FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
You taught me the courage of stars before you left.
Her wing hangs, heavy and dust adorned between them. She thinks of it, of the patterns it drew upon the floor as she danced. Then she thinks of what it would be to have a hand instead. Would it be broken too? Would her fingers be unable to flex? Never has the flower-girl given much thought to missing her human life, not when Lysander was here too. How small her existence is becoming, that worlds seem less tempting just because they are without Lysander. Can she hear her dagger keening?
If Florentine let herself think about it, if she dared entertain the thought of how deep beneath her skin he was, how his vines were everywhere within her, she might despair. But the girl does not. Rather, she closes her eyes and lets shadows draw smiles upon her lips. She lets herself sink into her boy of flowers and forests. He is her wild; the part of her that always grows. His roots will reach her, his roots have founded her and they will not let her go. She will not be without him but-
I am going to Solterra. And all else he has said before this is forgotten. Flora is not surprised. They stayed after all, for him, for her, for the war Denocte fights. Her heart is a drum in her chest. Her ears ring and her blood surges like the sea beneath the tolling bells.
Raum.
He lies like a phantom between a girl and her lover. He dogs a fire-girl left to guard a kingdom. He has sent a Night queen into hiding and he brought Lysander near to his death – over Flora. Her lips are dry, her tongue the barren desert. How empty his words make her and yet how utterly full she is. Florentine is bursting with terror, with wild rage, with clawing hatred and gnawing despair. Florentine bends into him more, she presses against his skin, his body, until they could be one, because, for a day or maybe a year or more, they will be separated. And now will do, for now might be all that they have.
I.
There was no we. He does not ask her to come. But upon her lips is the declaration that begs to follow. I will go too. The words scream within her, they burn her lips, her tongue. They scold her heart, yet still Flora does not speak. Her eyes close and she kisses her god like fire, she lets her good wing drift along his skin, along the curve of his shoulder, the muscle that ripples strong and thick. Her touch drifts, in static, in friction, until it reaches skin, that is not chocolate but silver. She moves until his flesh is not smooth but puckered, broken and re-healed. It is a scar she knows as well as her own.
Florentine bore Lysander’s blood once. Her dagger drank it deep as it sought the bullet from his flesh and brought it screaming out. That scar is hers, it is Raum’s, it is Lysander’s and she lays a prayer upon it, a curse upon it and then seals it with a kiss.
Unwanted, her jests creep back to haunt her. How many times had she joked that her lover kept nearly dying? How much truth there is in her claims too! Her breath stalls in her lungs, he steals it from her with his declaration: I am leaving. Would he return? Would he return alive? Would battle change him? She turns her amethyst eyes upon her god, the only one she would bruise her knees for and knows the eternities Lysander has seen. Time does not touch them, it never did. But never has Lysander been mortal, never has death been so real. It was always she who died, not him.
Selfish girl, she aches with the horror of loss. If he died she would find him again. Of course, this is how they were, from one life into the next they would find each other. But now she has him, can she bear the loss of him? Reichenbach cleaved her heart, it was ruined tatters, little more than ash to blow in the wind. But Lysander, he would surely ruin her heart body and soul. Existence would be ruinous.
But Florentine will not follow her love to Solterra. This was not her fight and he does not ask her to come.
Her teeth find the groove of his throat in anger, oh white rage ebbs into despair. A tear blossoms at the corner of an eye, and it falls with a blink of her gilded lashes. Yet she kisses him where her teeth graze (clawing to keep him) and remembers him and finally pulls away, incomplete, a piece of her already missing. That space aches, but it is filled with trees and vines and his idle liquor smiles.
“Well, then.” Flora begins, reaching for her chain about his throat. Her dagger warms with her proximity, glimmering upon his breast. It begs to cut a window for her, for him, but Florentine ignores it for her blood is singing in her veins. She thinks she might be starlight then, she thinks that Time may split her apart, that magic may mold her very bones. Her wing hangs heavy between them but not even it will come between their parting.
“If you plan to leave me, Lysander, you had better take me to bed.” And she tugs her to him, pressing her lips again to the shadow of his jaw, to where his heart thrums, mortal fast and mortal strong. There is no joy in her kiss. There is no delight. Her eyes close tight, her lips fierce upon his skin, ah that she would never let go of him. But she does, and her lips are cold where they no longer touch his. Her breath shatters in her lungs but she turns and leads him to bed with rattling bones and an unspooling heart.
@Lysander
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
