Her feet are little more than whispers upon the carpet. Her feet relish the soft beneath them, the cushion so unlike grass. There is nothing here that is like the wild outside these walls. Florentine is made for meadows and forests and wilderness.
 
The girl is the beauty of the sun and that, at least, is captured here. The torchlight turns her into liquid gold and she glitters as lavishly as a necklace. Petals are strewn in her wake and their amethyst is strange upon the reds and golds of the ornate carpets.
 
Polish oak doors heavy and lavish push open to a room of sin and wonder. Liquor pours as nectar from the gods, it is gold in this light – for all is gold here. All has a value more than she can pay. Sin adorns itself in jewels and fine dresses and smiles a queen’s smile. Nothing looks as dangerous as it should.
 
Here is no place for Florentine, yet she steps with eyes that glimmer wide and keen. Oh her gaze is the heat of the sun as it burns upon each table, greedy and consuming. Her heart thrums in her chest and it hums in her veins. Her ears are full of the chink of dice, the rattle of tables and the plaintive duet of violin and piano. Sin has a face here and it is glorious and glamorous and it beckons her in.
 
Even her dagger would have made Flora more fitting. Its chain would have winked in the light, its blade shining in the flicker of flames. But her throat is naked, her torso too, but for the strip of crimson cloth that wraps twice about her ribs and holds her wing tight. It came from a woman so utterly other – oh, she would not have been amiss here and such crimson is blood upon the gilt of Florentine’s skin.
 
She drinks a sip of alcohol – her first? No, Isorath offered her her first. She blinks away memories as diamonds turning from the light. Ah her throat burns, it scolds, her nerves sing with its whispering allure. Her slender limbs grow light as though the air itself blesses her. Florentine dances, high on sin, high on drink. She blinks again, slow, slow. Her lashes flutter with the idle grace of an ornate fan. They kiss her cheekbones and draw shadows across the glow of her smile.
 
A man draws her in, to a table with cards and the hands are dealt swiftly. Florentine is eager, curious. Her heart is a fluttering bird, its wings thrum, thrum against her breastbone as coins merrily jangle and skitter across the table.
 
Florentine’s game has begun.

@Aghavni

some of us have gone so long hungry,
the idea of being full feels worse than the affliction.

he tugs a silk of sapphire blue over her head, cursing when it catches on one of the spikes threaded through her mane. They liked to do that — catch on things. If she weren’t half as tall as everything, Aghavni’s row of golden spikes would have torn the drapes from the Scarab’s copiously curtained doorways every time she walked through one.

To Charon’s (and by proxy, her father’s) imminent displeasure. 

Carefully, she pulls the spikes out of her hair and sets them on top of her dresser. 

The silk uniform slips on smoothly after that, and Aghavni turns in front of her mirror to examine the fit. It is a bit long — everything is always a bit long on her; the local tailor has her precious gold to thank for keeping his business afloat — but fixable with a few well-placed pins. 

In her hair lies the true enemy. Frowning, she drags the flaxen curls into something that vaguely resembles a braid and then ties it quickly with a blue ribbon before her curls have a chance to contemplate escape.

She stares hard at her reflection. Something is still off. She reaches for a jar of rouge she’d shoved behind her lampshade the day she’d snagged it off of a snobby Denoctian high-born, and dabs some of it onto her too-pale cheeks. When that doesn’t seem to work, she lifts the corners of her lips into less of a scowl. 

That doesn’t seem to work either. 

Sighing, Aghavni slips from her room before she can reconsider.

— ♠︎ —
The Floor is a riot of silk and perfume and liquor-ignited laughter. As it always is.

Green eyes drift from face to face, recognizing most and vowing to recognize the rest. Aghavni lets out a puff of relief when Charon’s hawk-nosed profile is conspicuously missing — the advisor is probably in his chambers, sifting through a tower of paperwork characterized by its ability to multiply once per hour. 

