His silver gaze didn't leave Lysander as they spoke, dangerously intent, as if he were memorising the flawless lines of the ancient mans face — his intention and dislike of the stranger utterly clear. Isorath was speaking in the background, a murmur of satin and silk, but he could not hear the words past the roar of blood in his ears. He felt it all too strongly, every emotion swirling in a torrent underneath his dark skin — rage, bloodlust, guilt, empathy, fear, love. The shadows upon him became erratic, reacting to the mess within him, confused and volatile. “Reichenbach, how dare you.”
Reichenbach's handsome head whipped to his Dusk girl, silver eyes changing from abyssal cold to somewhat bewildered in the presence of her reprimand.
“You cannot make accusations of Lysander when I saw the way you looked at my Regent.”
A snarl lingered on his black lips, unable to come to fruition in the presence of the honey skinned girl. He had done nothing... never touched a flawless hair on the porcelain head of her Regent. He'd never acted on the stirrings within him, had not touched the mans soft lips or ravaged him in their chambers.
Oh, but he'd wanted to. Was his heart so fickle and changeable? Had he found love only to flit from heart to heart, an unstoppable search never fulfilled? The thought scared him too much to face, shamed him too much to consider. So he pushed it away, hiding it as Calligo had hid her rage.
When she turned her face from him, that rage grew.
"Ah, but he is handsome enough for me. Perhaps Lysander would like to be my escort to the festivities this evening, so the lovebirds may look ravishing together."
His eyes flickered at that, switching to stare at Isorath in consternation — then back to Lysander and his impeccable presence, so slick and elegant.
Finally, they returned to Florentine, her trembling fragility something that had always called to him — and always would. He was a man born to protect, and feeling, seeing the innocence of her, the kindness, it tugged at the essence of him — a hurricane forced into blood and bone. He would always answer that call.
With a considerable amount of effort, Reich turned his gaze back to the antlered men,
"I think that would be best."
He stared at Lysander again, a savage promise written across the tenseness of his muscular body. Oh, how he ached to feel those slender bones break underneath his hands. Drum beats rose within him, thundering in time with his great heart, music swelling and limning his bones. If he only opened his mouth...
He did not, only turned his back dismissively, his spine rigid. The Night King attempted not to spend too much time thinking about the pale skinned kirin dancing and drinking with another man, but failed miserably.
Reichenbach waited for the others to leave before turning his silver gaze to Florentine, softer now, the lashes lowering, supplicating. He hated to see her so distressed, his little butterfly in her cage of emotions. Even more so when it was distress caused by him. Yet that anger remained, hovering behind his heart, thrumming through the heated veins within him — so much so that before he could consider whether or not he'd want the answer he asked;
He imagines this is how the meeting of titans is, beckoned forward by the fickleness of mortal affairs. Drawn to the conflicting emotions and the precipice on which they stood.
If one could dare to turn their gaze skyward and listen, is this how their souls blazed and emotions pulsed like stars threatening to go supernova? As they listened and debated, let their emotions shake the cosmos while they remained unspoken upon the tongue?
Reichenbach is the shadows and storms at sea, the harsh rain and the lancing lightning strikes which part the air. War and anger, with smelted weapons swirling in his eyes. Summer's wild fires and ravaged earth, blazing and splitting under hoof. Florentine is the earth in spring, the song of youth and it's hopefulness, the changeability of it all when it's weaving threads are threatened. With flowers in her eyes and leaves in her hair, spun from the Sun's gold.
Isorath is winter glowering at the evergreen which bloomed defiantly despite the blistering cold, hissed at the sun that dared to try and thaw the frozen forest. Howling wind and shards of ice. The cold marble statues beneath the canopy of stars, eyes wide open while another has them shut. Memories of something he was and wasn't.
Lysander, what is he? The Spring knows, but Summer and Winter do not.
Yet, despite everything they are, and are not.
The fragility of innocence threatened and an already shattered heart beating in stoccato goes on, humming a tune of distress, guilt and longing.
