your heart is a wild thing
made of stardust and thunder and hurricanes
The stormy skies had all but faded away when the sea had called to her in a dream.
Her battering heart robbed her of the sweet bliss of sleep; instead, she found herself roaming further and further from the castle as insomnia racked her with restlessness. She had tossed and turned until her silk sheets were thick with sweat, a headache pounding against the inside of her skull as exhaustion coated her eyes, but did little to pull her under. When she was shaken from her fitful rest, all she could recall was the sound of crashing waves. As if beckoning to her, the stormsinger melted into the shadows immediately. A gypsy, a nomad, a wanderer. A daughter of Calligo, truly, as she faded into shadows and smoke, flying until she found the cliffs were far below her. She spiraled until she was at the rock's very edge, toeing the fall to the sea below, adrenaline pumping madly in her veins. But no; instead, she stood with orbs of brightest blue against the raging sea.
She recollected a moment such as this before, when she stood on a cliff side similar to the one she perched on now. Another time, another night, another storm. Summer's first breath of screaming thunder and roiling bruised clouds, rain falling in thick sheets as lightning flashed like swords of starlight against an indigo sky. A gathering of stormchildren they were; unafraid of the madness, at home with an angry sea threatening to swallow them whole. Tonight, however, was nearly morning, as instead of a stormy sky, the first light of dawn was beginning to leach color along the horizon. Her breath came in shudders through her nostrils and out of her mouth; slow and deliberate inhales and exhales to calm her bleeding heart. For as the memories of that gathering rushed her, overwhelmed her, the stormsinger could not help but remember how she felt when he had joined her there. A tempest, by the fate's design, the gods mocking her now. She had read all of the signs, but yet even now, her heart and soul were cleaved and broken.. his words from the mountain refusing to leave her be.
With a rough shake of her head, her emotions muddled and confused as she remembered the stranger who had danced with her under the stars as well, Aislinn's exhaustion pulled a lullaby from the far reaches of her memory. She collapsed her legs, her wings relaxed at her sides as she laid down with eyes on the ocean's edge forever extended in front of her. Oh yes, a lullaby..
Lavender's blue, dilly dilly
Lavender's green
Yes. She inhaled a strong gust of salt and brine and sweet oxygen, each blink of her eyes drooping as the gods sprinkled sleepy sand into her orbs. The sugar-sweet paradise of dreaming, of slumber, so very close to her now.
When you are king, dilly dilly
I shall be queen.
Her heart lurched, but her mind sang the lullaby, and without realizing it, her throat hummed the melody. The sea thundered against the unmoving stones far below her, a rhythmic music that thrummed all around her. She was utterly exhausted, heart torn; confusion shaking her awake for too-many long nights. But now, she would dream.. of another place, another life, perhaps.. where gypsy girls could not possibly fall in love with their kings.
And as she began to drift away, she was completely, hopelessly unaware of who and what awaited her.
@Florentine ♡ OMG ARE YOU READY? cuz I'm not ready xD "Aislinn speech."
It was a night for broken hearts. Florentine should have known from the moment she first heard that lullaby hum. Down the cliffs it rolled and out, out across the waves. It slipped through grasses, still wet and fresh from the storm now passed. Maybe it was no surprise that the Night Court’s stormsinger should be the source of such a lullaby… for her heart ached like the flower girl’s did. The ache birthed a restless so acute, since the parting of the storm, that it brought the flower girl down from her Dusk-lit tower. Out into the cool, cool night she stepped with yearning the only gown of sleep she wore. It was the cliffs that beckoned her and upon them she roamed, walking the fine edge between the grasses and their steep drop down, down to the sea and sand below. Caramel wings flared beside her, for balance and whimsy - oh to fall, to fly… On and on Florentine walks, her eyes so upon her feet that she does not see the girl of storms and song descend like a black swan from the skies. It is only when her melody comes, a painful aching thing of longing and beauty, that Florentine looks up. There Aislinn is, a dark shadow upon the damp, damp earth with her neck extended to watch the distant seas glimmer like slick, silver shadow in the night. It is this sadness that whispers-whispers and lures the Dusk girl in for her own heart beats with the familiar pain of being torn… Had Flora known it was the same boy (a creature of stars and revelry) that made their twin hearts ache, then maybe she would have been more hesitant as she steps towards this supine girl. Even her lavender petals seem to know what awaits her as they slip from her tangled mane and flee back, back towards the comfort of the keep, her room, his letter. Did they know the words to the lullaby? Slender limbs, honey and gold, fold beneath her twilight body as she sinks into storm-wet grass beside this beautiful stranger. Oh it is cool here, it is fresh, and the flower girl relishes it as she lets her eyes follow the stranger’s out to sea. It is a sight she has seen before, many, many times and for a moment she wonders what this girl sees through her lightning eyes. Is it the same? Is it different? Are the cliffs any less beautiful? Florentine hopes not. The smell of night is upon Aislinn Stormsinger; the lingering scent of jasmine that ties Florentine’s tongue and makes her borrowed heart flutter, flutter (for how could it still be her own when he had so surely taken it from her in that midnight temple?). “That is a beautiful melody.” Florentine sighs as her eyes drift out along the stranger’s spine. “You must be from the Night Court, for none sing so often, nor as beautifully, as they.” She notes to one day ask Reichenbach to sing to her, if ever things should be so easy for them. Gold dust lashes lower to fan her cheeks, to hide her amethyst eyes as she takes a deeper breath of smoke and lavender, of sea salt and lavender. “Are you well? Are you here simply to rest? I can get you a healer if you so wish.” Her lips reach to drift through the girl’s white-black mane; smooth as spun silk. It is a caress, a comfort for them both, to ease this terrible sorrow she feels rippling from this girl’s slender body.
