FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
She looks at her brother, oh she looks at him close.
Asterion’s eyes are indeed the dark between stars, the hidden places in the sea that not even light can reach.
“But Night?,” Florentine asks with the hurt of a girl that knows no allies here. “Would Dawn not have sufficed?” And now her ache is a burn, old wounds cry out in the farthest places of her and she takes a steely breath.
Florentine does not take her gaze from her brother’s. She drink in all of him, sad for herself, sad for him and sad for their kingdom. “You remind me of Daddy when you look at me like that.” She says with fondness, with sadness, with a tone of chastisement.
“You aren’t in love with Isra, are you? There is something about Dusk and Night, I swear…” Ah, such a flippant question Florentine throws to ease the tension between them and she continues on, ”This is not a good rebound idea if so…” Even whilst the flower girl jests, her lips are serious, her eyes wary. A sliver of fear knifes deep within her, but what if he was….
Florentine could say more, she knows her mother would, but Flora was not made to be a warrior. She was not made to deliver her anger with the lick of flames; she was not her mother and her brother was not their father. But all the same she sighs softly, “The men of this family... It’s a good job I love you all.”
It is no surprise when Asterion speaks of letting her go. His words fall like autumn leaves about them, beautiful, even in their finality. She nods, her eyes upon the ground, watching the ghosts of the leaves at his feet. “I am going to give my dagger to Lysander. When he goes, I go.” Florentine pauses feeling just the sparks of her mother’s fire. “But I will not leave you. I am tired of our family being pulled apart.” Florentine steps close, pressing her cheek to the curve of his shoulder. “I would miss you like a death too, so don’t make me.”
Florentine stays, tucked close to her brother, gilded gold entwined within the stars of the night. Contemplation keeps her quiet, content, for a moment, until she breathes lightly. “Give me a few more days to be angry at you though yeah?”
@Asterion
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
