His mind unfolds as he walks. He thinks of the long road behind him, and the road of... well, questionable length before him. He thinks of Solterra, and the Davke, and Seraphina. And he thinks of other things, too.
(a part of you is snaking concrete and blue haze, endless horizons, metal beasts. a part of you was born not of woman but there, in that tainted world, and you want to forget because you don't understand it, but you cannot escape it. Even now, listen! Clattering keys and the rumble of the beasts on the other side of the glass and- music, always, always rising above it all with grace and clamor)
All he hears with his ears is the soft clop of his hooves on the sandstone floor, which has been ground to sand in the most trafficked places.
There is clarity in the chaos, in the thoughts that meander as much as his legs. It comes in glimpses here and there, short-lived and tantalizing. Eik stops walking suddenly with a frustrated sigh, and situational awareness comes back to him. He looks around at the slums of Solterra, the ugly Northeastern edge. It is the quietest part of the Day court, inhabited mostly by former slaves too afraid to seize their freedom. Like mice they cower in shadowy huts and half-ruined buildings during the day, and scurry around at night. Of course, the black market operates extensively in the area- the maze of ruins is ideal for those who need to appear and disappear quickly.
This place is the dirty scuff on the kingdom's boots, or such is the general consensus. But sometimes, when the wind blows the right way, you can smell the ocean from here, briny air rising above the decrepit shantytown. It is the one redeeming factor for this area of the court, and a strong one at that. Were it all torn down and rebuilt new and clean and fancy, Eik suspects the wealthy would claim this quarter for their own. He raises his nose and searches for the sea through the ash and stale shit- and instead, finds... flowers.
Flowers?
The scent is not the desert poppy, nor the night blooming jasmine the nobles so adored near their bedroom windows... Nor any other desert plant he knows, and in over a year here he has become well acquainted with the smells of the desert. It must be foreign, then. He follows his nose cautiously, stepping quietly through the sandy streets. Northward, northward, then a right turn-
There they lie, delicate even beneath the bone-dry sledgehammer of the summer sun. The blooms are somehow both carelessly and meticulously woven in her mane-- almost as though they aren't woven at all, but growing from her like flowers on a willow tree. How curious he thinks.
(For a moment he is transported to a wet fall afternoon- he can smell the rain as it hits the forest floor)
He tilts his head, curious instead of suspicious- which he should be now, after everything. Suspicious is how he wants to be but cannot bring himself, , cannot change himself to be even though history demands, or at least begs, it of him. He holds his self close and meet's the twilight queens gaze with his own steady, unwavering, expectant one.
"What are you doing here?"
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
-looks at to do list-
-spends all free time writing overly long starter post-
-sigh- oh well, can't wait to write these two together! <3
@Florentine
i'm a pretty flower girl
check out my pretty flower curls
Florentine has long ago become immune to the scent of her flowers. It clings to her like perfume, radiated from each flower that grows within her tangled hair.
The girl is anomalous here. Not just because of her heritage – a stranger to Solterra and even to Novus – but because of her looks. To watchful eyes this fae-girl is everything this part of Solterra is not. She is golden skin, flowers full of vitality – not wilted from the sun or the arid terrain. There is no part of Flora that is not regal when compared to the slaves that scuttle around her like mice and watch her passage tentatively.
Maybe Florentine should not be here. Maybe she should not have slipped from the bounds of Terrastella by night and run to the furthest corner of Solterra – but she did and she is here.
There is no part of Florentine that is not dirty and ragged. Solterra has already laid its mark upon her skin. She has become as dirty as a street urchin. Slowly she walks and slowly she continues to morph. Memories rise thick and lucid and the Florentine who walks along the ruinous street of Solterra is no longer a horse. Her memories turn her human again (within the shelter of her mind) and back to the dirty, pauper child she had once been – in another life.
