FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
The bells, oh the bells.
They tolled out and Florentine knew from their call that all was not right. How could they leave now? How could they go when Denocte was in distress?
The gilded girl stops when she hears their chime begin and her lilac eyes look to the citadel from where the sound echoes. Her heartbeat is as fast as a butterfly’s wings. It thrums in her throat and in her chest. It beats and cries as her lips reach for Lysander, as he continues by her.
Oh how her stomach clenches, how it twists bitter and sad. She was supposed to see his home, to see the anthousai and dance their dances of flowers and leaves. She was supposed to sleep beneath a canopy of trees and wake only when wine slips enough from her blood that she feels the weight of earth beneath her again.
But the call of Denocte is stronger. A part of her soul belongs here, for always has she been drawn to its stars and its midnight wonder. Now it is lead by a girl of stories and a magic of fantasy and Florentine is ever more a little bit in love.
“We must go and answer the bells.” She whispers against his skin and knows what disappointment will slip into the green of his eyes. So she sets her own gaze more wide and earnest as she implores him in silence. Then, she reaches forward laying an apologetic kiss upon his cheek before she turns in a flurry of feathers and runs.
Lysander moves beside her and her heart is warm, though guilt still limns her veins cold and sharp. They reach the gathering and at once her guilt is banished. The words are a heavy and visceral and oh how it makes her heart ache. Florentine has eyes only for Lysander, she drinks him in as he watches the meeting unfold, the fury, the hurt, the vengeance.
Beneath the fan of her gilded lashes, Florentine studies Lysander. Every part of him, every piece she knows to be soft and warm turns sharp and cold. His lips grow tight and peel back from his teeth, they gleam silver and savage in the moonlight.
Flora watches her lover become something other. Her heart trembles for it and how easily it makes her forget her own fury, her own worry. And when Lysander looks to her, when he smothers her in a green she has no name for (for that look is like none he has ever cast her way before) she knows that they will not leave until the sinner is found.
The flower girl keeps her eyes wide, wide, wide, for to close them now is to see Lysander dying, Raum’s blade between his ribs. She swallows and it feels like the world, but she steps closer to his side, to the warmth, the comfort of his skin.
“I will help you.” She says to Lysander, her voice made of steel petals and bullet rain. “He will pay for his crimes.” For they are too many and too great. And then, she adds with a smile, hesitant beneath the fury of his stare, “I will make sure you steer clear of his blades this time.” Her lips brush her dagger, gilded and beautiful, that hangs about his throat. “It has a taste for blood now, after all.”
@Lysander
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
