FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
Her cheek is warm with life and cold with peril. It cools with the wet of blood and her skin shivers beneath its slow, descending crawl. If Flora’s blood is bright, it is brighter still against the gold of her. It gleams like ruby gems and glitters its worry for the cut along her cheek.
Florentine does not mind the cut and merely lowers her chin as Indra moves back, her iron horn becoming no less a weapon as it now points to the sky. Flora does not move to put space between them, she does not even shift restless as silk in the breeze.
Her gaze does, however, trail Indra’s as the unicorn looks out across Florentine’s gathered people. You are important here. The observation should be heavy upon the Dusk queen’s shoulders yet she shrugs a small shrug and smiles with a grin she has kept since childhood, “I am… isn’t it a worry?” Her voice is a whisper, full of feigned concern. “I am not sure how they keep tolerating me…” That smile turns ever more playful.
The moment of jesting is over so swiftly as Indra leads them on with more questions – ever more serious, ever more prying. Florentine lets their conversation flow, content with their newest reunion. Her eyes trail over the silver of Indra’s skin, the shock of her crimson hair and she remembers this girl as a child, younger than she, then, older too.
How long had Florentine been here? “Too long,” The fae-girl answers simply, and feels the ache of her heart. “And not long enough.” Such truth drives deep into her heart and Flora would feel its echo in the days to come.
What have you made of yourself? Oh what a question! For a long moment the girl is silent as the sky at night. “Nothing at all.” She says at last with relish and a smile so pleased. “But what of you, Indra? I have seen you so many times, what of you on this occasion? Who else have you been holding to ransom with the tip of your horn?”
Florentine’s gaze trails the length of the silvered horn, painted crimson with her blood. “It is of no matter to me if it scars. A scar always has a story.” And she thinks again of the boy she met as a child and the blood he has shed for her. Then she remembers too the way his body is tattooed with scars because of her – and none of those reasons are good. “For better or worse.” She concludes at last.
@Indra | <3 Muse, thank you
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