Oh to look at her golden skin now is to remember how it once was for a child like her. Florentine remembers how stolen, expensive gems felt when held by her small, dirty fingers…
The eyes of Solterra’s poor are flames upon her skin – they lick the gold like leaves from her skin and burn her with their fire. The flower-girl turns her gaze to theirs and there is nothing conceited in her contemplation, no sympathy that elevates her above them. This queen knows what it is to scrounge, to beg. Their only difference is Flora is the time-traveller-girl. She lives one life and then passes into another with barely a blink of her amethyst eyes. She could die a queen and wake up a princess or a lowly, sheep farmer’s daughter...
What are you doing here?
His eyes don’t feel like the others that watch her. His curiosity is one they dare not voice. His words creep along her spine, sharp like needles with their questioning, smooth like the glide of a blade with the baritone of his voice.
She shivers.
Dusk’s queen stops where her eyes rub against the wide, wide mahogany gaze of a child. She blinks and the big eyes are gone, lost to darkness and secrecy and hunger. Slowly the fae-girl turns to face her finder, the one who wonders, like her, just what she is doing here.
“I don’t know.” The queen concedes softly, for she truly doesn’t. But her eyes roam through the ruins, they pick their way between broken stones and the too-angular shadows of children – where was their softness?
There is no smile to further soften the elven lines of her face. There is no smile to light the spark in her gemstone eyes.
A pause.
A breath, then:
“What do you think I might be doing?” It is nearly a whisper, a sigh, that the wind promises to steal the moment it parts her lips. But Flora watches Eik through it all, as curious of him as he of her.
Will he cast her out? Accuse her of spying and send her home… Florentine drinks in all of this quiet, curious boy. The silver of his skin, soft as moonlight and dappled like light through leaves, is gentle on her eyes; he is all the softness of lunar light but the sharp silver of a brandished blade. Before him the gloaming queen stands. She is golden and beautiful and littered with flowers that cannot and should not be here.
On the outside she is a stranger, foreign and wrong on this part of Solterra, but inside this girl is full of her own poor, poor memories.
So far, he has lived two lives. (two lives too many) Or at least this is the way he remembers the long nine years that preceded this moment. It would shock him to learn of all the lives the sweet-eyed woman before him has lived. Not the living of them (it seems nothing is beyond belief anymore) but the surviving of them, the fact that she can stand here, before him, and not be crushed by the weight of all her lives.
"I don't know... What do you think I might be doing?"
Oh, all the possibilities are there and one by one they take turns rolling across his mind: stealing, spying, slave trading... But one look at her, just a glance, and these things all crumble away. He is left with an answer, if not an explanation, and in his voice rings something like resignation. "The same thing as me, I suppose."
There is a moment of silence, but against the heat and the bright light it seems much longer than it is. In this moment he has a faraway look, as though he is trying to wrangle some thought that ran away.
Then it suddenly clicks- the flowers, the knife round her throat, her presence here past the heart of Solterra. "You're lady Florentine, aren't you." He's heard stories and rumors, and some words from a trusted friend- but nobody told Eik of her eyes! There lies a world behind her gaze, a resounding presence that clashes with the gentle femininity of her features. He feels exposed as she looks at him, and his reactionary response is to be on edge, razor-sharp and weary-- but something about her, something more than just the flowers in her hair, stills his heart's desire to race away. It reminds him a bit of his first encounter with Asterion, the way everything seemed to click into place with a certain, inexplicable sense of rightness. Like the silent answer to a question that was never asked.
"I'm Eik." He remembers his name after too long, and his head tilts in intrigue as he asks "Do you ever have a problem with bees?" It is, unfortunately, the first and only question that comes to mind.
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
i'm a pretty flower girl
check out my pretty flower curls
Oh Florentine watches all the possibilities that run through his mind. She watches the way his eyes darken and wonders what shadowy things he thinks her capable of. It brings a rueful, sad smile to her lips.
Her smile does not waver as she drinks in the silver of him. Does he know he glows beneath Solis’ sun? Does he know the ways in which the eyes around them are focused upon him? It would make sense later, when she learns of how he is their Emissary.
Silently, Flora lets her gaze trickle over the patterns they make across his muscled torso. The flower girl wonders what tale each scar tells, what secrets each one keeps in its stretch of silvered skin.