your heart is a wild thing
made of stardust and thunder and hurricanes
Who told you so, dilly dilly
Who told you so?
The lullaby hummed and rose and fell along the breeze coming across the sea, the chords of her song melting and fading into sweet nothings that should have been long forgotten and unheard. But no, fate did not work in such a way.. for unbeknownst to her, the sad-sweet lullaby had drifted to another's ears. Blissful slumber fell between outreached fingers as sandman's dust was blinked away from her eyes. Her exhaustion plagued every nerve, every stretch of muscle of her strong and delicate frame; her body reaping the aftermath of her chaotic heart and stormy emotions. She is a hurricane made woman; a cyclone of aching sorrow and bleeding regret that burned through her like a toxic wildfire.
'Twas my own heart, dilly dilly
That told me so.
She choked, only momentarily, as her orbs that were normally bright blue flames against the ebony of her skin dulled, losing their light. Slowly, she blinked back the salty tears that threatened to spill, to overwhelm her more than she already was. Instead, a smooth voice sliced through the night-turned-morning breeze, soft and lovely and entirely unexpected, but not unwanted.
That is a beautiful melody.
The stormsinger's aria ceased as she looks up to find the source of such a voice, eyes falling on a creature that could only described as ethereal. Unreal. Beautiful, in all sense of the word. Through tired eyes, Aislinn can see — can truly see — the gold of her coat like stirred sweet milk and honey, wild tangles of mane that flutter in the breeze with blooms of lavender falling all around her. She could have been a goddess of spring triumphant; with her delicate stature and the perfume of newly-blossomed flowers heavy and thick and lovely against the strong salt scent of the sea. Aislinn is at a loss for words as she takes in every minute detail; her sorrow eating at her from the inside out, but she is still starstruck all the same.
You must be from the Night Court, for none sing so often, nor as beautifully, as they.
Aislinn remembers her place then, her purpose, her reasoning. Her gaze is torn away from the golden woman, once more staring off into the space where the sky and sea meet along the horizon. She finds that she craves to be there; far, far away from this place where her heart had been broken and the world seemed to burn everywhere she turned. Instead, the stormsinger gives the younger woman a wistful smile. A chord of curiosity strikes her as she goes back to turn over the stranger's words.. for she realizes that the woman speaks of her home with a familiarity unlike any others from a foreign court that she had encountered. How could this woman of flowers and cream and honey know of such things — that the children of Calligo were blessed by song and music and revelry?
"Yes," she replied simply, her voice humming the last notes of her lullaby. She inhaled, breathing the intoxicating, wondrous scent of flowers that overwhelmed her own of woodsmoke and cinnamon flames. Together, they were burning pyres and calming lavender on a sea breeze. The stormsinger turned to face the woman who had laid down on the grass expanse next to her; memorizing her beauty, her kind words, and her voice. Aislinn does not realize how the stranger averts her alluring gaze of amethyst gems; for she is preoccupied, focusing on her breathing and the tears that were ever close to falling down the planes of her refined face. Her heart beat madly, untamed for something that had been torn to shreds; held together with nothing more than a few meager strings.
Are you well? Are you here simply to rest? I can get you a healer if you so wish.
