florentine
She should have known he would come at dusk. She should have seen the way Calligo’s shadows began to sigh and move: twisting, twirling, enchanting the twilight light. He is here, he is here they whisper, but the twilight girl does not hear their spider soft voices. She does not feel their creep upon her hot, hot skin…
 
She doesn’t, for Florentine is running, pushing on through the forest deep. On and on past snagging branches and pricking bushes she goes. The gloaming chases at her heels, darkening the woodland down into an eerie gold billows like a train behind her. She chases the dusk, clinging to the final vestiges of day, just a little more, just a little more her wild heart beats.
 
Maybe if the Dusk girl was not laughing so, drunk as she was upon her thrill and high upon the waves of her past adventure, she would have felt that mysterious pull, the lure of shadows that reached for her golden skin. It was pulling, tugging, whispering, beckoning her into the night.
 
The dusk girl is wild of eye and bright in spirit when she bursts from the shadow of the trees. She is not fit, nor ready for any political meeting, with her hair so wildly snarled, her torso so dirtied. Twigs and leaves, sand and soil, decorate her wild gold hair. The dirt and mud spattered across her golden skin, painting her with vitality. This girl is adventure rough and across the open grass she peels upon her long, long limbs. The stone keep of her home is the only subject of her eye, of her mind.
 
Until the jasmine air calls to her.
 
Oh that little lilting fragrance! That scent that knows its place within her soul. It steals her breath, her heart and her turns her limbs to naught but jelly. She slows, exposed upon the plane, so close to her beloved court and yet so far, for the Night Court is here, the Night King, is here.
 
Amethyst eyes, wide with trepidation, wide with yearning, slowly follow the scent of jasmine. She finds him framed by Calligo’s dark and lit by the silver of his star-strung eyes. The twilight curls to his skin, feline curious and soft, soft, soft.
 
The boy sets her heart to tremble. He is the flame and she the moth; unbidden, the girl is moving: closer, closer.
 
Florentine slinks to him. Desperate and wary, wide eyes fix upon him beneath her too-thick fringe. Petals scatter their warning, falling in her wake, imploring the girl to stop, to go back, to keep her path to the safety of the keep. This is a war she cannot win, but it rages hot and fierce.
 
It is love and longing that bring her to stand before him. His name, “Reichenbach,” falls like a poem from her lips. She has no curtseys for him this day, no flowers to lay within his hair, she is out of gifts for him. He has taken the most she could give.
 
What would it be to touch him again? Her lips tingle with a memory they cannot shed, and her neck curls in, a bid to keep herself from him. Her eyes flutter shut, her breath hesitant, worried. “Why are you here?” She breathes, for the ache is too much to bear.

@Rannveig @Reichenbach - of course I had to post, how could I turn down an opportunity for such ANGST?!
 

florentine
She stands before the night, her eyes tracing the feline weave of shadows as they wrap about their king. Darkness commands her gaze and for a moment - for a long, enduring moment – Florentine watches them.
 
His eyes are the brightest things about him, they gleam through the darkness – stars that burn fierce and bright, luring the eye of the lonely, the needy, the whimsical.
 
Florentine threatens to burn within this boy’s starfire gaze. Reichenbach scolds every inch of her skin as his eyes wander over her. It is intimate, it is spellbinding and it leaves a blush of rose to colour her caramel skin.
 
He leaves her bereft, adorned in stardust where she should be little more than ash. Stardust upon her legs, stardust upon her eyes, stardust to cover every speck of dirt and foliage that clings to her skin and turns her feral.
 
His presence ignites her. His words disappoint her. “Oh,” She breathes, her eyes downcast, her breath soft, “that’s disappointing.” A smile lifts the corner of her lips, playful and yes, awash with their ocean of sadness.
 
This is not the girl whose heart he stole before the gods. This is not the temple girl so overwhelmed by their hurricane love. No, this is the girl of Dusk and bruising skies and new moonrises. He has come to her territory and whilst he still makes her heart beat its wild tattoo for him, whilst he still fills her heart with a grief so strong it steals her breath, the Dusk still curls about its feral girl easing some confidence into her being.
 
