It still hurts to be here.
 
Even in twilight shade, Florentine hears the whispers of night everywhere. Though her skin crawls, though her heart thunders and her anger cries within her veins, she still walks, slow and steady. The flower girl carries her head high, gazing out with stony intent from beneath her fringe of gold and lavender.
 
She passes the stacks of wood they make, ready for the bonfires at night. She drifts by the music that fills her ears and begs her limbs to dance. She moves beyond them both like a ship upon an empty sea – her eyes do not stray from the horizon.
 
Where was the girl who had come here to dance, so many times before? Was she the same girl who answered the festival call of Night only scant moments after making her home in Terrastella?
 
Florentine was.
 
She was also the same girl who let her young heart fall in love with Night’s king and then pay so dear a price – not once, but twice.
 
For all that she glides like a ship – soft and smooth through the waves of darkness ebbing against her – her jaw is tight, her eyes lit. It is not the amethyst that glows this night, captured by the bruise of the sky, it is the amber flecked within that burns hot like flames. She had forgotten who she was but she will not forget again.
 
The fae-queen walks like a woman toward her pyre (and any one of the prepared bonfires would do) but all that awaits her is the hoary glow of the lake’s liquid shore. It glitters silver-blue, red and gold beneath the sky, haloing the girl stood upon its bank.
 
That shadowed figure possesses an outline Florentine knows, except for the jut of a wing – still healing, still angular. Through the chorus of cicadas and trailing the night music of Denocte like a bridal train, Flora stops beside Aislinn.
 
You came.
 
The words hang, with all their relief, with all their joy, in the space between them. Of course Flroentine would come, but only for Aislinn. Though her mind, for a moment, drifts to Night’s Warden and his sorrowful gaze – she might come for him too.
 
Looking to the rippling lake, Flora remembers its touch, the cool as it wraps about each slender limb. She looks to the point where she stood, with a previous Emissary, beneath a sky full of stars and fell a little more in love. So much has changed since then. So much.
 
Now she cannot bear to be here, feeling the press of night upon her skin, hearing the music and seeing the fires blaze. A part of her soul belonged here, once, but now it is shocked and left reeling. It no longer fits so easily within Florentine. This girl has become as misshapen inside, as Aislinn is outside.
 
Soft words, gentler words , the Flower Queen begs of herself, as her eyes taken in Aislinn’s crown of flowers. Flora cannot bring herself to wear even a crown of blossoms, too much is the weight of it all. And so, Dusk’s sovereign stands, looking less of a queen than the girl beside her.
 
“I came here once and met Lothaire.” A story begins, one she does not really have an ending for. Well, much beyond, “I miss him. His council was wise, despite his claims to the contrary.” The stars begin to shine, thriving as the sun falls deeper, deeper into the horizon. The fae-girl watches them all as they come out.
 
“Congratulations, sister. You deserve to be his regent,” She begins softly. “But he does not deserve you.” Her eyes sink down until they fall into the grey-blue of Aislinn’s gaze. There they stop and dwell, not shy away. Their shared look is as sore as a bruise, and it does not help Florentine find a smile to soothe it. “Do good Aislinn because, by the gods, his actions may one day result in war.”