FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
He chides her, but this contrary girl only smiles. “I did,” Florentine says with a smile, with a shrug as careless as his own. It is clear she has spent too much time watching him and pondering all that he is, for that shrug is a mirror of Lysander’s. It is an honour that she studies him so but it may be their curse too…
Though the din of the festival is a loud and vibrant backdrop, the girl peers up at him as if he is the only thing in Delumine. None of it seems to matter any more. Not even the music can bring her limbs to desire dance. They are still – oh they are full of energy, brilliant and restless, but it is not to dance. No, Florentine’s body thrums with something else: a music that is both wonderful and terrifying. Ah, she shivers into his side.
Up, up from beneath the thick of her fringe she gazes; she is forever looking up to Lysander. “But I also saved you with only a moment to spare.” Her lips pull down, “A god might have been able to save you faster.” A grim memory seeps like blood between them. The anthousai knows her dagger still remembers the taste of his blood and she wonders of the difference between blood and the essence between worlds. But Florentine need not wonder, for her dagger already knows: there is no difference.
He does not move as she fits herself against him. Neither does she when at last he does, if only to make space for her there. Fate binds them (as it always has) with heartstrings and the gossamer of eternal souls. Though she thinks of this embrace as home, like he, she does not say so. Instead she lets it be known in the way she leans against him, as if he might be the only thing that could ever keep her from stumbling.
His answer is a rumble through his bones, it vibrates through his jaw and where her nose touches it. Her lips twitch with the sensation and her skull tilts her cheek pressing where her nose once was. Her laughter rings like a bell for she has no space in her to be offended. Not this night, when she too is so filled with the false courage of liquor and adrenaline.
“Good.” She hums into the intimate space between them. She speaks before he can finish, “You are learning.” Her smile is wicked and playful. If they speak of gods then she is surely the jester who weaves time for her own devices and makes everything her playground. Except Lysander. Oh, she is forever chasing him.
Her voice as light as air as she tells him, “I wouldn’t let you slide away from me, even in death.” And it does not feel new, but like an old warning; a reminder he should heed. Then, more seriously, Flora withdraws from her place beneath his jaw. She turns to better watch him, to better know his expression - and he hers, of course. “I am not ready to find you again. Not yet.” She takes a breath, leaning in to the space she made between them, and there drinks him in. ah she is drunk of alchol but it is nothing compared to the way her flower boy intoxicates her. She is drunk on liquor, festival joy and love.
Her smile fades with such revelation and she stands up straighter, if only to keep from leaning in. All at once it is not a game, it is not the simple love she thought it was.
Florentine has always been a selfish girl, but wonders then if he might be the thing she is most selfish over. Yet he is the only one she has been able to share her life in new worlds with, over and over. She loves him a little more for that too.
She could be shy, yes. She could retreat into herself and hide from this fresh revelation. Yet she does not, again she smiles and pulls away from him, peering out at the stalls before them. “I am not done with paint.” She muses to him lightly. “Will you come and help me decide on a design?” Her eyes return to him as she leads him forward, each step an ache she cannot evade.
@Lysander |
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
