[P] ain't it a gentle sound, the rolling in the graves?

[Florentine]

i'm a pretty flower girl
check out my pretty flower curls

 Her eyes close as his lips press upon the arch above her eye. She takes a breath though it stumbles in her throat as a wave of pain slips like lightning through her abdomen. It pushed her breath out in a hiss through her clenched teeth, yet she leans into him, desperate to further close the space between them, keen to hold on to him. He lifts his chin, further exposing the column of his throat. The flow of his blood is steady, steady. A gentle throb to ease the staccato of her own.

Her heart is a bird within its cage of bone. It is wings fluttering against pale white bars. Flighty thing, she muses as she trembles and peers up at her flower boy beneath her heavy fringe of tangled hair and wilting flowers. All of her is striving, though she stands beside him as still as the moon within the sky. But oh, like the moon, all of her is running, running, running. 

 Things are always changing, he had said. Those words dance to the ache of her body. They hum with her blood and speak truth into her soul. Changing, changing…. His laughter echoes between them – how easily he is taking this revelation of hers! Through heavy lashes, weighed low with love and awe and the rising tide of pain, she watches him. Desire, joy swell within her, flooding the rising pain. They compel her forwards and her lips touch his, fierce, consuming, elated, desperate.

 As she draws back, too soon – always too soon, he is following her. The cold of her dagger, placed back about her throat is the cool of summer rain. Into the chill of the metal, into the wash of blissful magic she sinks. Florentine breathes, deeply, joyfully. The dagger sings against her breast, it gleams and her magic rises, wild and bright and begging. The child kicks, as if awoken, as if stirred from where it moves, slowly, slowly toward life. Regret is ocean deep within the gilded girl though a smile curls her lips. She had kissed him too soon and she is reaching for him again, her lips millimeters from his, their breaths touching, warming. Lysander’s caution had stopped her and her eyes drink in this boy and his curls that snarl in her heart as vines.
 
The Rift hangs, unspoken, but present between them. It presses its magic through the pores of Novus’ skin and oh Florentine shivers with its presence. Her eyes are wide, wide, keen, yearning. Her dagger knows! It is burning, wanting, desiring like she, like him, like…

 Agony clenches in her abdomen. It spasms in endless ripples and she cries out, broken, shocked. Pain is suddenly there, it fills every part of her, pushing and pushing her out, out until it is her. Oh this strange, strange labour with its days of muted pain and sudden, lightning fast, advance. It ebbed and flowed, carrying her through rapids and tranquil waters but now it is a rapid that propels her faster, faster toward the waterfall edge of birth.

 ------------

 He comes in moments, their boy of bright gold eyes and gilded wings. Blood is a shadow upon the dark bark of his skin. His wings press tight against his sides and his ribs heave as cold life fills them once, twice, three times. 

Florentine stares, at her gold upon his feathers, his skin (dapples that glow upon him as falling sunlight), his hair, his eyes… She swims in the dark of him, forest deep as his father. He lies for a moment, as if shocked by the speed of his arrival. For days he had made her labour, speeding up his coming in fits and starts only to ebb as if calmed, as if staunched and slowed, until at last his fervor won and he arrived in scant moments.
 
What can I do? Lysander’s question was barely spoken before his son came.  His son looks to him from where he lies, his eyes are the bright of the sun that gazes down upon his flesh. They are the dark of the liquid gold that coats his dam. He looks from one to the other before his long limbs unfold. They unfurl spidery and elegant but oh he is not graceful upon them. He staggers as he tries to stand, earlier than he should. Florentine watches, from where she lies, from where her body still aches with the shock of her son’s arrival. When had she lain down? Shock slips like morphine through her veins, yet instinct is pushing her up, up, up. She rises, more elegant than the boy that stumbles and rises, falls, and rises, staggers and rises and at last stands.

 Too fast.

 Too fast.

 Too fast.

 Oh it was all too fast. Her son moves to her, his eyes hungry, his steps wavering but too, too stable for a boy only moments old. Florentine side steps him, too pained, too shocked to let him feed – not yet, not yet. She bumps into Lysander as she moves. She leans into him, clinging to him as she watches their son walk toward them. Each moment has his strides longer, his slender frame more stable. He stands, days old, not seconds old and reaches out for his dam, his sire.

 Low, low Florentine whispers as awe blooms with her words: “Did you swap him?” Humour runs beneath her words for when would Lysander have swapped him? She saw this boy born, this boy rise and stand and walk seconds later. 

The dagger is warm upon her heart and unused. There is magic upon her tongue, its taste is metal and ancient, new and wild. It is nothing like hers and yet so similar.

 Her lips reach for her child’s forelock, black as pitch and dusted with gold. Once she touches, feels the warm of him, the scent of him, she cannot stop. Over his face, his neck, his back, his limbs, Flora touches, learns, knows. Her lips linger upon the boy’s cheeks as he bleats, hungry, demanding. 

What can I do? Lysander had asked. She pauses, her breath washing like a kiss across newborn skin. “Name him.” She murmurs with a smile, at last pulling her gaze away from their sun – his gold, his wings – so much her, so much him, to press a kiss upon Lysander’s chest.

 And her joy is enough to almost miss the slow, slow clench of her abdomen once again.

 Almost.

florentine
rocking your pretty flower world