A laugh escapes her, a mournful, music sound that fades quickly amongst the crashing of waves far, far below. She turned, no longer facing the stranger, no longer able to meet her gaze at such kind, genuine offers. Her mane of starlight and ink billows around her eyes, hiding the shed of a single tear loosing from beneath closed lids, as she replies:
"Not unless they are gifted with a cure for a broken heart."
@Florentine ♡
-hands box of tissues and grabs one for self-
I'm not crying you're crying :'( "Aislinn speech."
The two girls lie, cocooned in the calm after the storm. The night about them barely stirs for it is so deep, so restful, so lovely. Sleep lingers clings to the fibers of the night, drowsily curled in shadow and drifting cloud. This sleep is a veil that, with sadness, sinks over them and curls about the stormsinger girl. A breeze, little more than a sleepy sigh, presses in, curious as it tugs at the silver-silk hair Florentine combs, slowly, pensively. There is a sadness in Praistigia this night; a song that the two girl’s hearts knows only too well. The flower girl’s breath becomes as light and fragile as her worried heart. Aislinn and Florentine are girls so different: one a creature made of golden dusk and wild flowers. And the girl who lies before her, caught between slumber and wakefulness, is the storm that only just left. How ironic that she should come here only after… There is a danger to this girl, a danger that crawls along Florentine’s skin. It is a portent and quietly the twilight girl heeds it as she continues to smooth the Night girl’s hair. The melody ceases when Florentine speaks. The absence is so sudden, the night so simple and naked without it that Florentine nearly begs for it to continue. She would have, oh she would, were it not for Aislinn’s eyes, so fierce blue, so dawn blue, settling upon her own. It is the rub of blue and amethyst, the curious acknowledgement as a storm watches the wild meadow it reaches for with cries of lightning and cold, cold rain, falling like tears. Flora’s smile slips across her lips, delighted to meet another Denoctian, delighted to hear more of their songs. “Is it a native song?” She asks thoughtfully, her voice but a whisper in the quiet of this night. It is a moment of revelry, a moment of delight and oh she clings to it, for maybe her heart already knows what her soul dares not believe: This night is made for sorrow. It is this sound of this sadness that has Florentine’s young heart stuttering. It is a ghost from the nights she spent in tears herself. It is a reminder that her heart is not the same as it was before the Night King. This storm girl, a creature of starlight and wild, gathering tempests, laughs a laugh spun from aching hearts and mourning souls. Florentine breathes as her own ghosts, made of Solterran gold and eyes stormsinger blue, rise to haunt her with a voice of wild fury: He will never love you and now, neither will I. Florentine’s eyes shut. Oh how they shut tight! Alas, they cannot help her escape the sound of the waves that break with the agony of their shared hearts. Did Florentine have a cure for a broken heart? No. “They aren’t.” Florentine laments as the wind pulls petals from her mane. They fall like tears between the girls. “I am not sure there is any cure but time… All things heal with time.” She whispers as she hopes. Those words are a prayer upon her lips. A prayer for the hurt she caused her sun girl, Bexley. A prayer that one day she might be forgiven for a love she did not plan, a love that has already ruined the love of others. “It hurts now, but I think it gets better... Do you have someone you can confide in?” And all she sees is the darkness in her father’s eyes – the bleeding shadow of a heart she is not sure ever truly healed.
"I am Florentine, by the way. I never give introductions early enough, I am always too busy talking about other things." She whispers in a bid to lighten the sorrow of this moment. A warm smile begins to curl her golden lips despite her ragged heart.
your heart is a wild thing
made of stardust and thunder and hurricanes
A soft sigh cracks from her throat, her sorrow rippling in waves of gray and blue to match the sky after the onslaught of a summer storm. Her lids heavy with the tempest of sweet slumber and burning tears, she blinks them open. So so slowly; gaze adjusting to the bleakness that matched the feelings in her own shattered heart. As she turned to brave seeing the woman's face once more, the stormsinger finally sees.. the lovely deepness of her amethyst eyes, like crystal gems faceted with the color of ripe oranges and the promise of dusk on a clear summer's day. Her smile is even more enchanting as it pulls her in, and Aislinn is sure of it now — this nameless, beautiful creature is twilight and spring meadows; all the lovely things that could possibly exist in the world bound into one.
Is it a native song?
The lyrics of her lullaby slowly draw the corner of her lip upwards; but only for a moment, before the shred of joy the memory brings drags with it a dagger of piercing ache. With a shake of her crown, Aislinn stares downward; down the planes of grass cushioned underneath her, down the pebbles and rock face until she notes the fury of crashing waves below. Her tangled mane thrashes around her ebony frame in a sudden gust of wind; her tattoos now bare and open. But she does not care.. no, she only cares for one thing. A cure.. anything to mend what was broken, for she wishes for nothing else but for her heart to be remade.
