She turns from the altar only to see ghosts. Ghosts of a dusk girl and night boy, woven in passion and wrapped in shadow and petals. Her eyes flee from them. The past rises to haunt her and her eyes sway back to the altar – was this the gods? Did she expect to see Vespera stood upon her altar with wicked eyes and a leonine smile?
Florentine takes a breath and sighs. She thinks of ancient books written in blood, then ink of many hues. Her library is full of them, worn with love and years, their pages dark, their covers breaking. They feel a little like her, in this moment. The fae girl is a keeper of tales, her colours were once so vivid and bright, but now she is worn down with love. The hard covers of her are broken and splitting.
They are a mirror, Eros and Florentine. Their sorrow, their broken hearts are there upon the floor for each other to see. The flower girl does not draw her eyes from his, she lets herself look, lets his eyes paint everything she sees in gold. She takes a breath, for he is trapping it with his sorrow. It is buried somewhere deep within her lungs and she fights to pull it up and let it go.
“I will help you find your mate.” She breathes with that breath now loosed. But her eyes close, they shroud her from his sorrow for it is too much. “I lost my mate too. But not like you, he fell in love with another.” And that is all she will say, for already she is a broken tale, stuck upon repeat. To open the book of her is to find only two pages with words and they are of sorrow and loss. She is a half-told fable of an unrequited love.
This girl thinks she might never be whole again, and that is enough to send her to her knees at the foot of Vespera’s altar.
“Because if gods came to sort out all our troubles then we would never be inspired to do right by each other. We would never be inspired to help or try and certainly not to love.” How long had she been looking into his gold? How long had she been stood before Eros like a statue – still like a tree, shedding her petals like leaves.
The snow blows in through the open window, pushing her petals into swirling patterns across the flagstone floor.
She takes a breath, her eyes drifting to the altars around them. "I shall go now, but you have given me much to think on Eros, thank you... When you are ready, come and find me if you wish and I will help you find your mate, you can count on that." Florentine's smile is bright before she turns, leaving the ivory boy alone with his prayers and his god.
@Eros Flora and I have all the love for your boy.
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
