Frosted grasses crackle and creak. They sway stiffly in the breeze and an icy mist hangs like a veil over the prairie. It glitters silvery and thin, cold to the touch and barely palpable. It settles in icy droplets across Florentine’s skin, dewdrops that escaped the dawn and linger close, warming against golden hair.
Flora looks to the gypsy girl with her coins that jingle and her feathers that sigh. Her eyes rage like electric nights and a sea that knows no rest. Florentine knows that look, that restlessness, she feels it in the wind, in the ever-moving dance of her dagger.
The winds dare to dally between them. It tugs Florentine and then Aislinn’s hair. It pulls them close and then pushes them away. It is a game, like fate, and Florentine knows this game so well.
A soft sigh rushes past her lips and rises, corporeal, to the mists that swallow it whole. That breath is chased by words, words so heavy with truth Flora feels their weight upon her spine. “How do you know?” She whispers, for the girls are close and her surprise so great.
That crown, of which Aislinn speaks, is heavy, not just on Florentine’s head, but her heart also. There is no coronet nestled within the tangles of her golden mane for flowers to twine around. She cannot bear to wear it, not when her soul roams and her feet feel such electric desire to run, run, run.
“It does.” And it is such sweet relief to talk of the crown and its unwanted weight. Her lips open to confess and confide to the girl who cannot think any worse of her but the moment passes. Aislinn drags their conversation on and, why had Florentine come? “I- I wanted to come to Denocte… to see Reichenbach, to feel the familiarity here, to meet friends…” She looks out across the prairie as she lists many reasons. None of them truly seem to fit, for Flora came for them all, not just one. “I came for my love of Denocte.” She breathes, softly, plaintively.
Her eyes lift to Aislinn, the girl of storms and savage seas. Sorry the apologies play upon Florentine’s tongue. They chase in circles in her mind. So many ways she could apologize to this girl, so many tears she could shed for them. So many furious words she could shout... “I beat up my brother because of you.” The words are whisper soft and for all their ominous meaning, there is a small tentative smile upon her twilight lips. It curls beneath wide, wide amethyst eyes that watch the gypsy girl warily. “I was so scared that you sought to hurt him because of me. Asterion claims it was not so.”
A breath, a steeling breath that yet trembles in her lungs and shudders through her muscles. “He is not hurt, but I think, rather startled by the affairs of girls...” that smile grows, ever tentative, ever wary.
Then, small and childish and full of a young girl’s hope she murmurs, “Can we start anew?”
@Aislinn - Olive branch action!
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