Lavender's blue, dilly dilly
"No," she answers, blinking and meeting the woman's entrancing gaze, a soft smile a ghost on her lips, "but it is to me." An aria of dreams, of stars and a kingdom home to a beloved king and queen. That is what her mother had once sung to her; and that memory alone tugged at something so far deep in her that she could not stop the words from playing in her mind. Not now.
Lavender's green
I am not sure there is any cure but time… All things heal with time.
Time, the woman said. What a fickle, folly thing for a foolish gypsy girl. For that is what she was; a woman of nonsense who filled her head with preposterous dreams and wishes akin to stories told to children. Of course the most gifted healers in all of the land could not help her now. There was no magic potion to sew her heart back to wholeness, nor no pixie dust to help her fly far, far away.
When you are king, dilly dilly
"I still see his face," she admits, her orbs blurring as she no longer sees reality, but the dark planes of his chiseled crown; the alabaster star perfectly centered between silver eyes. Through thick lashes, Aislinn's sight is gone; now replaying the moment that continued to haunt her and rob her of sleep. "I still hear his voice."I'm in love with — we aren't.. can't —
It hurts now, but I think it gets better... Do you have someone you can confide in?
She is bleeding and broken — a ragdoll in need of mending — as another single tear falls down her face quickly becomes two, and three, and more than she can count or bear. The careful walls that she had built over years cracked and crumbled under the weight of her grief; a silver dagger piercing her chest and loosing all of the pain from her soul. Her cries wrack her body in violent shakes, the floodgates of her hurt bursting forth and overwhelming every once-burning nerve; for now, her sobs unyielding and as merciless as the blade of agony slowly twists in her chest with each beat of her heart. Without realizing it, the stormsinger leaned into the golden woman's own delicate frame; seeking her warmth, her gentle touch and strokes through her wild starlit mane.
Aislinn, the daughter of storms and stars, was reduced to that of a little girl who craved the embrace of a loving mother, a friend, a shoulder she could depend on. Her vision blurred as every emotion — the crimson tendrils of rage, and the bittersweet taste of heartache — tore her insides to pieces; much like a tsumani laying waste to a city too close to shore. She remembers the soft promise of his kiss on her wounded wing; the warmth of their touch on the cliffs overlooking a stormy sea; his eyes of liquid silver boring into hers of brightest blue flames; and the tinkling of golden coins tangled in his untamed curls that very night they had met. Her heart weeps for every memory, hands outreached and grasping nothing — only air — as her lips tremble, and her eyes blink away the last tears that she could harbor. Tear ducts finally desert dry, and her nose sniffling through the thick of sadness blanketing her entire body.
She does not realize how alike they were then; how a stormchild born of stars and indigo galaxies could share twin hearts with a young woman of honey and lavender blossoms and eternal spring.
I shall be —
I am Florentine.
Her heart lurches violently in her chest, thrusting against the inside curves of her rib cage and pushing on what little oxygen was caught in her lungs. The woman's words fade quickly, for the stormsinger only hears one thing, one name. Every ridge and chord of muscle tenses, like a statue holding it's breath, as blue eyes widen with fevered shock. Aislinn's crown tilts, ever so slightly, as she takes in the woman of sun-sweet milk and gold.
"What did you say?" she breathes, soft and loosed with shudders of thunder, but not anger. And then the memory clicks, final and brutal, his voice quick and loud through the madness of the fathoms below and the discord of her soul. I am in love with Florentine. I am in love with Florentine. I am in love with —
Lurching upwards, she is a flurry of ebony wings marked with moonlight as fresh tears stream down the delicate planes of her face. Her eyes are narrowed, hooves pushing against the loose stones beneath her as the ground quakes at the sudden movement. What little trust and faith in the golden woman — his heart in the flesh — was shredded and cut by the sheers of fate. She bunches her wings closer to her body, searching for the warmth that had flooded her in Florentine's absence now as she stared at the woman in disbelief.. in betrayal.
"You.. you're her."
@Florentine ♡ holy muffin that was painful to write D': here, have a book darling! "Aislinn speech."
