FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
Florentine has seen so many things. So many worlds has she traversed that there is little that can surprise her any more. But so much still delights her. So much can still tug at her heartstrings and made her heart sing its fateful song.
It is, therefore, only a smile that crosses her lips as a golden stem turns emerald. It is wonderment that glimmers in her curious gaze when the soil turns to mirrors. She watches herself watching the world turn and twist and change.
Her heart falls out of rhythm. It skips like rocks upon water, the push of blood that throbs with want. The air, oh the air! She drinks and drinks the cool, cool breeze – but there is nothing. There is no bitter twang of mischievous magic. There is no sour taste of ancient, twisted Time and its magic twin.
No, this magic is something else, but it is a whisper of the Rift. It sighs and whispers of a magic that leeches from the spaces in between worlds. Florentine knows this magic, she was made of such ancient power. Her skin is a tapestry of thread, bound together by fate and time. History of gold dust upon her skin, the future the gleam of light that blinks with anticipation.
The traveller girl watches it all. She watches this place of rotten memories fall away to nothing at all. In its place blossoms a world that should not be. It is a world where the sky falls down to kiss the earth, claim it as its own, but oh the earth transcends the sky’s touch. Down is up and up is down and Floretnine bites her tongue as her stomach twists. Her father is a phantom memory here, a needle in her stomach, a sword in her heart.
But oh the beauty this world has become is enough to soothe the ache of Florentine’s loss. Her skull turns to the shadow queen and all at once this mysterious world is gone. All at once this place and its familiar truths come creeping back. They are unwanted memories, but Florentine came here for a story and that is what she gets.
The Unicorn Queen’s tale is spoken like a song. It fills the air with a music, mysterious and enchanting. Florentine closes her eyes, all the better to welcome such words that will carry her away. Her neck is light; her dagger is gone. Lysander she thinks and Isra names him. The Dusk girl’s eyes open and settle their amethyst gaze upon the new Night Queen.
He is loved.
And Florentine does not deny it.
But the story. Oh yes, it closes Florentine’s eyes for just a moment before they open once again. She watches the magic queen and smiles, small and slow. “Make it.” She asks, in challenge, in wonder.
“I was born in a place where magic was twisted and wrong. But it was beautifully wild and changeable too. Make your story for me, won’t you?”
And Florentine closes her eyes, for only there are owls with lunar eyes and waters that rise and rise and rain that falls, silver and heavy.
@Isra <3
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
