[P] but be nobody's darling

[Florentine]

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

By the time they are finished, Florentine is sure she has more cobwebs in her hair than outside the cottage. Yet she is grateful as she smiles over at Seraphina who also worked  to clean her house. 


All unwelcome guests have been evicted and the house resembles the state it was when she left, which was never truly tidy. Florentine was far too relaxed to ever be truly tidy. She would often blush when anyone visited her rooms in the citadel as queen, for they were always a mess. Things to trip over, scattered parchment, an unmade bed…


The worktop now clear florentine makes some food, a simple broth, enough to keep the cold of winter off their bones. She lights a fire too. Its heat permeates the small home, sinking heat into the wooden walls and pillars. Handing Seraphina some food, her lips twitch at the woman, her amour still close, the scars across her cheek seeming so out of place here. “When was the last time you dusted?” Florentine asks with a light smile, playful, always playful. 


But the night does not continue light that. As darkness descends and the fire settles into its hearth, Florentine’s mind turns to heavier, more envious things. “What are your plans now you are home, Sera? I think much will have changed.” Her eyes linger upon the woman’s scar reaching down gold and terrible across her cheek. “And i am sure there is much more change to come.”


Even as she asks, her mind drifts to her children. She looks out into the dark and her stomach twists for where they might be this night. Are they cold? Alone? A shudder slips through her. Tears close, panic closer. Tomorrow could not come fast enough.



@Seraphina 

florentine
rocking your pretty flower world