[P] a beast amongst flowers

[Marisol]

by sword
by salt

Marisol does not belong here, in this place of sand and sun and nothing else, nothing at all. She stands out like a sore thumb against the bright-goldness of the lighted dunes—too brawny, too dark, and by far too quick moving. The rest of the desert is perfectly still. No howling winds. No fluttering birds. Mari’s pacing disturbs the restful sand; she is a wandering, aggravated specter against the clearly lit Solterran sky.

I do not belong here. I do not belong here. Nervous, pent-up energy clenches in each muscle, and hardly any tension is released by the path she walks back and forth over the dunes. Her spine is wound up in knots, her head held low and rigid. Orestes’ invitation is a weight in her bag. Like rocks. Like drowning. She doesn’t know how she will present herself or what to say, what favors to ask, what treasures to offer.

(As if there are any. As if treasure is what Solterra needs to scrape its way back to standing after Raum’s innumerable blows. Marisol feels foolish, she bites her lip as she walks and thinks; but this is diplomacy, an art just like war, and she can’t treat it as savagely or carelessly as she might like to.)

This is useless. This is a waste of time. You will not live forever, Mari reminds herself, and it is both bitter and blaming to the parts of her that smart from years of scrapping-toil. Throwing the spears. Hoisting the shields. No, she will not live forever, and all of her decisions must take that into consideration; she will not rule forever, either, and now time is up and things must be done. Steps must be taken to protect her people. Starting now and extending forever. The alliances she makes must last far beyond her own life. 

After she is dead, after the barrow is set out to sea, Terrastella and Solterra will still soldier on, and her name will be somewhere in that alliance, bright as a sun, solid as a gravestone. That is the mark of a good king.

With a start she jolts back toward the capitol, spins on her feet, clouds of sand scattering upward. Her courage is uplifted, her spirit is resolved. But just as she starts to step forward she sees it—

The silhouette on the horizon, tall, broad-shouldered, a beast in the flowers. Like a monster in wait. Like a predator ready to pounce. She recognizes that stance. She has seen it on the battlefield, in the mirror, rippling across waves of lake water.

Marisol tightens her shoulders and walks toward him.

“Speaking.”

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