Isorath does not respond to Florentine's statement about Dragon's and their hoard of gold, but his ear twitched in acknowledgement of her next words, backwards into the plush locks of starlight which wreath him in curls. Silence reigns on Reichenbach's side, but he can feel the roiling heat beneath his skin, the rage which must be building like a tempest and subtly watches for any flicker of shadows which he had spied coiled in charcoal.
The Night King's look of consternation aimed at him is a spear, the hum of distress in his heart grew and stuttered, stumbled as it steeled itself in indignation, the fires of the stars crackled between the pieces and lashed out. It bubbled up on his face, like a dragon bearing it's teeth. What would he have him do?
"Of course." Composure and elegance back in his next words, though his accent is noticeably thicker. Too musical, too much like finely spun silk and the threat of daggers woven into the clothing it would make. "I would be happy to indulge any questions you have of my people, over a glass or three of wine and a dance." He does not wait for Florentine's dismissal, and does not look for the King Crow's silver gaze. His wings reach out to press against the earth momentarily as he turned and waited for Lysander to join him before he set off toward the Castle — his long tail giving an elegant and pronounced sweep to send the long strands of hair into the breeze and falling snow.
TAG: @Reichenbach @Lysander @Florentine
Isorath making his exit! <3
I'll get a thread up for us, Griffin!
"isorath talks"
As a child, when she had asked Lysander to marry her and talked of love and broken hearts, she had not known what it truly meant. Her heart had not fluttered at the idea of him nor had her soul ignited beneath the spark of his gaze. It had seemed a convenient thing, he seemed husband material and so to pick in advance seemed a wise move for a child of only a few months. Nothing like being prepared.
Yet the girl stands now, older and wiser, feeling only slightly more schooled in the affairs of love. Yet such lessons have been enough to make her look back upon the child she was then and laugh, a sad little laugh. Oh to be so factual and ignorant again.
Beneath her gold lashes, Florentine watches Lysander go. He is borne of the earth, soil and rock, flowers and roots. He is plain beside the winter’s gold of Isorath, but it was not lavish things that ever snagged the girl’s flyaway heart.
Her gaze returns to Reichenbach as he turns to her. His anger is that of stars colliding, of universes rubbing together. It bruises her with its force, and Florentine feels it upon every piece of her golden skin his eyes touch. Her fringe falls across her eyes, tangles of gold shielding her from his wrath. But her eyes, oh her eyes, they peer beneath the snarls of her forelock, bruised amethyst flecked with their orange that blazes with her mother’s dragon fire.
Florentine had died in war before, she had felt the life slipping from her broken body, they way her heart clenched and stuttered. She had not survived death, but she had survived Time and come to live again. She was the girl with infinite lives, but, even as she died, her heart had not hurt like this.
Who is he to you?
Her Night king stresses the question with his anger brewing, wild and hot. She feels it across her skin, a wild fire she has never known. The girl trembles, a flower caught within a storm. She bends in the wind, her neck curving to catch a final glimpse of gold. Lysander is gone, as ever, faded into the earth like shadows into dark.
“Who is Isorath to you?” Her gaze returns to her boy of stars and dance, returning his question with her own. She recalls a night within a temple where she tried to run, only to fall, tangled in stars and moons and Calligo’s dark.
She had been tangled ever since.
With butterflies in her throat and hummingbirds in her heart, Florentine pushes those memories away. They could not help her here, they could only remind her of what it was before she saw the way her lover looked at her Regent.
“I feel like a fool, Reich.” Raw, wounded, small, her voice is so many things as it falls and cracks open upon the rocks of her sorrow. “The day I was given the crown, Isorath invited me to meet with him.” She begins her story as her eyes fall away from her king’s wild curls and wilder shadows. Her gaze looks out to the tower of her citadel, rising above the distant trees. “He told me things, a small taste of the many secrets he has learned during his time spent in the Denocte. He asked me of you, of us.” With that she looks back to the boy of star-flung nights, “That was not so long ago, Reich.”
