Florentine had hoped it was a mere mirage, a trick of the snow. But it is all too clear here, too crisp and bright and white. Bexley is liquid gold and so, so real as she pauses at her name. The moment the Solterran girl reacts, Florentine wishes she could steal the name back. Could she not have kept that name safe and unspoken upon her tongue?
With snowflakes resting upon her braid, catching in her lashes and melting upon her lips, Bexley appears. She is more corporeal that Florentine could ever hope and dread fills her every corner. They are both snow-flecked now, both gilded gold and soft, generous curves.
Florentine’s heart is a drum within her chest. It beats a rhythm so old she might have forgotten, but its beat is engraved in her bones and they stir, they rouse and they remember. The girls are so far from the sundrenched desert and its idyllic oasis. They are so far from the swaying grasses of the plains they first met upon. Amare Creek seems to hold its mocking breath; such a ridiculous thing it is that these girls should meet here!
A whisper in her mind begs that she will not cry like she did the last time they met, for now those tears would turn to ice and be as fragile as glass. Was she turning to glass now? Her skin felt cold and tight and rigid…
The sun girl’s knee bends and Flora, the girl of playful curtseys and bows knows exactly what is to come. “Don’t!” She breathes, vehement and embarrassed, but Bexley is already dipped into a bow, fluid and graceful and almost sincere. Flora’s blush is hot, hot shame within her cheeks.
The Twilight girl’s lips pull tight, “You don’t have to curtsey to me.” And the words are small and childish when they come. They are so full with sincerity, but even then, beneath them, a childish hurt (desiring Bexley’s repentance) rages war against an inescapable allure. It squeezes Flora’s heart, these feeling of loss, of desire, of hurt and anger. They are too big and they smother the dusk girl so.
She looks away, to steal a moment to breath, to try and find the girl she had been when she entered Amare Creek only moments before. So many words are upon her tongue when she looks back Bexley, beautiful, beautiful Bexley. I miss you fights for dominance, but all that comes out is: “Are you well?” And even then the question is meek.
This Terrastellan queen is nothing but a girl, bruised by love and harsh, harsh circumstance.
@
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