She might ask him one day.
Slowly her lilac eyes lift to his dove-white fringe and his own eyes lying dark as night behind it. Her gaze lingers on his for a moment, amethyst drowning in the dark between stars before slowly she looks away. Idly she wonders when he might smile, whether the serious of his eyes is also etched into his soul. Her father’s had been… Florentine, ever the open book, ever the girl with her flyaway heart upon her sleeve, cannot hide the twinge of pain that darkens her eyes to bruised purple.
With a sigh and fae-grace the girl steps towards the moonlit boy. “And what are you doing?” She hums drinking in the whole of him as she mirrors his question back upon him. “What if I am here to spy?” Her question is playful, it dances teasingly in the air between them. Yet the curiosity with which Flora peers at Eik runs deeper than the golden girl implies. Would he trust her? Does he trust her now?
Recognition dawns as his eyes press like fingers upon her flowers and her dagger. Lady Florentine. Gracefully she dips into a small curtsey for the Solterran boy, though her nose crinkles in an almost childish gesture. “I do not wear titles well at all. Please just call me Flora.” The smile that colours her gilt lips is small, though it curls with shy hopefulness; it was not often she was called Flora anymore.
Eik. The name drifts between them and tugs another smile from her lips. “Oh! I have heard of you. I believe you might be friends with my brother, Asterion?” Her skull tilts, as she regards him her smile brightening with familiarity.
“Bees?” Florentine blinks, golden lashes brushed the curve of her cheek. “Why? Do I have one on me?” In startlement she looks, carefully listening for a telltale buzz, for the stirring of petals and hair. “I do not have problem with them, I quite enjoy them, unless they tangle in my mane or tail then sting me in fright.” She shakes as memories creep like bees along her conscious. A shiver runs down her spine. “It has happened more times than I would like to admit. Do you know how much of a challenge it is in important meetings to discreetly remove a bee from one’s hair?” Those amethyst eyes, bright like the twilight sky, peer at her new companion as a huff slips past her gilt lips.
‘When I was a child, the first bee I ever recall became tangled in my mane. I did not know how fierce they could be and so nudged it loose. Needless to say the bee was most disgruntled and promptly stung my nose. It swelled, along with my upper lip, and for a week my face was more hippo than horse.” She steps closer as if to impart a vital bit of information. Lavender flowers shed petals between them. “Do you know how hard it is to talk with a lisp, Eik?” With her smile still curling her lips, her mind lost in memories, the fae-queen turns from the silver boy.
“You remind me of the moon.” She says softly, thoughtfully. “Its shadows make dapples like yours.” Beneath her fringe of flowers Florentine peers back at him, “Have you ever danced with your moon shadow Eik?”
Her smile is as persistent as the pounding in his head, and he realizes suddenly she is looking at his scars. He can sense the questions in her gaze, and he is glad she does not speak them out loud. He is not ready to tell some stories. (-- although he would, if she asked. He is generous in that way.) Each and every scar has a story. The body remembers, even when the mind does not want to.
"I'm just wandering." He says plainly, and he truly thinks that's what she's doing here to. Wandering in body and mind. But of course, he cannot be sure.
"What if I am here to spy?" She asks, all wicked playfulness, and although he has already considered this he takes a moment to re-consider. Surely there are secrets to be found in these dark alleyways-- Solterra is built on whispers-- would this woman be so brazen as to spy without even trying to disguise herself?
Finally, he shrugs. "I will show you the court myself, and you can tell all the world what you have seen." He steps further into the ruined maze of shadowy alleyways with a gesture of his head for her to follow. "They should know, anyway. The truth."
To Eik's surprise and disdain, this desert has stirred his sleepy heart. Life is at its most extreme here- Solterra may be full of violence and corruption, but the passion and beauty shine all the brighter for it. He only hopes to show the lady the clear and honest truth of his court, and let her come to her own conclusions. Gods know there's enough misinformation out there.