Florentine steels her trembling heart with Aislinn’s tears. This boy is stringing many hearts behind him and she lost hers in that temple so long ago. What is left of her, that he does not own, she braces for her next question. “Did you have feelings for each other, even then?”
She stands, a fleck of gold trapped in the swirling white of a festival night. She longs to go to him, to have his warmth against the cold kiss of snow. She doesn’t and trembles with the effort. Through the haze of snow and wind, smoke and music, she gazes at her boy like she once did over the light of a bonfire. “Answer me this, and then I will tell you of Lysander: Do you love Isorath and does he love you?”
Florentine, she is a girl in love with a boy belonging to another court. Too often she has asked herself where her loyalties lay. Was it with her court or with her lover? But, as she stands before Reichenbach now, her Regent a ghost between them, she cannot help but fear where Isorath’s lay. Did he have feelings for Reich when he accepted her offer of Regent?
The flower girl, a reluctant queen, stands alone.
@Isorath @Reichenbach @Lysander
This styling is also nice for some non-obtrusive OOC credits, wordcount or banter. Don't forget that divider up there.
Her question is a challenge, a quick reflection of his own and it startled him — he'd not thought so far as to define whatever it was he felt when Isorath was around, or allowed himself to consider giving it a name. Reichenbach's brow furrowed, a deep weariness lingering behind the flame licking his bones, hiding within every flickering shadow. He wasn't ready for the white hot nails digging into his chest and belly, or the fear gripping and brittling his anger at the sound of her voice so raw and chafed;
“I feel like a fool, Reich. The day I was given the crown, Isorath invited me to meet with him. He told me things, a small taste of the many secrets he has learned during his time spent in the Denocte. He asked me of you, of us. That was not so long ago, Reich.”
The Night King listened with too-bright eyes, dismay flickering across his features as Florentine looked away from him to the Citadel. He flicked his own argent eyes there before returning them to her face, taking the opportunity to memorise the lines of the flower-girls delicate face while she wasn't looking. Gods be damned, she was beautiful. A wild thing, a lost thing. So fragile but with strength limning her core, her long limbs. When her gaze returned he matched it, a hurricane ravaging behind his eyes.
“Did you have feelings for each other, even then?”
The hurricane faltered for a moment, then restarted. She was asking him questions even he did not know the answer to — he, who acted without thinking, who loved without daring to think of the consequence. He no further knew the insides of his heart than he knew that Florentine could cut windows through worlds. He was still that orphan boy, cursed with a mess of emotions he'd never untangle.
Her trembling had Reichenbach hurting, his very essence telling him to warm her, to comfort and protect the gentleness before him — but how could he step closer when it would only make things worse, hurt more?
"Answer me this, and then I will tell you of Lysander: Do you love Isorath and does he love you?”
"I don't know,"
He finally snapped, teeth flashing in the brittle winter air. He'd lived alongside the kirin for months before feeling the kindling between them, had met him even before he arrived to Court — it had only been recently that he'd replaced her delicately boned face for Isorath's within his waking dreams. Always keeping an eye out for a slip of porcelain and gold, finding himself strangely disappointed if a day was spent without seeing the man. He hadn't spent enough time figuring out what it meant to answer her with conviction.
"Perhaps if Dusk's Queen had deigned to visit sooner, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
It was a low blow, and he knew it, and hated himself for knowing it but speaking it anyway. He still harboured a tender bruise that Florentine had not told him herself, or visited for such a long time — a tender bruise he used as a shield, a weapon against the questions he did not want to think about or answer. Warmth rolled off of his body as his blood frenzied, hot and angry and frightened.
He took a step closer, shadows writhing underneath his ebony curls as he growled;
They stand so close, but the space between them is one she cannot breach. Oh they are so far apart! Stars and moons, galaxies and universes stretch and expand between them. They continue to grow, pushing her back, back, back. The silver of his eyes is there, glimmering in the stars between them. Her own amethyst glows in the million-sun dust of swirling galaxies. They were one, Reichenbach and she, born of stars and dust. It was forever dusk yielding to night and night forever chasing.
But it was no longer her dusk he sought…
I don’t know.
