[Quest] A thing monstrous and free [TW]

[Florentine]

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It was fate that wound about them tightly now. It was fate that would down the girl like a bird struck from the sky.
 
The winds played their part well. They blew too hard and drove too fast and all Florentine could hear was the erratic beat of her racing heart and the roar of a restless wind.
 
All her eyes could see was the monster standing atop the cliff face. Raymond stood between it and the sea. There was scant space there, between the monster and Florentine’s friend. The sea rose up to beckon the warrior in, it spat at the monster looming above it and carried the fearsome shadow across its restless surface.
 
For all her calls, Raymond did not move. Oh what good it would have done to be able to listen and hear. But this is no forgiving situation, Fate laughs in the wind and winds itself tighter about its golden girl. Florentine walks a tightrope between fate and chance, on a whim she succumbs to both. But here, oh here, she is victim only to one.
 
In she swoops to save a friend, frustration in her lungs and fear in her veins.
 
-----
 
Florentine has fallen like this before. 
 
How many times had she thrown herself from a mountain top and scuffed her feet as she plummeted from a cliff’s highest crest? How many times had she fallen with laughter ringing in her ears and the flash of feathers fluttering in the wind? Too many, in answer.
 
But none were like this, for: 
 
None began with an impact enough to blow the breath from her lungs. 
 
None had her falling with blood in her throat or a terrible pain in her side. 
 
None had her falling and wondering if death had caught up with her at last.
 
Over and over she tumbles until the ground is up and the sky is down, until both meet with a scrambling blur that becomes nothing but a swirl of stars and sky and sea and stone. Her wings shed their feathers in disarray, the wind swooping in to catch beneath them, but Florentine is falling fast. She is a falling comet; in light and gold she descends from the sky as though it were not a tarrsque that plucked her from the air, but the stars themselves.
 
Florentine lands with no grace. Her body meets an earth she never knew could be so hard and shattering. Blood, too coppery, too hot, spills from her nose and her lips. Oh it reminds her of what it is to die: What a pleasure it had once been to feel the haze of eternal sleep seep across her body and to give in to its calm embrace…
 
But this was not a day for death and Florentine was not ready to be caught in its eternal web. Upon the ground she thrashes - just to be able to stand, even with a crumpled wing... Blood pools fast and hot and wet within her throat. A cough has it painting the rocks beside her lips. 
 
Ah her limbs are strong, but her wing is a disjointed, twisted thing that hangs so oddly at her side. She feels no pain for it now; not when all her body is a cacophony of pain. It is loud, disjointed and Flora would cry out, if she could, if only she could. She does not, and she stops thrashing as her wing hangs limply at her side, unmoved by all her frantic fears.
 
It is a blessing she is too dazed, too shocked, to see how close she has landed to the monster her rift window summoned. Florentine is but a small piece parchment, fluttering uselessly upon the bloodied ground and she has no thought for the monster that plucked her from the sky. What was left to fear when you were already broken? When you had already died once and now it came back to claim you again, in blood and broken bones.
 
Blood is an angry froth upon her lips and it gargles in her throat as she struggles to breathe. Darkness bleeds in her vision – ah, this is the truest touch of night. It creeps in upon her and she knows its welcome well. Florentine knows the tiredness that weighs her limbs down. She knows what it was to die with blood upon her tongue and her body broken. But her heart, her body, is stronger now and does not wish to die, not here, not now, but unconsciousness is sweet and so very insistent. 
 
Heavy are the eyelids that dim her gaze and close over amethyst at last. It may be silent the moment the girl falls still and quiet, but she does not know. 
 
She might never know.

@Raymond CUE Faceplant Floraaa!

florentine
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