FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
Does he know that even the way he looks at her makes her ache? Infinity is in her essence, but her bones, her skin her sinew is so young. She is but the youth of a new day dawning compared to the millennia of sunrises and sunsets he has seen.
Her chin lowers but her gaze peers up at him from beneath her sweep of gilded hair and summer petals. Florentine listens to all he says and there is no smile when he calls her childlike. It may be a nail in the coffin of her youth and she nods again, agreement perfuse within her as her gaze slips away – better to hide the hurt that twinges there like a flickering light.
She might look up to the skies, to see the multitude stars and their clouds that drift idly by. Yet she does not, for she is so low to the ground, so heavy with her mortality (never has it felt so strong, so present). But she is heavy too with her regret. If she were not drowning in sorrow with her confidence stripped bare (like a beach after a great wave), Florentine might have smiled and shrugged his comment off. But now, in this moment, he condemns her with his words and like any sinner she nods and accepts his verdict with grace and poise.
Oh what a broken girl of gold she is.
His shoulder is friction against hers, his touch a comfort upon her neck, her cheek. The flower girl shivers for the touch of her flower boy and arches beneath it, content and sated, even as unease pools as lava within her - even as it builds volcanic and hot.
All falls to darkness as her eyes close with his vow, whispered into her ear. His laughter is an autumn breeze rustling her fringe and passing across her cheek in a caress. “Then why did you become mortal if you were content without change?” And her lips press tight to the groove of his neck, where his pulse beats strong and bright. She knows how his pulse feels as life slips from him, as death comes creeping. She knows what it is to cry over a fallen god.
Silence falls thick and heavy. It sits upon her lungs and Flora takes a breath, deep, deep, feeling the sweet ache as her chest pushes out, out. Memories pass before her: her death, her birth, war, her future selves, her past selves and a million worlds that have known her. She is the traveller girl, the one whom Time can never pin down. “I am always changing.” Florentine whispers and where once she felt love and awe and strength for what she is, now she only wonders and questions. “I have died and been born so many, many times and each time I change something is different. Is that bad?” There she pauses. There the girl listens to the lapping of the lake and feels the pull of the moon. “You will die too now.” Florentine says, slowly a frission of worry sparking within her for there is no rebirth for a mortal boy.
Lysander looks to her and she does not shy away, she holds him there, in green and lilac and worry and wonder. “When you do I will not be able to find you in my next life, or any that follow.”
Her heart has grown to a crescendo in her lungs. Her eyes are blown wide, wide as they watch him. “Eternity seems dark without you. So maybe you are made to be still and I am made to change things.” At once her gaze is a fierce thing, bold and bright and strong. Yes, Florentine was made to make change and be changed and how many times has she dived into infinity just to alter a single moment?
We have all the time we need. His words are echoes in her mind. “Do we?” Her voice is a distant thing, her eyes still bright, still wide as the universe above them. “Do you want to die?” The girl who has died over and over for an eternity asks her fallen-god who has never died once.
@Lysander
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