Like the face of a celestial god, the moon appears from beneath its veil of storm-grey clouds. Silvery light, gauzy and glittering, cascades upon the girls. Moon shadows stretch out, painting the stormsinger upon grass and stone. Florentine’s gaze follows the moon’s sorrowful lines as they stretch and pull until it conveys a sadness so taut, so agonizing to behold; a shrill and pining note upon a violin strong that tugs and tugs upon the heart of its hearer.
Silver light, shivers and shimmers everywhere. Florentine should have known, she should have heeded the call of the moon. The stars blink stardust tears for their night girl. Their cry is the roar of the knowing seas, the hiss of its fretting sea-surf. Through it all Florentine is ignorant. Through it all the flower girl indulges her own sorrow as she keeps her rhythmical caress; a comfort, a comfort her changed heart fervently begs - prays.
And yet, maybe there is a part of her that hears, that knows, that has her tangled nerves begging to hear Aislinn’s melody once again. It is a melody – an art- to repaint the portentous whispers of this night with beauty and sorrow. It is art that draws its way across the night girl’s lips, sculpting a smile, albeit fleeting and oh so fragile. But the smile lingers just long enough, and it is a faded picture, a memory that clings to the corner of her lips, precious but fleeting, oh so fleeting.
Florentine now knows the bitter-sweet taste of memories kept only within her mind. For she is no longer the time-traveller girl: a creature of multiple worlds and so many timelines. No longer can she slip into the past and watch her parent’s love nor her death as a child. Now her memories are only figments of her mind, colour pictures fading with time – they are losing their smell, their scent. A shiver slips and slides its way down the twilight girl’s spine and is met with a shattering sob from the dark stormsinger.
A golden wing, long and elegant, lays itself across the Nightgirl’s skin. It is the press of dusk light, still warm with the heat of the dying sun. Still Florentine combs the silk of this stormsinger’s lightning hair. Still Flora’s every breath is a lament, whisper, an apology – if only she knew, if only she knew!
The waves rage and hiss and cry as they claw up the cliffs for the ignorant girl of twilight. This is her gloaming: her calm before the night’s terrible revelation, before the calamity of a love she cannot control descends like swirling shadow.
I still see his face… I still hear his voice…
What words did Florentine have for that? For the agony that drenches every word and has them clinging to her own bleeding heart. The Dusk girl looks for words, she hopes for their weight upon her tongue, but she is so painfully empty.
Petals touch where her words cannot. They skitter across storm-kissed skin, they tangle in starlight hair and fill the air with lavender, lavender, lavender. If only she knew.
If only she knew.
More sobs chase the first. More and more and more until the stormgirl is rocking, until she is breaking and Flora wonders if the only thing holding them together is her wing across her back. And so she holds, she clings tighter, with gold gossamer feathers and a fitful heart that trembles with fear. Was this what true heartbreak was? Was this what agony Reichenbach’s rejection could inflict upon her? What will her heart look like when he at last chooses to give it back?
He could never love you What creeping, unwanted ghosts Bexley’s words are!
Amethyst eyes lift to the lunar sky, to the glittering stars, to the shadows and he is there, in them all. He is the ghost that lingers between the girls. His love was a hurricane and Florentine was not ready, she was never ready.
The night’s storm is not over, there is worse that comes. It is terrible, it is fierce and the sea swells with its force. The waves are still crying and crawling and clawing ever higher, higher up those jagged cliffs. Florentine hides: from the impending storm, from the fear of heartbreak, from the stars that pull her into his eyes, and lays her forehead upon Aislinn’s spine. Only there, in the dark of her wing, in the smell of his lingering jasmine does she loose a ragged breath.
If only she knew the storm has arrived and it is terrible and fierce and begins with only an ominous whisper and a glitter of agonized eyes.
What did you say? The storm whispers, for it was already here - had always been.
Florentine blinks, her head lifting from the embrace. The tone was eerie, it was a warning and Time itself turns against its girl of flowers and gold. It twists back, repeating, repeating. Her paper heart flutters wildly upon the winds of this storm and she yearns to catch it and protect it, even with fingers that tremble so.
The buttercream girl moves to speak, but Time laughs as the storm stands, suddenly. There is no water to slough from the storm-girl’s skin, instead dust and rock and grass and petals all tumble away instead. Flora’s wing falls limply to her side, like pooling silk, but her eyes follow the Night girl, up and up until she stands as tall as her storm clouds, as tall as the silver light which frames her. Not even the flowers through which Florentine gazes can rob the stormsinger of her beauty then.