If her own chambers were not suffering from the same affliction, she would pity him more.

“Aster,” she murmurs, when a coat of sapphire blue walks past. The boy turns, surprised at hearing his name. The patrons have no need to familiarize themselves with the names of their servers. Beckoning him closer, she grabs the tray of champagne flutes from his grasp with a conspiratorial smile. “You are relieved from duty for the night.” 

When he continues to stare at her, desperately trying to puzzle out why the Scarab’s young director is dressed like that, talking to him, Aghavni sighs. “Your mother is sick, is she not?” She had overheard the chatter that morning, when she’d snuck into the kitchens to spirit away some freshly baked pastries. 

He shifts uncomfortably under her stare, until he reaches the conclusion that the only answer she seeks is a nod. He gives it. “Then go. If you keep my secret, your pay shall not be lessened.” Not that it would have, anyways, but the boy must not think her lenient.  

He bows to her before melting into the crowd. 

Smoothing her lips into a server’s bland smile — which she hopes looks more convincing than it had in the mirror — Aghavni makes her way to the gambling tables, replacing half-empty glasses with full ones and drinking in conversation like wine. This — donning a server's silks — is the only way the girl is allowed to indulge.

A flash of glistening gold to her left snags her green, green eyes. Her father had said to her once, when she'd been no taller than his knee, that she was as sly-eyed as a magpie. 

The woman, when Aghavni sees her perched at the next table over, is magnificent. 

She has never seen anyone like her — and she has known the dazzle of luxury since birth. How she gleams, like molten gold! Purple flowers fall and fall from her Midas-touched frame, with no source in sight. 

A goddess? Aghavni wonders, entranced. Has our gold attracted even a goddess?

She has to know. Even if the goddess is mortal — and in her heart, Aghavni knows she is, though she holds onto the fantasy like a plea — she might not visit again. What can the Scarab offer her when she is finer than any of its treasures?

So Aghavni edges towards her, unnoticed in sapphire silk. She lowers flutes of champagne to the table and lifts the empty ones away.

She hovers not quite near enough to be intrusive, like a server might, and watches the game begin.

Florentine has no idea what is going on. There is a flurry, as her coins skitter across the table, suddenly dice are rolling after it followed by a gasp, a few nods and a few secret smiles and then everyone pauses and looks to Flora.
 
….
 
“Have I won?” She asks, quite bemused, her gaze skipping from piece to piece upon the table. There are a few nervous laughs and head shakes. “Uh.” The dealer laughs awkwardly. “No, my Lady.” He says softly, respectfully. Maybe he remembers she had once been a queen, or maybe he just simply was this polite with everyone, no matter their utter inexperience with gambling…
 
“Oh.” She whispers, though there was no need for Flora to even say anything for her gilded lips had already formed a perfect ‘o’. 
 
“You need to place another bet.” Her eyebrows lift, surprised at how swiftly the game seemed to be moving. Yet, still willing to embrace the idea of gambling a little tighter (one only experiences things truly when they give it a really good go, right?), Florentine places a handful more gold coins upon the table.
 
There is another flurry of activity, the dice roll again, followed this time by more oohs and ahhs but a spattering of applause too.  Suddenly a small mound of coins get pushed Florentine’s way - bigger she was quite pleased to see, than the coins she had put down before.
 
“You have won this time.” The dealer says gently a smile curving along his lips. Although really, it was quite clear, even to Florentine that she had one this time. “Thank you.” She hums a radiant smile curling her lips. She feels the eyes of dealer on her a moment more and peers up, his smile grows. “Oh no,” Flora says quite lightly, amicably. “I have a boyfriend.” Then her eyes are back upon the table and her coins.
 
A shadow drifts over them and Florentine’s gaze is drawn away from the stuttering dealer, “I- I -didn’t… We- We’re not allow-“ But already Florentine is peering at the girl stood beside her. There is a tray between them, a mix of empty and full champagne glasses upon it. “Oooh,” the Dusk girl hums, ‘Can I have one?”
 
