the same hospitality you have shown me."
@Marisol | "senna" nestor | notes: so sorry for the delay <3 thought it fitting to end this thread here, but I demand more between them in the future!
It is a beautiful city, whether you love it or not, and oh, Marisol loves it.
Pride blooms so warm in her chest as she hears the birds, smells the perfect purple flower boxes, watches and smiles at the children on their unsteady legs careening through the streets. Stars winking overhead, breeze sweeping the stones. No matter what happens, she thinks, this will not change. Cannot. Terrastella’s simple, lovely beauty is the only sensible thing left in this world. Marisol will protect it with her last blink, her last breath, her last drop of blood.
There is no use thinking too hard of Senna’s intentions. All of Novus is in shambles now, and people are hardly on their best behavior—even disregarding that, their citizens (herself and Senna included) are turning into something much closer to beggar than chooser. Options are few and far between. If there is danger not in Senna, then it will be found in Kite—if not in Kite, in Nestor—not a man on earth, in this day and age, can be reasonably counted on to do the right thing, and hardly a woman either.
This is the lesser of two evils. At least like this he is indebted; at least here she can keep an eye on him. A close one. There are eyes in every corner of the barracks, Marisol’s as well as her cadets, at least a pair at all times unblinking, unsleeping. She can only hope he is foolish enough to let down his guard.
“Many thanks.” Over my dead body will I ever be found in Solterra, she thinks, but her expression is smooth. Noise leaks from the barracks closed doorway, and light trickles out to touch their skin. The moon is soft overhead. Her brow quirks at his bow. It is impossible not to notice how smooth it is for him, how royal and practiced. But she says nothing, only dips her head at him, a military mirror of his own genuflection. “Goodnight, Senna. May the Lord open.”
With a cool blink she brushes past him and into her office.
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