You’re… your her
And it is not just Flora’s heart that scrambles, but her feet, her wings, her flowers… Fear pulls her up, up, up to her feet, in order to meet eyes that glimmer with blue-bruised hurt. What had she done? Who was she? The sea rages, the sea rages, the sea rages-
And her realization is a slow and terrible thing…
Not him. Not him. Jasmine reaches for her, and her gazes races back to her beloved tower, to the low glow of her window and Reichenbach’s jasmine flowers resting upon its sill. It is the same scent that still lingers upon the storm girl’s skin. The scent Florentine clung to for comfort, for grounding. But she never could never ground herself with him, for being with the Night King meant falling through stars, through wild oblivion. Nothing about him was easy; she was learning, she was learning.
“I am, who?” The Dusk girl breathes the question as little more than a whisper. Each word is tremulous, so filled with that terrible knowing. Her gaze is purple-bruised as she looks over the girl of storms and skies and wonders if her heart was not the only one Reichenbach carried.
Please don’t be Reichenbach., her heart beats as it cracks because knowing he broke this storm-girl’s heart is of no comfort to Florentine.
This is a terrible, wounding love and, for a moment, she resents it.
your heart is a wild thing
made of stardust and thunder and hurricanes
Had she been blessed at birth with droplets of magic in her blood, the ground beneath her hooves would have quaked with every word she spoke; the sea would have crashed violently against the stone face of the cliffs in answer to her cries; and the skies above would have churned into thundering storm clouds, lightning flashing in answer to every tear that trembled down the delicate planes of her face. But no, oh no, she was not gifted with such things.. not yet.
A sickening shiver ran down the length of her spine, her muscles, her wings, as she stood with disbelief towards the girl of milk and honey. The heavy perfume of night blossoms and lavender roiled deep in her gut; nausea flooding her until the threat of bile burned in the back of her throat. To have found solace — comfort — in the woman who held the heart of the king she loved so dearly was like a dagger slowly twisting in what was left of her shredded, broken heart. The cracked and bleeding thing beat madly against her ribs; drumming loudly in her ears to the sound of the waves answering the fury of betrayal that coursed through her blood and bones.
The night-kissed mare's body craved the warmth of the girl who, for a moment — a blessed, most welcome moment — she trusted, to come back. Her wing draped over her back was a ghost of heat and comfort that was gone, painfully gone. The woman's caress as she smoothed her mane of silk a phantom, haunting her as Aislinn stared at her and only saw betrayal, agony, and grief the color of washed out storms. What she would bribe to to Tempus himself; to rid the regret that burned through her like a corrosive toxin. To turn back the clock before words had been exchanged between them; to turn back before she had left her home in the middle of the night one more, robbed of sleep; to turn back before she was just a gypsy girl who fell in love with her king. Oh, what she would give to go back.. and never live a moment of this pain again.
She would not wish the ache that tore through every part of her on even the worst of her enemies.
Fresh tears streamed freely down her face; how she could even produce more, she was not certain. The taste of salt coated her lips as she tried to blink them away; the musk of those god-damned blossoms thick and heady in her nostrils, in her lungs. Soft lavender petals fluttering in the breeze coming off of the ocean, shaking them free from the smoother tresses of her starlight mane. Just a reminder of how very close they were.. the lingering warmth of the golden girl's body sending new waves of ice through her instead, like shards of glass ripping through her veins with each pump of her heart.
Aislinn could not tear her gaze away from her — Florentine — and her orbs of amethyst gems. She could see it now, like she had once before the moment they had met not mere minutes before. Her buttercream locks and delicate wings, the smooth silk of honey on her skin, and a gaze the color of indigo jewels. A spring goddess woven into mortal flesh and bone and lovely things. No wonder he loves her.. and the very thought has her choking on what little oxygen she has in her lungs, the perfume flowers that are robbing her of any breathable air.
I am who?
She wanted to scream, and rage, until every part of her is either destroyed or so broken that there is nothing left to salvage her, to put her back into something that could be whole again. The ache in her has cleaved her, shattered her heart and bruised her soul. Florentine's words send new tears blinking from her dull blue eyes, Aislinn's gaze finally unable to take looking at the golden girl anymore.
Her heart simply could not take it, not for another moment.
"He told me was in love with you," she whispered, her voice trembling over every word as it is carried over the wind coming off of the sea. "My king could not lie to me, although I almost wish he had."
And then even the stars above seemed to shimmer in mourning to their gypsy girl.
@Florentine ♡ gahhh this isn't my best, I'm sorry love :( "Aislinn speech."
