Snow drifts in from the weighty clouds above. Beneath her feet it has begun to whisper and Flora wonders why she never noticed it before.
Snowflakes fall like cold kisses, a million of them, to land upon her spine and her hair. Through lashes dusted with white, she eyes this strange, antlered boy.
The red of his antlers is ever stark against this new background of falling snow. She watches as flakes fall, beautiful white only to bleed red as they land upon his shedding tines. With a soft huff she looks away, unsure how the spectacle makes her feel.
“A fair number of queens, hm?” Florentine muses as she continues to peer at this boy from the corner of her gaze. She ignores the wheeling of crows for there are better things to engage her now, like snow, and tardiness, and wild boys from distant lands. “Do you enjoy your queens?” She accuses with a smile more knowing than it has ever been. There is a maturity in her humour, one she has never had before. It makes her smile grow more daring and more pleased. She once might have blushed, but now she just breathes a laugh and lifts her face toward the snow-falling skies. It felt good to be grown-up.
Her eyes close. In that moment of black, Florentine is home, in her Winter Court before it was destroyed. It had been so long since she thought of her home, so long since she felt the ache in her heart for those wild, wild lands. Why remember now? The flower girl muses. She lowers her gaze, looks to the boy and knows. She steps close, drinking the scent of him, for it is warm and familiar with its old, old magic.
Mysterious words, suggestive words, bring her back to him. She stands so close, so ready for his big reveal. He has a big reveal, does he not? Florentine waits for him to tell her of some wonderful, grand scheme – of how fate has woven itself within their lives and played its merry games. Two souls destined to unite again at fate’s own desiring.
How terribly right she was.
Florentine almost comes to doubt herself when he still has not said anything, and her eyes tumble from his, sliding down his nose to the lips that smile. She nudges his muzzle with a playful bump, ready to sigh and again acknowledge that her old time and magic still have no precedence here.
Until…
The last time we spoke And she is smiling before he finishes his sentence. He is still talking and her eyes rise, fast, keen. She finds his eyes and wonders why she does not know him, why she cannot recognize this boy who she has so obviously met before. Then, there is one word that draws her from her inner ponderings. A word, a memory he knows will banish her lack of recognition and it does. It drags her back to when she was a child in a desert full of ancient bones. They had danced, they had sung, they had sheltered from a storm within a cave of bone…
He steals the breath from her lungs and it is not often the twilight girl is lost for breath. Obviously, the moment is fleeting, and when she sighs it is happy, contented. “You remembered.” But she need not be surprised, for it was only a short time ago for him, even if it was years for her. Her smile is satisfied, playful, confident as she chirps, “If you are lucky, I still-“ But she does not finish with may. In fact, she does not finish at all. Instead, she has fallen still, an inexplicable twinge of hurt creeping into her heart.
“Oh, glad are you?” She huffs when she can no longer manage her hurt. Desperately she morphs it into playful smile and turns it into humour. For that is what they do, is it not? “I take it you are not here to take me as your bride then… I suppose it is just as well, I am not sure I am ready to be whisked away just yet.”
Florentine skitters on through the snow, her limbs flighty, her mind wrapped in sandstorms and anthousai. “When you do decide to, Lysander, I would advise a time when your antlers are not quite so… tatty. Just so you know.” Her eyes linger, a pointed look that does little to hide the petulance in her voice. “A queen expects her suitors to be ever so fancily turned out. But I suppose you already know that.” She should be ashamed, she supposed, her father would be horrified. But, to find her future husband, glad about her better prospects was quite deflating.
“You called me anthousai.” Flora murmurs softly through the veil of falling snow. “What happened to you?” And she means his antlers, his changes torso, the years between their meetings, the rift, the magic… so many things.
@Lysander - I have whiplash, epic, epic whiplash.
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
