She knows the moment he sees her, the way that laughter falls to quiet. The silence left in its wake tiptoes up her spine. A shiver chases it and Flora’s eyes fall to the curve of the Night King’s black, black lips. It is a wonder she can see it through the shadows that leap and dance, through the glow of flames that ripple and flare.
Sparks burst from their fire, spiraling high, high up in the sky. They snag within the night boy’s argent eyes and they flare red, red, red. Was it a warning? Most likely. Does the Dusk girl heed it? No. Does she see the way her petals roll away, away from the bonfire and tumble homeward?
No. Dusk sees nothing but the approaching Night; the pitch of night here to consume the floundering dusk. The moon pours quicksilver light along the curls atop his head, his neck. The flames turn the red of his bay coat to molten lava as he pours to her, hot and dangerous.
This king is revelry. That first night, the first time she heard Dencote’s voice (a song, a dance, the crackle of fire) it trapped Dusk’s golden girl tight. But it was nothing compared to him. He steps to her and his court’s shackles turn tighter and tighter about her heart.
What little of it he left for her...
There are no words spoken between them – there is simply no space. Only the unspoken ones, questions about stolen hearts, squeeze between the scant space he has left between them. Here, in this moment of wildfire and starlight, she is the sun that long ago set, she is the bruised purple of the fading daylight. Night is here so close, so insistent she should take a step back, away from him, away from this allure. But his flower girl is drunk, she is drowning, already falling through stars.
Her neck extends, slender and elegant, lips reaching hesitantly for his shoulder. He is the dark of night, the space between stars – a place she is lost within and to touch him is to never return.
Florentine’s lips find the curve of his shoulder, warm and so full of wood smoke. His coins chime somewhere in the distance, they glitter in the firelight, casting gold fractals that dance upon her skin, his skin.
She traces sinuous muscle with the feather touch of her lips. Her caress is so tremulous and curious. “I met Aislinn.” Dusk begins, breathing the words across his shadowed skin.
The twilight girl keeps her gaze hidden, shy beneath her tangle of hair – all golden threads, and wild, wild flowers. She cannot say the words if she looks to his face (his eyes) and so, it is with soft whimsy and fearful wonder that she speaks them to his shoulder, “She told me you love me…” How can words be a reprimand and yet so filled with selfish joy? It is a mysetery but that is what they are.
Florentine is sad and sorry and delighted and lovestruck. Was love supposed to hurt like this? Was it always something that could lift her so high and sweep others so low with one felling swoop?
“What have we done?” Florentine asks of her Night King as her lips fall away from him and her amethyst eyes lift up to find his starlight gaze.
@Reichenbach <3
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
