She chose the time well; deliberately, intimately, delicately. Despite that both her and her chosen company were.. wandering souls. They were too much alike that they shared traveling hearts, where neither of them could no sooner be grounded to one single place for too long. How ironic it would seem that altogether, they could not be anymore chained to these worlds and these kingdoms than they are in this moment. One a dutiful new queen, and the other.. a regent who’s crown could not weigh any lower upon her head.
Heavy lies the head that wears the crown.
Her own words are lead thickening her tongue and parching her lips. The truth of them rings clear, pure and sickeningly raw. She did not know the weight of them then when she had said them — on the cusp of fall collapsing into winter — but now?
Now, the Mirror of Truth shows her exactly the weight of such words.
Vitreus Lake pools in a smooth disc of silver under a sky washed in twilight blue and lavender; perfectly reflecting the first dusting of stars. There is a magic to this place that she cannot put her finger on, for time seems to have stopped, choosing to linger in the beauty of the in-between that is dusk and nightfall. The air is sticky, clinging to her midnight skin in thick layers of humidity. Yet, the stormsinger cannot help but feel more at peace, where fireflies slowly blink awake in glimmers of gold and dance.
One year ago, she had met Asterion in this same place. And now a year as passed, and oh, so much has changed since then.
She awaits his sister, her dearest friend, her Flower Queen, at the edge of the silver waters. Heat trickles down her spine, where ropes of ivory threads are braided with the lilies that name the lake their home. Her nervousness is at war with the calmness of this serene place. For although she had abandoned her moonstone diadem in favor of flowers in her hair, she remembers all too well their last meeting. The shock of too many things that cannot be unsaid or undone in the last remnants of winter and spring’s brutal awakening.
Her wing had been broken. She had been beaten, scarred, and bruised. Their Courts, their kingdoms, at a disarray. Aislinn had ascended, risen to her king’s call.. and..
There were too many things. Far too much.
Oxygen hitches in her lungs with trembling breaths as she shakes her head, staring at her reflection for comfort. At the woman she had become, both for herself, and for the people that needed her. She huffs at the words that continue to replay across her mind; a broken record with no hope for stopping in blissful silence. She listens as the cicadas hum, before her ears catch the subtle change that shifts in the air. The rustle, the whispering grace, the hush of blossoms floating through golden hair.
A smile softly curls the edge of her lips. She’s here.
Without turning, she closes her eyes, swallowing the world with darkness. A single, smooth breath releases the tension in her chest like a cork spilling captured wine. "You came."
@Florentine ♡ hello muse, it’s nice to see you ;_; no rush at all lovely, just tossing this up since my muse showed up XD
"Aislinn speech."
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.”
