The dusk has long ago been consumed by the night and, adorned in shadow, she comes at last.
There is no hiding the Dusk Emissary, not with her petals that fall like the autumnal leaves to leave a trail in her wake. They twine in from the mountains, weaving their way around rocks and sparse shrub. They trace down through sentinel trees and over babbling brooks. On and on they lead towards the firelight glow and music of revelry.
There they find their flower girl host upon the edge of the merriment. She has not heeded the midnight call of the Night Court since his coronation. Now, here within this merriment, with laughter and dance lit by bonfire light, she knows why. A part of her belongs within this Court; a part of her yearns for it. It is the part that smothers the dusk in darkness and starlight and here it grows. To the sound of this carousing music and bohemian spirit it begins to thrive, to dance.
Yet the girl does not.
Not even when her feet beg her to remember how she danced bare foot through these crowds once before - when she first began to feel those alluring whispers of night upon her golden skin. But those alluring whispers were nothing to those of their king. He took the part of her that belongs here and cleaved the girl in two as he did. As Florentine stands, dusk light and starlight warring within her, she wonders if she will now only ever be whole when Reichenbach is near.
Above the din, above lilting music and a sea of laughter and voices, she hears his laugh. Through the flickering flame of his wild bonfire she sees him. Amethyst eyes trail the wild curls of his black, black hair, the tilt of his lips and the charm of the smile they make. Dusk watches as the Night enchants his courtiers. Florentine makes no move toward him, though his name plays upon her tongue, her lips, her heart.
His gypsy coins glitter, the twinkling of golden stars and she knows how they sound within a sacred temple, brought to life only by their shared breath. The twilight girl thinks of what their love has cost: a broken heart and tears, so many tears… She should leave! She should flee back to the safety of the dusk court but…
He told me he was in love with you.
And that is why Florentine is here: to berate him for loving her, to berate him for stealing her heart, but, most ashamedly of all, whilst Aislinn’s tears still dry upon the cliifside, she has come to fall into his starlight with no thought of ever returning.
The place where her heart once was, a place that should be so empty, instead feels full, full to bursting. The Night King is everywhere within it. There is no hidden corner that does not know him, and when at last his starlight gaze finds the amethyst of hers, there is only one question her eyes ask him through the crackle of flame between them, Have you kept my heart well?
@Reichenbach one bonfire thread, as requested -snug-
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
