FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
Sleep was far from her this night. It lingered upon the rough spun and frayed edges of her. Though drowsy, though her eyelids were made heavy with the weight of sleep, still it did not claim her.
In darkness she lay, counting seconds away, counting the beat of her heart and how it rose and fell as her thoughts wandered over recent events. The quiet was loud with loneliness. It filled her up with a cacophony of unease.
It is of no surprise then, when Florentine surges from her room, her limbs already thrumming with restless electricity. The air is the low hum of a bee’s wings, it drones in her blood and presses stings along her skin.
She shivers against the cold, her golden skin quivering. The library might have passed by in a blur, were it not for a golden light that poured across the stone and before her feet.
Ah gentle light, warm and welcoming. In its glow Florentine stops and her eyes trail to where flames dance beyond the doorway. Each candle lights a stack of books and the night is filled with the scent of beeswax and parchment.
A stranger sits, lit by firelight, eyes reading the words revealed by each flickering flame. He is a pool of ink, surrounded by glimmering gold light and then shadows beyond that. There is a halo about him and the girl cannot decide if it is one he deserves. She is not sure anyone deserves a crown or halo in Novus anymore.
In silence she enters, and only the whisper of her feet upon the flagstone tiles might rouse the devout reader from his study.
Oh, Florentine. The inky stranger knew her. Her eyes trail over the cosmic magic of his scales, his horn. A kirin. Alas, her every encounter with one had not been well. Her memories are enough to want to cast her from the room, but instead she is turning from his scales, drinking in the gaze of his eyes and settling to rest before him.
A small smile tips her lips, but not even the fae-girl can smooth the tension from her golden lips. “I think you have chosen your space well. It is a comfortable time for solitary reading.” Oh but how she yearns to be asleep, not filled with thoughts of gods and antlers and the passages of Time.
“Forgive me that I do not know you. Being queen is a curse when all know my name, but I know too few in return. I wish to correct that as often as I may.”
@Relic | Sorry for the wait <3
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
