[SWP] ACT II: a pilgrimage made strange

[Florentine]

i'm a pretty flower girl
check out my pretty flower curls

All falls to silence and Florentine is there, hanging upon the bated breath of volcano and sea. The waves are still. No longer do they pound the Cliffside. All the creatures of the waters are gone and nothing upon the beach stirs. All of Novus’ populous stand as statues upon the cliffs and beaches. What do they watch when the volano that roared and split herself open is gone?
 
They watch the bridge she spawned. The bridge that Florentine looks upon with eager eyes and an exultant heart. Its lava cools and it glows slick as ink, black as pitch. It beckons all of them down to step upon its glass walkway.
 
Come!.  Come! It calls the rift-born girl.
 
And she does not wait. Her wings flare and the girl descends in gold and swirling petals. The sea pulls back from her, it hisses warnings in her ears, but the air is beneath her wings and dutifully it carries her down and over to the waiting bridge.
 
Pearls glimmer as if from the deep. They are beautiful and terribly stark, they are bones that rise as fingers pointing up into the sky. Do they stand in warning spires? Do they rise to make her stop and block her path? If they do, she does not heed them. No, Florentine is as reckless as she always had been. Oh this girl was born to wild mysteries such as this!
 
The flick of a tentacle tip, the hiss of flames in water, oh each have her breath stalling in her lungs. Each have her startling and laughing. The girl is trembling, with delight, with fear but boldly each step goes before the other. Her eyes look for her brother, for where he walks amidst the crowds that dare to step upon this bridge to nowhere.
 
Then comes her mile. This is where Florentine stops at last, this is where time counts and counts and counts. What does it count? Does it matter? She has seen worlds where time runs fast. She has seen worlds where time runs slow. She has left one world a babe and returned to it moments later, old and ready for death. She has fallen to death in Time’s rift, swallowed up by its endless power.
 
Her lips press upon each time piece. Her breath fogs metal and glass and to each she whispers. Secrets only she and Time understand, and secrets too that she cannot yet fathom. This might be her temple. This might be the closest thing in Novus that she has to a site of worship – if this girl could ever bend her knee before a god…
 
But soon the bridge is moving her on, soon the beasts have gathered, hungering for a girl who lingers too long upon the bridge. They sing as sirens might, they coo, imploring her down into the water. Hunger parts their jaws and opens their fins and tentacles. They gleam as soft as flowers and promise her only sweet, soft oblivion…
 
She turns and runs as the child in her gut leans toward the sea, presses against her stomach and fills her with the taste of sweet-salt water. She runs until it feels as if time has slowed, as if it means nothing here and only then does she stop when the wall towers before her. Her heart stutters in her chest. It rattles her bones and her wings flare, each tip touching, brushing, feeling the wall that reaches from end to end. The girl steps forward, caught by the wind, caught by the ivy whispers and throbbing hearts.
 
 
Come. Come! That voice sings to her, again.

florentine
rocking your pretty flower world

STAFF EDIT***
@Florentine has rolled a 6! She has been awarded a mollusk shell that, when crushed ICly, will allow for an extra RE roll (but only for RE threads during the SWP). Please see the first post on this thread for more info!