On they walk through the narrow alleys, Eik a step ahead to gently guide the way. It feels uncomfortable to be so immediately at ease with the stranger, and these paradoxical emotions (comfort and discomfort) continue to battle in his chest as they weave through the city. Flora she demands to be called, which he agrees to with a simple nod of his head. He has always found long names cumbersome and decadent (not so dissimilar from the fancy outfits some of the Solterran nobles chose to wear) except for a certain Moira Tonnerre, so he is pleased by the nickname. Flora.
Eik is surprised and vaguely uncomfortable that she recognizes his name, but it is her next statement which stops him in his tracks.
"Brother? ?"
Eik looks at Flora in complete bewilderment. "He didn't tell me you're his sister." He peers at her as if with new eyes, looking for the features of his dear friend. Her eyes, maybe, are similar-- but Eik can't quite get past the wings and the flowers and the creamy gold of her skin. He remembers, then, that he is Emissary, and he continues the tour with a sheepish nod of his head. It doesn't matter, really, that Asterion and Florentine are brother and sister. It was a surprise, that's all, and he hasn't felt surprised in some time. "So you came here from Ravos, too? Will you tell me about it?"
The subject moves on to bees, and he listens in mute surprise at the wealth of things she has to say on the topic. The question was simply the first thing that came to mind, and he's frankly a little overwhelmed by how chatty she becomes.
Does he know how hard it is to talk with a lisp? "... I can only imagine." he says, uncertain if she is done speaking about bees or not. But then her memories sweep her away (oh how well he knows what that is like) and he lets her go, trusting she will return.
When she does, she catches him off guard again. Although this is his home and not hers, it seems she is the one pulling all the strings. And though it makes him feel a little guilty, like he's doing something wrong, he can't help but to feel very relaxed in Flora's company. She seems to amplify his childlike curiousity, and together they carry each other where alone they might not go.
"you remind me of the moon."
It seems a mighty complement, certainly one he's never heard before, and he shifts his weight uncertainly from side to side. "Have you ever danced with your moon shadow Eik?" His head is tilted now in curiosity. What is a moon shadow? He is about to ask, but focuses instead on what seems more important- "I don't know how to dance. It always seemed like a waste of time."
He wants to say "You look like nothing I've ever seen" but decides not to-- it sounds too adoring, and anyway he's seen golden girls, and flowers, and wings before-- just never all in one chatty, fragrant package.
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
@Florentine pardon my monster of a reply... soso much goodness going on in this thread already <3
always one decision away from a totally different life
-- ♕ --
If she were a child, then he was her Pied Piper. With a tilt of his head he guides her on. Obedient and full of curiosity, Florentine falls into step behind him.
The dark streets welcome them in. His words bid their secrets be unveiled and obediently she looks and sees, everything. “And does Solterra not wish to keep secrets, Eik?” The girl breathes as she keeps close but lets her eyes reach for the children left as paupers in the streets. Ah the ravages of war reaches its fingers out to claw at her rich skin. Its fingers are gnarled, is grasp clammy and unrelenting. It is a sharp wound it leaves upon her heart when it passes on to haunt another, phantom black with a knife of guilt stowed benwteen its fingertips.
If her heart bleeds, Florentine keeps it quiet. Still she keeps close to her guide, still her eyes reach for justice and finds it rising from the rubble. The sun is dawning here and it is as bright as Delumine.
In silence, with the warmth of that rising sun, Florentine’s muzzle touches the smooth of his shoulder. Florentine had never been prim and she had never been proper. The path she carved was her own and she holds no shame nor impropriety as she touches him so. Only comfort is found in the places where their skin touches. Only alliances were built on such foundations.
Ah, a revelation! A sister.
Florentine laughs at his bewilderment. She laughs again (such like peeling bells) when he wonders of Asterion’s omission. In silence she lets his eyes rove over her, to see in the places where she is gold and her brother is star-struck. Her shrug is liquid, her smile radiant. “We didn’t know until recently either. Sometimes even we forget each other.” And that is the first lie she tells Eik. For Florentine has never forgotten she has a brother, but she thinks the Solterran might allow her this small fallacy if only to ease his ignorance.