Her eyes close, gold-dusted lashes fanning against her cheek, for she cannot bear to see that look in the storm girl’s eyes. There is such loathing there, such desperate sadness that Florentine cannot help but shy away.
Her muzzle draws in, her crown dipping to better free her fringe. Obediently the golden threads of tangled flowers and spun silk, fall forwards to cover her eyes, her face. It is a veil she wishes was as thick as stone and as tall as the moon. But alas it is not, and through the gold and the lavender, when her eyes open again, she still sees the agony etched upon the Night girl’s face.
What a terrible thing it is, Flora thinks now, to love her Night King. As she waits she dreads. The twilight girl dreads what accusations may fall like thunder from this storm-girl’s lips. Florentine does not want to weather this storm, her mind, her heart, her soul, flees back to the warm comfort of her bed and blankets. Oh to have just been able to stay there this night - to have been blessed by sleep enough to never have met Aislinn this night.
He told me he was in love with you.
Those words split the flower girl in two. All at once her body is the light of dawn and the terrible unending black of a storm ravaged night. They are words to end the terrible, poison of Bexley’s bite: He will never be able to love you.
The Day girl’s words had feasted upon her skin, her soul, her heart. They were a poison lancing through her veins and oh, it is only at its passing that the flower girl realizes just how sick such words had made her.
That initial ray of sunshine, like the light of dawn, is dogged by shadow and a terrible storm that rains Aislinn’s tears and strikes lightning as sharp as the resentment in her storm-grey eyes.
“I am sorry…” Florentine breathes, as her wide, wide eyes take in the Night Court Champion.
Aislinn’s eyes are a wild fire burning each piece of golden skin they touch. For a moment, for a childish, insecure moment, Florentine fears to know just what the Night girl sees when she looks at her. And as her own eyes sweep over the fierce storm singer, Flora wonders what exactly Reichenbach saw in her that he did not in Aislinn. This stormsinger is fierce and wild and beautiful. She is a force that cannot be tamed…
“I didn’t know-“ he loved me, are the words she cannot bring herself to say. She thinks of his letter upon her windowsill and his words hidden away within the folded leaf of paper. There was no confession of love – or was there? She blinks slowly at the older girl, suddenly feeling so young again, so ill-versed in the words, the gestures, the meaning of what it is to love and be loved.
She takes a step closer to Aislinn. “We didn’t plan for this.” Her eyes race out to the sea, “In Verenor I told him we couldn’t be together…” And yet they were spiraling ever closer, two magnets unable to resist the draw to be together and leaving broken hearts in their journey towards each other. Despite all of that, the most painful realization was, that for all Aislinn’s tears, Florentine still ached to find Reichenbach.
I am sorry. The words are ghosts upon her lips, she begs to speak them again and again until she is hoarse, but all that comes are tears; those of sorrow and those of relief.
your heart is a wild thing
made of stardust and thunder and hurricanes
The stars above shimmered and winked with every tear that fell from the stormsinger's eyes; the only testament that maybe, just maybe, her Goddess was grieving for her gypsy girl. But in that moment.. Aislinn had never felt so alone. Not once in all of her mortal years that had been seemingly blessed by Calligo herself. Her ink body shivers as her skin suddenly craves the warmth that they had shared when they were so so close — when she had dared to find comfort in a woman who had been so trusting, so open, so loving. A woman, whom before now, she had never met. Seemingly only a name had bound them; a name and a shared love for a king of shadows and smoke and stars.
How alike they were with their twin hearts; now, one beating twice full, tied with red ribbon to her own King, the man they both loved.. and the other, a broken, shredded mess of the organ that had once been full long before. But not anymore; not since that fateful night that now replayed, relentlessly, whenever she closed her eyes and prayed for the sweet release of sleep. That one night on the mountain temple, where she breached his prayers and he had proclaimed his love for another. For her.
With rapid blinks, Aislinn moved, stepping further and further backwards. She needed distance, needed space.. to get as far away from the woman of milk and honey and lavender blossoms as she could go. The perfume of spring flowers was thick, suffocating her, coating her lungs with those damned, purple petals. The very same blooms, she realized, that she had found solace in; with their calming scent and lovely beauty that was so befitting of the woman in the first place. Her gaze of matching amethyst, and her frame that could rival a goddess of untold beauty. She, who had enchanted the Night King as much as she had enchanted the stormsinger of stardust and hurricanes.
But now...
