[P] In this old town, we're tumbling down

[Florentine]

i'm a pretty flower girl
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Asterion is dark, dark in the painted glass light. Florentine wears each light, her pale skin a greater, more living canvas than the flagstone floor. Dust motes swirl in the light, they dance to the song of her lament. Flora does not hear the music, though she feels it in her soul.
 
The castle is quiet, struck sleepy by the turning hours, the ebbing day and the dawning night. Everywhere she might look the dusk is beautiful, everywhere wears memories for her to watch and see and feel. But she does not look at them, instead she watches her brother and his quiet acceptance. Oh she studies the glow of his tree-born eyes, warm as chocolate beneath the wash of his lashes.
 
Her fate was sealed in the Night Court and the day she dreamed of anthousai and dared herself to dance in unknown forests. Upon her lips is a smile, small and sad and yet so very glad. She watches as his intuition grows, as he begins to know. And then, when she sees that creep of certainty slipping into his eyes, then she feels so acutely the sharp agony of a promise she did not keep.
 
Had she not vowed to take him with her? Had she not promised she would not leave him behind?
 
“It is not for long.” Florentine breathes because it makes her ache less, because it eases this sorrowful hurt. “I will come back. It’s…” And then she looks beyond her brother (though he is the sun to the solar system she watches). She looks to their throne room, to the palace that crowned them both and the secrets that only monarchs know and the whispers of Terrastella only she can hear. This place was her home, it was precious and it was right.
 
“It’s a holiday.” Florentine concludes as petals fall like tears. How long could a holiday be? A day, a week, a month, a year? Longer? When had leaving ever hurt so much? Oh when? Was Novus not a mistake? Was she not supposed to spend but a moment, and return to the Rift before her father even knew she had gone? Yet now, oh now leaving was the bitterest agony.
 
“Greece, with Lysander.” Florentine says and wonders over the taste, the feel of the word upon her tongue. Soon it would have a place, a name, a memory beside it. “He is going to show me where he comes from… there will be anthousai, Asterion, real flower nymphs and dancing, so much dancing.” Then she thinks of her wing, of its ache of how it still does not hang right – might it ever? “He says it is a good place to heal… Better maybe than here…”
 
And when has the travelling girl ever needed to justify her trips? When was she ever unselfish enough to think of another when she fled in search of another adventure?
 
“I will bring you back something beautiful.” She whispers as her lips press against her brother’s cheek and then looks at their home, bright and brilliant and beautiful.
 
“It will not feel right without you though…” And that is a truth that breaks like ice in her heart.

@Asterion

florentine
rocking your pretty flower world