FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
You taught me the courage of stars before you left.
Lysander steps toward her and shadows fall away. He walks like a god, commanding shadow and light and Florentine wonders if it was only darkness he shed like a cloak and not his mortality.
In light he is the brown of bark growing deep, deep in a bracken wood. In light his ivy is as green as poison and Florentine does not dare to think how easily she would taste any poison he might give her. If only he looked at her with his wildwood eyes she would succumb, so utterly bewitched.
She is still as he comes to her, her words enough to draw him from darkness. Oh, that darkness he passes through like sin. He comes close and the dust motes drift from him and then back to dance through the light that halos his crown of tines. With him here the air is moss and peat and wicked flowers. The air is ivy that chokes and twines and Florentine knows there is ivy in her bones, her heart, her soul. She might never be free of them and she begs them now to twine about her wing and hold it up, up. Those vines would bandage her wing tighter than tight.
His hip touches hers, his muzzle pressed into the tangle of her mane. His breath is warm across her nape and sets her skin ablaze. Florentine yields, for what else can she do when he holds her heart with his wildwood magic? Her body curls about his, her lips finding the curve of his throat, the junction of his shoulder and neck. She smiles and drinks him in a liquor. Ah, he smells of liquor now but not smoke. She once drew back to look at him yet she is content in the tangle of their bodies, the weaving of their skin.
“I did.” She sings like stars and eternity. I laid my ear against your chest just to hear your heart beat. She does not speak of all the memories that stir the pool of her mind, but smiles and laughs and remembers, “And I told you off for smoking.”
The flower-girl’s laughter is bright, brighter than the moonlight filtering down upon them, brighter than the promise of dawn upon the hours. “We do not.” She agrees and thinks of the skirt she wore and its memory whispers about her ankles still. “Never have I been so bold in my nakedness.” She chirps and remembers when a goddess fell, only to rise in human form, naked and bold, her unicorn horn clasped tight within her fist. A shudder rocks through Florentine’s body and her lips tip into a smile. “Do you miss being human?” She asks thoughtful, curious. “I miss my hands, it was nice to tuck them into your coat.” And she trails off there, a little shy, a little warm.
“I miss my penchant for beer too.”
@Lysander
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