“We have the same father but different mothers. We grew up far apart. I was never born in Ravos. I turn to my brother for tales of that place.” With a breath she closes her eyes as her mind fills – not with Ravos, but with the Rift. “I was born in the Rift.” And this is the second lie she tells Eik this day. Yet this too is only a partial deception. She was indeed born in the Rift, but it was not where she came into existence. Note even Florentine knows the moment she began to live…
they are silver and gold as they stand beneath the sun. It turns them both to metal and in turn they gleam rich and bright. Over his skin her bright eyes roam, over each dapple, dark like the shadows of the moon. “Then may I teach you one day and show you all the ways it is not a waste of time?” Her smile is bright, her soul alight as her limbs long to find the music of these desert sands.
"In my time here, and it seems before my time as well," He hesitates to analyze the past, feeling unworthy of it- yet that is one of his duties now. Maybe an outsider's perspective is actually needed in this very much divided kingdom, or maybe not. He continues, finally: "Secrets have only hurt us."
(For a split second he feels the pain of Solterra as intimately as if it were his own bloodstained past. The weight of a hundred years of violence and injustice almost rip the breath from his lungs.)
Eik's homeland was no stranger violence, but there was something oddly comfortable about it. Maybe the comfort came from its predictability-- you sort of resigned yourself and accepted it the same way you do the cycle of the seasons, as just the way it is.
(And he learned that if you did not accept the way things are, if you dared to question the plans and motives of the gods, you would be punished cruelly and without explanation.)
Solterra is different. The violence here is... tumultuous. Here when the possibility of peace begins to blossom, when you finally start to hope, to dream, the streets are washed anew in blood.
Tenderness is in short supply here-- even the healers work with a rough hand-- and so it is a wonder that Eik does not flinch at her gentle touch. He even leans gently into her for a moment, wishing he could know what wordless secrets their skins exchange. And then she laughs, and the shadows around them seem to waver uncertainly. Surely these grim streets have not heard such laughter for generations but for a moment Eik pictures a Solterra of the past, gleaming and new and full of laughter and music, and dares to hope it might someday be that way again.
His bewilderment is quickly replaced with fascination as she briefly speaks of her history, and Asterion's. He wonders just how many worlds are there, and marvels at how far the two of them have come to be walking together through the long shadows of Solterra's abandoned quarters.
"What is the Rift like?" He asks, heartbeat quickening, remembering the portals that opened in the sky not long after his own arrival and spat out disoriented horses into the sandy dunes of the Mors. It must be one hell of a place, to pluck horses from one world to another, and to carve someone like Flora.
Emboldened by her own keen gaze that roams over every dapple and scar, he takes a closer look at the woman before him. She is woven with gold and honey and almost looks Solterran except for all those flowers, fragrant and delicate and out of place in this harsh landscape. There is no lack of flowers in Solterra (the cacti dream up blooms in most every color imaginable and wear them like odd hats) but none are as verdant and bountiful as those in her mane.
“Then may I teach you one day and show you all the ways it is not a waste of time?" Her words ring with mirth in a way he finds enviable- expression was never his strength, mostly because he never quite understands what exactly he is feeling at any given moment. He is never anything so simple as happy or sad but always a flush of many different feelings, many of them contradictory. He snorts skeptically at her request, but is not in the habit of declining a lady. "If you wish to try," he says, and offers a small, wry grin that suggests a number of things: amusement, doubt, and resignation, to name just a few.
He continues to lead the way, and they now begin to wrap toward the newer, more populated area of the court. It begins to grow louder around them with the buzz of society. Quiet conversations can be heard and there are now others who pass them in the street. Eik is sometimes recognized and so is Flora- the commonfolk and wealthy alike feed on rumors. He steps closer to her in places where the crowd thickens, slightly concerned that her foreign-ness could make her a target for the few who spew hate and fear because they don’t know better. “What do you know of Solterra, Flora?” This can't be the only court that gorges itself on rumors. As they walk his eyes roam over the strangers and shadows they pass and rest on her from time to time, like a butterfly, before flying away once more.
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