A toe digs into the dirt, it captures Florentine’s attention, it keeps her gaze from finding his skin, from learning every inch of it, for he was not hers to learn – was he?
 
The Night King was dangerous, the star around which she flew – a comet free and bright – and his pull was just too strong, each time she passed him, he pulled a little harder, she moved a little closer. She would not survive him.
 
“I thought you had come for something else.” The Dusk girl murmurs boldly, even as her eyes still watch the dust her toe disturbs. Her run has made her frivolous, the dusk light bold, too bold. She feels the crawl of the Dusk Court’s eyes upon her; her body, her soul, begins to shiver.
 
It is too easy, too simple to let her eyes lift to Reichenbach’s, to find his shadows breathing more, growing as the dusk light glows brighter. The night is growing, though dusk still reigns… “I cannot imagine she will say no.” Florentine says meaning Rannveig. Meaning an answer to a question he has not yet asked. They were still one love divided by duty, by religion. This is the girl who still said no, and yet, just for now, for this small moment, here with this boy of darkness and stars, she dares to burn.
 
The girl is wildfire this night and her soul blazes.

@Rannveig @Reichenbach - I feel so sorry for Rann walking in on this x'D
 

florentine
He brings his starlight night to burn her with star-fire.
 
He is the sun, pulling her in as he steps closer, closer. For a moment the world begins to turn so slowly - or was it just the way he made her heart run fast? It is racing faster than a second’s passing, faster than the path of the sun through the sky... The dusk girl sees the gleam of starlight beneath his thick, thick lashes, she feels the brush of his hair upon her skin as though they were the very threads of night.
 
Reichenbach lulls her into this, into them. How could dusk resist the call of the stars? How could Florentine turn from his thrall? She has never heard her name as he speaks it. Never heard it sound like a song, a plea. It is a step, so small, so curious, that has her moving closer, closer into his darkness. What would she give to hear her name spoken like that again?
 
He coats her in stardust as he steps closer and in her ears she surely can hear the cries of night, the crackle of flames, and songs of revelry. He is temptation and she cannot, cannot resist.
 
The only terrible part is that he will never be able to love you.
 
Those spectral words creep in, adorned with Bexley’s ire and it is enough to dim the starlight, to cut this girl’s heart anew. Flora breathes, and it is not the breath she took befor: so keen, so buoyed by the Night King.
 
No, this is an aching breath, tremulous and agonsing. If Florentine thought she knew the sound of stars, it is nothing to their cry, their pull, as she steps back. Her step is leaden, feet dragging through grasses with reluctant effort, but she leaves him to reach for only air though her skin aches with wanting.
 
“I am not sure my queen is coming.” Was it just a whisper? A whisper voice that was as hesitant and fragile as a butterfly’s wings.
 
She pushes her gaze past him, worried by the effort it takes, and peers up towards the shadowing keep of her home. There was no sign of her queen. How long should she leave it? How long could she bear to be with him, with Bexley’s words haunting her, with her body lit by starlight and such need for him?
 
“I know she would not object to such a festival, you can take my word that the Dusk Court will join with you in celebration.” She listens to the chink of his gypsy coins as her eyes lift up, up only to fall into the endless oblivion of his.
 
Oh what it is to fight the pull to step a little closer to this starlight boy… to fight to make her voice louder than just this whisper of broken desire, “Let me know when you are thinking of these celebrations taking place.”

It is a breath, deep and floundering that has her turning from him, for to linger here would be too much. Betraying eyes return to him, for a scant moment, but to the dusk girl it feels like eternity. "I will see you soon, Your Majesty." And it is with a smile that she curtsies upon dirtied limbs and is gone, racing back to the shelter of her room.

@Reichenbach - soo had a natter with Avis, and she is struggling post-wise rn but is happy for us to go ahead with the festival, hence the Flora reply. Any worries/thoughts catch me on Discord <3