THE BRINGER OF WORLDS
It is a tranquil night when Florentine lands, light and nimble upon the edge of Denocte’s cliffs.
But such peace will not last.
She takes a breath, a whisper of air that rushes in and rushes out. Here, upon this cliff, the nymph queen of smiles and flowers is small and slight, soft and gold…
…Until the shadows begin to creep.
Up and up her golden skin they crawl. This darkness is a shawl she once gladly wore. But now they feel like ants upon her skin, creeping and scuttling.
It is her trembling that starts everything. It is the silken touch of the moon upon her back, pouring mercury, that has her fury rising like dragon fire. It is a fury that has slept, that has been pushed away. But Florentine is a volcano now. Her fury is lava that will no longer be bound and it builds and builds and builds. Yet, Dusk’s queen is no mere volcano able to rend the skies alone. No, this volcanic girl is set to rend worlds.
Her fury snaps with the energy of stars colliding. Her subtle knife rends the air, but it does not stop there. It presses and pushes and stops only when it reaches another world. Any world the fury cries from her thrumming veins. The knife rips in a jagged slash and a wound yawns open between worlds. Red light and fierce solar winds pour in through the open window. This world she has opened a window too is as wild as her anger, it is as crimson as her hurt. With her teeth she pulls the seam of the worlds open, open, open. More, more, more.
The earth begins to shake, she can feel its trembling in her limbs. It is a song that made the earth move and it is thundering its way up the girl’s caramel limbs. The quaking makes Florentine’s nerves sing, and her teeth chatter. Her whole body is alight beneath its fierce roar. Was this what it was to open herself up and let the hurt of her betrayal roar?
Stone and rock and open air resonated with this sound, this terrible music. A solar storm: a wind of fire and rage, of stars and metal sweeps into Denocte. It has no place here, like her fury, but Reichenbach invited both.
The sea is a fierce and wild chant behind her. It cries as it breaks upon the jagged cliffs and hisses its fury as the frothing waters pull back from the wetted stone. High up the cliffside the Dusk queen stands, within the ruins of a fallen watchtower. Was it once built to watch Dusk? If so, she thinks, it should not have been so easily forgotten. The lines of her delicate face darken like an artist’s shadow. She is art, here beneath this savage scene, but it not art of this world. It is the shadow of anger, the same energy that drives the raging winds. She laughs, for a moment, free and terrible. The winds arch back, like a cat and swirl about her frame, it knows that laugh means nothing good. That laugh so wild, so full of fury.
The girl was made in fire and ice. Her skin is scolded by frost, her soul lit with flames. After a fire there is always life, always flowers. It was why she is the flower girl, fed by heat and light and water. There is nothing peaceful in her life, nothing that would ever remain soft and gentle. This storm, welcomed from another world, reminds her now like the Night King reminded her then.
At last she steps away from the rampart’s edge. She is gold and beautiful and terrible beneath this keening sky of unnatural winds. An ear twists amidst its nest of gold and lavender. It listens to the crooning of Denocte’s stars and moon. Darkness dares to seep over her again and in silence her dagger rises in opposition. It cuts deep, deep into air and nothingness. But it’s pointed tip pierces everything. Florentine holds and drags that cutting blade, spilling another world’s light across the night ground in a short, sharp slash. She does not stop there, she cuts and cuts and cuts, again and again, on and on until the night is full of rippling, white light. Until it is like a thousand worlds throw their sunlight here. It falls across her skin, banishing the shadows from her body and the darkness flees like beetles beneath the nuclear force of her ire.
Her paper heart thunders in her chest but Florentine is numb, numb, numb. Reichenbach wanted her to tell him the truth. Well, this was it: Florentine is not of this world, or any single one. Not even she knows when, or where, she began to exist. This girl has been born so many times, in so many places. She has died twice already: once old and ready, once young and so unprepared. She will die again, an infinite number of times until time is ready to die itself.
Reichenbach thinks he knew her. He doesn’t. She doesn’t even know herself. Old and ancient is her soul. It has travelled time and space so well that there is no world or time, that does not know her. She is fated, for she has twisted herself up in time so much she cannot be anything but.
Time waits for Florentine like she now waits for the Night King. Upon the ruins of the old watchtower she stands, with her eyes out upon the sea. Flora had sent a crow ahead of her. It was black as pitch and dirty with sin, and it bore her message for him. Their council was now, as though beneath the light of a thousand worlds.
@Reichenbach oh wow have a novel about an angry Flora! xDD
This styling is also nice for some non-obtrusive OOC credits, wordcount or banter. Don't forget that divider up there.
