FLORENTINE
always one decision away from a totally different life
The girl watches her brother as she mentioned their father. It was almost as if she knew (and maybe she did) just how Asterion would react. He does not disappoint and Florentine is rewarded.
But what a bitter joy it is to behold that tightening of his lips, the darkening of fathomless eyes. She knows and would continue know those eyes forever. Florentine has so much to say, but she says nothing. The words pile up upon her tongue, but her gilded lips are tight, until they break forth like water through a chink in a dam. “Do you remember when we first met?” She asks, though she does not know all the ways he remembers that moment so well; in scent, in feeling, in light, in touch.
She pauses and waits for him to remember her, and idly wonders how she might look in his memories and all the ways she has changed. “I told you I would make you two meet. I will honour that.” To this girl of Dusk there is nothing more important than family.
Florentine leans against her brother, much as she always had (since they first met, for before that, it was only the rub of their dreams, that never truly met). “You make for a much happier king, you know.” Florentine continues, as she always has, as she always will. “Daddy is always so anxious.” Pointedly, Florentine gazes at her brother, her eyes pointedly studying his. “Don’t be like him. I will cause a coup if you do.” And oh how pointed her gaze is, oh how her smile is as sharp as the angle of her wing.
Florentine jests as she always does, but there is a promise there too. “One mopey boy is bad enough.”
Then, like the passing of the sun, their conversation moves on; twilight giving way to the thick of night. “Mmm” Florentine hums along with him, a song within her voice. “I am pleased, I would definitely have caused a coup if that was the case. I shall stand down my band of merry rebels.” The girl laughs, light like bells and echoing like infinity.
Then it is her brother’s turn to turn the conversation upon her. But bold and fearless Florentine smiles broad and proud and utterly shameless. How proud she is to cause her brother trouble, how pleased she is he valued her safety too. She turns into their embrace then, content to be the younger sister, protected by her elder brother (yet content even more to be the thorn within his paw).
Even as Asterion turns his gaze stony, even as he molds his voice to deeper, unimpressed timbres, Florentine smiles winningly. “Be pleased I don’t make it a week.” She threatens, though her brother knows as well as she, that to be angry for more than a day is to not ever truly be Florentine.
The girl does not need to see the crook at the corner of his lips to know he jests. It is maybe a tragedy that she never took his thread seriously in the first place. As if he ever thought she might, Florentine shrugs a slender gold shoulder and sings dismissively, “King-shming.” Her amethyst eyes glitter mischievously, “What a scandal it will be when the king’s own sister rebels against his decrees.” She shakes her head, pulling away, scowling like any baby sister belittled by her brother’s affection. She flicks the ear he lipped and casts him a mock- disapproving look. “Sleep with one eye open,” Flora threatens, “You will be plaited and glittered to within an inch of your life for that.”
Yet, for all her threats (however much she smiles, however much she cannot ever hide her playfulness) her stomach twists and her heart beats harder for the love of her brother, for this they share: a love so simple and so utterly unconditional.
@Asterion
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