From the tray she plucks a flute and takes a delicate sip, tasting the burn and the fizz along her lips and tongue. “Thank you,” She smiles at the girl, drinking in her emerald eyes. Oh how her stomach twinges and flutters for her god of forests and revelry. The distance between them pulls tight and Flora’s breath trembles in her lungs. Yet she smooths it seamlessly away, as a queen would have done. Such good lessons she learned when she bore the weight of her Court.
 
The girl beside her it snow white and rose gold. Florentine leans in, her voice lowering as she whispers toward the girl. “Do you have any idea what is going on?” Her eyes trail down her neck, skipping over each sharp point that rises bright and fierce from her crest. Florentine’s gaze settles upon the blue silk scarf. “By the way, your scarf has a hole in it – did you know?”


@Aghavni sorry for the rapid reply - I was doing Flora posts today xDD

some of us have gone so long hungry,
the idea of being full feels worse than the affliction.

ghavni coughs when Rasvan, the white-suited dealer, blanches from the gilded woman’s coy remark.

“We — We’re not allow —" She is not the only one choking down a snort as the flabbergasted man gapes like a fish on a hook. Rasvan, with his unruly curls and honest laugh, had always been a bit hopeless. How he had ended up in the Scarab’s employ had always been a mystery to her.

Not all are gifted with a way with words, she laments. She tries to imagine what August or even Minya would have said in the dealer’s place (not that Minya would ever touch a deck of cards). August, with his easy charm and heart-piercing grin; Minya, with her pretty words and prettier smile. As for herself — well, suffice to say that charm does not keep the Scarab running.

She is still trying to chase the smirk from her lips when a voice — light and lovely and alarmingly similar to the one that had knocked Rasvan over the head — drifts melodically into her ear.

“Can I have one?” She dips her crown into a polite nod. The tip of her horn taps the top of the wooden table as a flute of champagne glides across its polished surface. Servers and dealers were not supposed to talk unless necessary, as Rasvan had been so eloquently trying to explain.

Aghavni smiles mutely at the woman’s accompanying thanks, and then, on a whim, peers through her lashes into eyes of startling amethyst. As bright as the flowers threaded through her honey blonde hair. The mystery of those ever-falling petals continues to elude her. Magic? she ponders, swallowing the urge to lift one to the candlelight and see. 

“Do you have any idea what is going on?” Aghavni had known from the moment the woman had drifted into the Floor like a goddess of spring that she is a stranger — as much of it as one can be — to the cards and the patron saint of Greed.

So she breaks her own rule — she is not really a server, so the liberty is there for the taking — with brevity.

“This particular game,” she nods towards the double dice, “is based on pure chance. You wager your coins on a pass — when the dice roll a seven or above — or a no pass — six and below. You have our word that our dice are fair dice; so, really, you are playing a numbers game.” The stakes are high, but the pot is full. Play it safe, or wager it all. She has seen the devastation of both, and the monsters it makes of men.

They are all servants to Greed in the Scarab’s den. Will the goddess lose her crown this night?

Aghavni leans down to whisper into her golden ear. “The bets have been cautious. They are testing you, m’lady. If you double your next wager, you will collect twice that in the next round.” The odds are in her favor. But why is she telling her so?

Aghavni straightens, smoothing the creases from her silk uniform. She tells herself it is because she is merely ensuring that the woman will return. They chase the thrill of winning night after night. What they realize, too late, is that it will never feel as good as the first time, her father had said.

“By the way, your scarf has a hole in it – did you know?” The observation is meant to be harmless, but still Aghavni's eyes widen, and were it not for the inclination of her skin to pale instead of redden, blood stays mercifully away from the girl’s cheeks. 

“Ah. My horn is a bit too keen to catch and rip at things,” she replies smoothly, but already she is itching, itching, itching to rip the damaged silk off.

