Thick, thick snow silences the whispers of the forest. The soft press of Florentine’s feet, through the blanket of virginal snow, are the only noises the flower girl hears. Even birds are quiet here, the glittering white of a winter’s dawn closing their beaks with its beauty.
The dusk girl has never been here before and maybe that is why she moves as slowly as a reverent prayer. Her eyes drink in the forest roof with its cathedral trunks and white, arching eaves. Only her breath moves, spiraling like a ghostly wisp. Even the wisp is reluctant to go and hangs, gauzy and mysterious in the white, white air.
Each step Flora takes into this land of lovers, fills her with equal awe and dread. Oh she is so pleased to at last be here and let her eyes drink in the beauty of the gods, but her skin chafes. There is a reason Florentine has avoided the Creek, until now. There is a fear of love and the vicious game it plays.
Along the creek’s frozen banks she weaves, following it like a vein deep, deep into the heart of this idyllic woodland. Snow falls in a sheet before her, tumbling like a veil from an overladen branch. It sighs in relief and warning. But Florentine does not heed its caution. Instead, from beneath her own veil of gold and amethyst flowers, she peers out between the sentinel trees and their uniform of white and hazy, dawn gold.
There. There within the trees a gold figure moves and it is both a dreadful and wonderful sight. Florentine’s tongue at once knows the figure’s name and it is a lament and prayer; a blessing and a fearsome curse. The name greets the air as all of those things.
“Bexley.”
@
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
