FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
The citadel fades away beneath the gold of these girls. They are gilded and bright, bright with their sorrow. All that is broken is them, all that is scarred and ruinous is upon their skin. Yet there is no fear within them. Bexley Briar is a satellite – did she not know? She moves and the world moves with her. She turns and the world bends to follow. There is no star that might shine brighter than Solis’ child. There is no wind that can strip her of all she has adorned herself with.
Though that scar is a raise and ugly mark between them, it stands for nothing. Their skin is hot and smooth where the scar is not. The girls touch like silk and burn like fire. Sin is as dark as the shadows between them. It crawls out from their hearts and their souls like ants from a den. But this embrace, that Florentine and Bexley hold, is its poison. Their sins cannot return, not with this love, and not when love poisons the well from which sin drinks. Love is a fountain of water upon their bodies and in silence the girls drink as though they drown with groping fingers clutching tighter, tighter.
They lay together at the foot of a fountain once and though they are far from one now, Florentine thinks they have never been closer to that moment they once shared.
Bexley‘s laugh is a rumble between their bodies. Florentine shivers with the cold of it. Ah desolation is close. It is a bitter taste upon the air and that laugh brings it closer still. No, no, no. The flower girl’s head is shaking, her skin warming with friction. Golden lashes lower over her eyes. “You have never stopped Bexley Briar. You feel low now, but you aren’t. You never let yourself fall low.”
Florentine listens to the ache, the cry of Bexley’s wounds made known in the agony of her words. Slowly she withdraws, her skin suddenly cold where they do not touch. Amethyst eyes drink in gold and curls that roll like wild waves. “You are not that girl anymore, Bexley.” Ah, was such a revelation what Bexley expected?
In the space she made between them, Florentine takes a breath, long and slow and deep. “Like I am not the same girl who fell in love with Reichenbach. And he is no longer the boy I loved…” She trails off, her delicate head tilting like a doll – a crow with fine wings and knowing eyes. “We are all changed, like the world is ever changing. To remain so is to deny time and life. Embrace what you have become and what you have yet to be, Bexley. You will never stray too far from yourself.”
Their eyes meet, blue to purple – day to dusk, seamless and imperfect. “I won’t let you.”
And it is that simple.
@
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
