FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
Her neck, her throat feels so exposed without their chain and dagger hanging there. Her eyes lower to rest where it glints, all at once familiar and strange, at her lover’s chest. Florentine misses it the moment it is gone. Yet her loss is not enough to out weigh the sliver of excitement that pours in sparks through her blood.
Her heart beats a little faster, her blood runs hotter and her chin at last lifts her eyes up and to the sky. She drinks it in, the sunset blues and the stars that glimmer like eyes awakening from sleep. Her breath is the wash of a silver river, rolling out to meet the sea. It disperses and is gone, carrying the vestiges of her anxiety upon its tide.
When Florentine returns her gaze to Lysander once more, there is no regret to be found. There is only intrigue, for the future was such a curious thing. Her stomach twists for the stories it might tell of her and her lover still.
“Songs?” Flora muses, golden lips tipping up like the edge of a gilt ring; it was a forever smile. “What songs are these?” And his Anthousai thinks of forest nymphs singing songs of woodland fare. But her eyes remain within this world, despite the wanderings of her soul. Her laughter is a bubble, a stream skipping over pebbles and rocks. “Have we reached the point of being great enough for songs to be sung about us then?”
Florentine shakes and the world slips from her in a cloud of dust and feathers and petals. She steps closer to Lysander, the boy of lost divinity and mortal dances. “Though I suppose you already have many songs about you, oh fallen god of mine.” The girl spins away from him, reaching out only to nip at his hip as he nipped at her. It is a wicked smile that Flora wears upon her lips as she questions mischievously, “Are all the songs about you tasteful, Lysander?” And she hums a song she knows of Novus gods, a thing of jest and silliness. “I am sure I could make a terrible one if not… something about how you snore in your sleep would be a good start.”
And she arches away from him as he nips her neck and chases him into the water. Her breath is stolen by the lake’s cold and she gasps when her voice is found. Florentine reaches for him, grappling him down beneath the water, her laughter rising above the discordant waves they make. “I am sure we can come up with far more entertaining things to do than near death experiences.” The girl whispers huskily, her voice lowering yet more, “I fear we have done those to death.”
A golden knee finds his shoulder as she presses into him, laying a wet kiss upon his cheek. “Maybe we could do children next? I hear that is akin to losing one’s life forever.” Florentine whispers jokingly though her eyes are dark and wide in the moonlight. She lowers her face beneath the water shyly until just her eyes and ears remain above. Water bubbles pop as she blows childishly through her nose.
@Lysander
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