Aislinn was a storm woven into flesh and bone, softened only by the moonlight silk of her mane and the tears that fell from her eyes like liquid stars. With violent trembles of her crown, she stepped back, shaking free the wild tangles of her ombré mane until it fell like a curtain in front of her gaze. She tucked her large wings close to her body — folding into herself — in search of heat and warmth where Florentine's golden skin had touched her own. Delicate hooves scraped against the stone face of the cliff, nearly toeing the edge, as she moved back back back. She was not listening to the tell-tale sound of pebbles giving out underneath her as she found the edge, the fathoms below her crashing against the steep cliff face in angry waves. Her throat burned as she coughed, shaking her crown over and over again in attempt to rid herself of the girl's honeydew voice. She could not bear it, not for a moment more.
We.
Her delicate ears did not hear the apology from the lips of the mare of gold; for instead, she hones into that one, awful word with a hyper focus that has her heart shattering into tiny, molecular pieces. Frustration broiled in her veins, threading dangerously with the ache that had cut through her like glass shards. Bright and violent and brutal. Unforgiving. She nearly choked, her face screwing up in a painful twist as the wind blowing from the sea behind and below her tossed her mane out of her eyes. Her eyes.. red and blue and swollen from her own ocean of tears.
One hoof slipped along the cliff edge before she regained her balance, small rocks giving beneath her weight.
"Neither one of you were careful.. how could you?" she sighs, her voice cracking, orbs blinking upwards towards the fading stars as the first light of morning began to break along the horizon. "No.. this is my fault.. for who watches out for the hearts of others when you're falling in love?"
The lullaby she had sung earlier — to find a shred of comfort, something to hold on to with desperate hands — comes back to her and replays, haunting and beautiful.
Florentine watches the storm girl retreat and how the cliffside breaks away beneath her feet. The Dusk girl’s heart surges ever harder, leaping against her breastbone as rocks tumble down into the sea.
“Careful!” She breaths, her eyes as wide and wild as the waves that churn below. The maelstrom beckons Aislinn down, down to the sea below. This night has turned into something feral and uncontrollable. The shadows are not the comforting ones Flora would usually feel here at night. No, these are dangerous, changing shadows, the subjects left behind the advancing storm. They shall play their ominous games until dawn. They shall ravage these two girls with potent black, leeching their every emotion until they are but husks in the trauma of this night.
“Keep away from the edge.” Florentine appeals, her amethyst eyes stricken for there are no words that she can say that will be a balm upon Aislinn’s wounds. Her every word only seems to serve to push the storm girl back, back, back. The sea rises hungry for the stricken gypsy girl.
The flower girl is helpless here. At once she is both the cause of and a victim in this situation. Her apologies break against Aislinn as though they were little more than a gentle breeze. They wash from the Night girl’s skin like water.
Eyes fall away; so lost, so confused.
Neither one of you were careful.. how could you?
The words hit and the flower girl feels their bite in her heart, in her flesh. She should bend and yield beneath its strike, but like a lion made fretful and filled with worry, Florentine’s anger rises through her nerves and echoes across her body with a riled a roar. A slight hoof collides with the ground as sharp as the bullwhip words that had cracked from Aislinn’s lips.
“I cannot vouch for Reichenbach, but I had no idea there was anyone else who loved him.” Sharp, sharp words. As sharp as needles as sharp as claws. The golden girl is no more a creature of gauzy gold as a wild Saharan lioness. A breath rakes in through trembling lungs and her eyes flutter shut against the thoughts of Bexley and how swiftly things had changed between them.
Calm, calm, calm.
The lioness sinks into the grass and the girl’s heart begins to slow, her nerves no longer needles of electric passion. She speaks with a voice of quiet, simmering passion. Can Aislinn hear the snarl that simmers beneath her words with pain and fury? “If I have not been careful, then tell me how to not fall in love so that I may avoid it in the first place. Or better yet, tell me how I may fall out of love and then your king shall be yours!” Even as she says the words her voice begins to crack and shatter. They are hoarse upon the wind and she swallows them away with a ragged breath and tear-stung eyes.
Her heart scrambles to pull those betraying words back, back, back. It does not want to stop loving him, not now it has begun to learn just what love is, no matter its hurt.
“Did you think there could be another heart involved when you fell in love with Reichenbach, Aislinn?” She asks quietly, so soft the words were barely heard above the sigh of the midnight breeze and the hiss of the restless sea.
“No,” Florentine acknowledges so softly, “who indeed looks out for the hearts of others when you are falling in love… I, for one, did not.”
Dusk laments into the night and if she had a god in whom she believed, she might have then fallen to her knees in prayer. Instead, she stands alone with her love, alone with her sorrow.
