Oh, each time he thinks she could be a god (such a god to make Time itself tremble) she reminds him how very human she is. How each feeling flickers across her face, visible as heat lightning on the horizon, written for the world to read. Does she hide at all, or is it only for him she lays herself so bare?
She thinks he takes from her; how wrong she is. Not even a god could take the shine of her eyes, flecks of citrine amid their amethyst. No god could hope to steal the timbre of her voice, or seize the particular shape her mouth made in a smile or a frown.
Florentine belongs to herself. It is one of the many things that draws him to her. There is no lie in her fire and like any twisted midnight creature that makes its haunt far beyond the borders of town it pulls him in.
As if to prove him correct, he watches, rapt, as her fervent gaze (a kind of look he’s seen before, in his years and in his worlds, but oh, never for him) flickers back to anger.
Lysander knows he shouldn’t smile, but the little delights of the party have made him sleepy-slow, a contended cat, and so he does into the shadows they make between them even as she scolds him. It does not last; when she continues, each word spoken so close he can nearly feel the vibration of them from the air, each little breath that comes with them, it fades from his face.
He has not, he has never – to love in such a way was not for the likes of him. Such a truth has never rested so uneasy in his mind, before, and the first thing that rises to his tongue is not yet. But he keeps it safe behind his teeth.
“And you have the ability to bend it – are you a god, Florentine, to choose who to save, and what to change?” The words are cruel but his tone is soft and wondering, his muzzle a hair’s-breadth from her own. Of course she smells of flowers and festival smoke, but below that – oh, below that is the cloying scent of magic, vital and wild, and the metallic scent of her dagger. Does it remember the taste, the color, of his blood?
Petals drift around them, but Lysander is so still, a marble statue of a man. Each arc of smooth bone antler, each curl of dark hair waits for her to speak. He stands like a juror, he waits like a defendant, but the once-god is neither. What he is, as he waits for her gaze to tip up to his – well, for once he doesn’t know.
Curiosity, such a quiet little temptation. If there were no gods but words and wants he thinks that it would be his; certainly he has followed it long enough. And to hear her say it (even though he knew it already, for he has watched her, and known her, and she has let him) unfurls something cool and pleased within him. It is a dark vine that opens up and oh, he wonders what fruit it will bear.
This time, as she speaks, he says nothing in response; he only listens as she works out the things that weigh on her heart until she is silent.
And then he at last closes the final distance between them, and presses his lips to the gold plane of her cheek.
“I cannot give you absolution, Flora. But neither do I think you need it.” It has never been for Lysander to forgive sins, not when he has never hesitated to commit his own (not when he does not believe in them at all). It would be easy, then, to stay with his skin against hers like this, or perhaps move his muzzle to the curve of her neck, or rest his chin across her withers. She is as warm as she is gold, and though it is late summer, the night is cooling fast.
But Lysander leans away with almost a shrug, and slants his gaze at her, now languid as a cat’s.
“If you think it is right to go back and do what you can to save those you love, then I’ve no doubt that you will do it. But I wonder, now that you know, what you will do in the meantime.”
we wake with bright eyes now