Others chase the thrill of the win. Aghavni chases the thrill of perfection. Her father’s words toll like midnight bells through her head. It will never feel as good as the first time.

As the day wanes the Scarab only grows more vibrant. It glitters with all that is gold and full of diamonds. The world becomes more lavish here, it chimes in glass and the bubble of laughter. It glimmers as champagne pours, more liquid gold than the Dusk girl who leans upon the Scarab table and watches the dice roll and skip across its velvet surface.
 
Chance whispers its way across the table. Its tongue made of black dots, its teeth the ivory of each white dice. What did fate hold for this once-queen? It would be so easy to slip into the future, to see what would come of each dice roll, but even if she wanted to, Florentine has no dagger with which to cut her way from one timeline into another.
 
Slowly she turns her amethyst gaze away from the server who blushes deepest merlot. Her gaze settles once more upon the girl beside her. She lingers over Aghavni’s mahogany skin, over her emerald gaze and for a moment her heart twists. For a moment she is within the deepest desert, too hot beneath a brilliant sun and lost in a tyrant’s war. Where was Lysander now? Was he alive? Would her dagger return him safe? Or would if bear his blood once again?
 
Oh terror burrows deep, deep into her veins. It sets her rabbit heart running and her breath is a flutter as she drinks in air and then steels herself with glowing, iron ore smile.
 
“Ah, then you had better teach it to restrain itself.” The corner of her lips tip up, up into a smile of stars and liquor. “I was wondering if it might have been one of those sharp pins you wear.” Florentine says, her eyes wide, wide – amethyst lined with darkest khol. “They are beautiful but seem primed for ripping silk. Or at least they would with me.” And she wonders what it is to be the kind of girl who might wear the sharpest, most beautiful jewelry such as this.
 
Florentine tears her gaze from the delicate curves of this Scarab girl and places it back upon the table with its waiting dice.  “Double bet you say?” With a nod of her fine head and a wicked curve upon her lips, Florentine doubles her bet and lets the dice roll where they might. “My name is Florentine.” She says lightly to the girl beside her. “How have you come to be here and know so much about gambling?”


@Aghavni <3

some of us have gone so long hungry,
the idea of being full feels worse than the affliction.

he watches as the Scarab’s floating candles cast their shadows across the woman’s shiny hair. Gold, bronze, gold, bronze. Never quite darkening into dark. Never quite lightening into light. Triangles of gold and bronze flit across her yellow curls, Aghavni thinks, like the dancing dragonflies merchant children chased on soggy summer nights. 

She’d caught one of them, once. Plucked it right up by its quivering windowpane wings. It had landed on her basket of fruit, a tiny intruder too busily sucking on oozing fruit syrup to notice the curious green eyes watching it like a chameleon. The tongue (her telekinesis) had leaped out (reached) and snatched it from its afternoon drink. Held it up to the baking sun, careful not to crush those delicate, delicate panes, and stared wonderingly into its bugging blue eyes. 

The dragonfly had twitched unhappily in its captor’s invisible grasp. Twitched so much it almost ripped one of its wings off, before Aghavni noticed and released it, distraught by the dragonfly’s lack of self-preservation. Did it not care? Was freedom that important? 

Freedom over windowpane wings?

As a child, after one of her aunts had pouted to her about how much she missed the taste of freedom (“kept in this mansion like birds in a birdcage, we are! don’t you agree, little love?”) Aghavni had wondered to herself how delicious freedom must taste for rebellions to be rallied in its sake. 

For castles to be burned in its honor. 

For wings to be torn in pursuit. 

The taste of freedom. Finicky, finicky freedom.

Her lashes flutter together like ghostly moths, lured out from the dark by the lighting of a flame. “Ah, then you had better teach it to restrain itself.” The flame of the woman’s lovely, lyrical voice. 

