The night sky mourns.
Like the face of a celestial god, the moon appears from beneath its veil of storm-grey clouds. Silvery light, gauzy and glittering, cascades upon the girls. Moon shadows stretch out, painting the stormsinger upon grass and stone. Florentine’s gaze follows the moon’s sorrowful lines as they stretch and pull until it conveys a sadness so taut, so agonizing to behold; a shrill and pining note upon a violin strong that tugs and tugs upon the heart of its hearer.
Silver light, shivers and shimmers everywhere. Florentine should have known, she should have heeded the call of the moon. The stars blink stardust tears for their night girl. Their cry is the roar of the knowing seas, the hiss of its fretting sea-surf. Through it all Florentine is ignorant. Through it all the flower girl indulges her own sorrow as she keeps her rhythmical caress; a comfort, a comfort her changed heart fervently begs - prays.
And yet, maybe there is a part of her that hears, that knows, that has her tangled nerves begging to hear Aislinn’s melody once again. It is a melody – an art- to repaint the portentous whispers of this night with beauty and sorrow. It is art that draws its way across the night girl’s lips, sculpting a smile, albeit fleeting and oh so fragile. But the smile lingers just long enough, and it is a faded picture, a memory that clings to the corner of her lips, precious but fleeting, oh so fleeting.
Florentine now knows the bitter-sweet taste of memories kept only within her mind. For she is no longer the time-traveller girl: a creature of multiple worlds and so many timelines. No longer can she slip into the past and watch her parent’s love nor her death as a child. Now her memories are only figments of her mind, colour pictures fading with time – they are losing their smell, their scent. A shiver slips and slides its way down the twilight girl’s spine and is met with a shattering sob from the dark stormsinger.
A golden wing, long and elegant, lays itself across the Nightgirl’s skin. It is the press of dusk light, still warm with the heat of the dying sun. Still Florentine combs the silk of this stormsinger’s lightning hair. Still Flora’s every breath is a lament, whisper, an apology – if only she knew, if only she knew!
The waves rage and hiss and cry as they claw up the cliffs for the ignorant girl of twilight. This is her gloaming: her calm before the night’s terrible revelation, before the calamity of a love she cannot control descends like swirling shadow.
I still see his face… I still hear his voice…
What words did Florentine have for that? For the agony that drenches every word and has them clinging to her own bleeding heart. The Dusk girl looks for words, she hopes for their weight upon her tongue, but she is so painfully empty.
Petals touch where her words cannot. They skitter across storm-kissed skin, they tangle in starlight hair and fill the air with lavender, lavender, lavender. If only she knew.
If only she knew.
More sobs chase the first. More and more and more until the stormgirl is rocking, until she is breaking and Flora wonders if the only thing holding them together is her wing across her back. And so she holds, she clings tighter, with gold gossamer feathers and a fitful heart that trembles with fear. Was this what true heartbreak was? Was this what agony Reichenbach’s rejection could inflict upon her? What will her heart look like when he at last chooses to give it back?
He could never love you What creeping, unwanted ghosts Bexley’s words are!
Amethyst eyes lift to the lunar sky, to the glittering stars, to the shadows and he is there, in them all. He is the ghost that lingers between the girls. His love was a hurricane and Florentine was not ready, she was never ready.
The night’s storm is not over, there is worse that comes. It is terrible, it is fierce and the sea swells with its force. The waves are still crying and crawling and clawing ever higher, higher up those jagged cliffs. Florentine hides: from the impending storm, from the fear of heartbreak, from the stars that pull her into his eyes, and lays her forehead upon Aislinn’s spine. Only there, in the dark of her wing, in the smell of his lingering jasmine does she loose a ragged breath.
If only she knew the storm has arrived and it is terrible and fierce and begins with only an ominous whisper and a glitter of agonized eyes.
What did you say? The storm whispers, for it was already here - had always been.
Florentine blinks, her head lifting from the embrace. The tone was eerie, it was a warning and Time itself turns against its girl of flowers and gold. It twists back, repeating, repeating. Her paper heart flutters wildly upon the winds of this storm and she yearns to catch it and protect it, even with fingers that tremble so.
The buttercream girl moves to speak, but Time laughs as the storm stands, suddenly. There is no water to slough from the storm-girl’s skin, instead dust and rock and grass and petals all tumble away instead. Flora’s wing falls limply to her side, like pooling silk, but her eyes follow the Night girl, up and up until she stands as tall as her storm clouds, as tall as the silver light which frames her. Not even the flowers through which Florentine gazes can rob the stormsinger of her beauty then.
You’re… your her
And it is not just Flora’s heart that scrambles, but her feet, her wings, her flowers… Fear pulls her up, up, up to her feet, in order to meet eyes that glimmer with blue-bruised hurt. What had she done? Who was she? The sea rages, the sea rages, the sea rages-
And her realization is a slow and terrible thing…
Not him. Not him. Jasmine reaches for her, and her gazes races back to her beloved tower, to the low glow of her window and Reichenbach’s jasmine flowers resting upon its sill. It is the same scent that still lingers upon the storm girl’s skin. The scent Florentine clung to for comfort, for grounding. But she never could never ground herself with him, for being with the Night King meant falling through stars, through wild oblivion. Nothing about him was easy; she was learning, she was learning.
“I am, who?” The Dusk girl breathes the question as little more than a whisper. Each word is tremulous, so filled with that terrible knowing. Her gaze is purple-bruised as she looks over the girl of storms and skies and wonders if her heart was not the only one Reichenbach carried.
Please don’t be Reichenbach., her heart beats as it cracks because knowing he broke this storm-girl’s heart is of no comfort to Florentine.
This is a terrible, wounding love and, for a moment, she resents it.
@Aislinn Well done for reaching the bottom hahaha
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