“Someday they shall learn to mind their manners around silk,” she says, with a breathy sigh. Amethyst eyes, prettier than dusk, peer wondrously wide into her own. Amethyst flowers, prettier than spring, drift down to the floor. Aghavni has never seen anyone so beautiful. Who is the golden goddess’ lover? (Is he mortal? Goddesses married gods, didn't they, like in her stories. But she is much too old to listen to stories.) Where is he, if not by his fair lady's side?

If she had such a beautiful lover, she thinks, she certainly wouldn’t be so careless. (Was that why she didn’t have one? Questions, questions.)

The knocking of the dice and the laughing of the guests leash her wandering thoughts back to her mortal body. 

And back to the hole in her silk. Frowning, she passes a conscious invisible hand over it again. Like worrying over a scar. 

“Florentine,” she repeats. Even her name is beautiful. Lovely and lyrical. “I am Aghavni. A pleasure, my lady.” Silk whispers against carpet when she sinks into a server’s perfect curtsy. All she is missing is the jingling pouch of coins tied to her front leg, but the clinking of her hair spikes more than make up for missing jingle. “And to answer your question…” she trails off, biting down on her lips as she chooses from her bevy of prepared answers like a florist judging a bouquet. When the right flower is chosen —

Her voice lowers to a velvet hush. Lips lift into a secret smile. “My father owns the place. Truthfully, I am not supposed to be here, donned in server’s silks, but how else am I going to meet our patrons?” How else? Charon couldn’t keep her from the Floor forever. He couldn’t keep threatening her with monstrous stacks of paperwork.

She straightens her spine and smiles down at the glittering pile of coins Rasvan deposits (meekly, eyes tilted away) in front of fair Florentine. Double the amount she started with, as promised.

“Like you, Lady Florentine. Now that you’ve won, would you like for me to give you a tour?” 

Florentine’s gaze trails over the emerald of Aghavni’s eyes and she cannot help her own gaze as it drifts away. It drinks in the merriment of the Scarab’s room, the tinking of glasses, the clickity-clack of dice being thrown, the chime of laughter- Florentine listens for the laugh of her god-less boy. She looks for the curl of his antlers and his emerald eyes that are so much like Aghavni’s. Both are enough to swallow her in woodland, to fill her thoughts with thickets and clearings and secluded fae places. Florentine dreams are full of flowers now and not dice, nor money.
 
“Often fine clothes have no sense of self preservation, sadly. I had a glorious silk scarf once and one slightly dodgy landing in a muddy puddle and that was it, ruined.” Flora’s nose wrinkles thinking of that scarf, the mud encrusted upon it and the stains upon the fine blue silk.
 
But then the girl is giving her name and Florentine tests the sharp and curves of it upon her tongue and teeth thoughtfully, “Aghavni.” She murmurs lightly. “That is a nice name.” Flora hums with a smile more brilliant than any Greek muse. “Ah, your father’s house.” And slowly her lilac gaze roams over the lavishness of the hall, the grand rooms of this most mysterious place. “What are daughter’s for if not for testing against their father’s wishes?” In her mind is a young princess, gilded gold as the sun, slipping away from her father at ever moment as he attended to the business of running their Winter Court. She was a princess, turned into a queen and now, quite delightfully, she is nothing at all (except the sister of a king).  
 
Slowly Florentine rises from where she was stood at the table. She scoops up her winnings, leaving petals where coins once lay. “Indeed, I should very much like a tour Aghavni. Just let me know if we see your father and I shall be primed to hide. I was quite the sleuth in my youth.” Her laughter is lighter than the chime of glasses.
 
And Florentine lets the girl lead her on to view the rest of the Scarab, for soon, she must return home.
 
((Leaving it here, because, well, Florentine is now gone. Thank you so much my lovely. I have really enjoyed her and Aghavni together – Florentine hopes  Aghavni will flirt with many other ladies to come <3 ))

@Aghavni