Her eyes close. Lashes, tangled with snowflakes, touch her cheek. She does not open them soon. She is protected here in the dark of herself, here where the vision of a gypsy boy cannot reach her. He is wild curls and wilder smiles. He is the silver of starlight falling to earth with the chime of coins. His breath is the rhythm of dance and Florentine has felt them all. Her slender neck arches - brave, brave flower-girl. She inhales his hurricane, she weathers the storm he brings. Aislinn’s tenacity, Aislinn’s strength, lines Flora’s muscles and weaves lightning around her heart. He has hurt them both with his wayward heart and now Florentine finds strength within the storm: Aislinn’s strength.
He did not say no to loving Isorath.
The dusk-girl can take no comfort in his words. Night has become a barren and hostile thing – when did it ever feel like this? Her petals, pulled loose from her hair, are a sad, lingering caress, sighing across his tanned skin. They were shy of him once, but now they know the Night King and miss him already.
She does not open her eyes, not when her mind has so suddenly become full, too full, of memories. Between star-strewn nights, there are curtseys and flowers, nervous breath and soft caresses. She once laid a flower in his hair, and then another. The boy was too wild to keep them both.
Her eyes open too look. It is vain hope that wishes to see her flower nestled within his hair. There is none; her wild boy has become water between her fingers.
Eyes, bright and bruised, and oh so somber, gaze at him. “Are you no longer in love with me?” She asks and regrets the moment those small words escape her. She regrets the way they struggle through snow and wind to reach his shadows. They are as fragile as her and carry her every tremulous truth.
Florentine had always been open to this boy, but now she is exposed in every way that hurts. With those words, dignity has fallen from her like cloth, leaving her exposed beneath the biting wind and the laughter of her festival.
But she finds a new dignity and her golden chin lifts. Her eyes meet his flashing teeth, her throat exposed beneath them. Those teeth slash like claws at the tendrils tying her heart together. She lets her heart fall apart, its threads cut by his searching claws. His anger settles in its ruins.
She looks up to him and there are tears behind her eyes. Tears she cannot let fall, but they do anyway. “So it is my fault?” The flower girl says softly, smoothly. She is silk, but silk upon steel. ‘When one dusk hour does not return to you fast enough, you look for another so readily?”
The Night King has moved on, stepping towards her, aggressive and wild. His snarled question, Who is he? is the wind and she a flower it threatens to pull apart.
Florentine breaches the space he leaves between them, the one of infinite stars and galaxies. Ever brave, and unafraid of pain, the girl steps into the embrace of this savage, furious boy. She feels the finality of it, that she might never be here again. Her body knows what it is to be here, drowning in stars and jasmine, shrouded by Calligo’s shadows. Her cheek presses to his neck. Oh brave, brave girl; her heart is still unwound, still in tatters all around.
“I was going to leave Dusk and come to Night.” She says softly to him. “I could not bear to be away from you. But then, the very next day, Rannveig made me queen.” Those broken pieces of her heart steal the breath from her lungs and she gasps for air but gets only jasmine. They are too close, too, too close. “I was not made to be a queen, Reich. I had hoped you would come too, but you never did. As a new queen, I could not so readily run away from my court into the arms of another. But I loved you then, and still do now.”
She rests a moment there, closes her eyes in his warmth, feels the heat of the kiss she lays against his neck. Then Florentine steps back. Back through his shadow, back, away from the lure of his Jasmine. She steps away from him and feels the ruins of her heart bleed anew. History lies between them and this is their end.
Only now does she answer the question he snarled: who is he. “Does it matter, Reich? You have already rejected me for not coming to you.” The breath she takes is slow and full of razors. “He is a friend from childhood, that is all.”
And only her soul with its lover, fate, know it as a lie.
@Reichenbach aaaaaaarghh
This styling is also nice for some non-obtrusive OOC credits, wordcount or banter. Don't forget that divider up there.
Her petals brushed his cheek, feeling like gentle kisses in the cold night air. Confusion had his great heart stuttering at the touch, at the smell that had once heralded the love of his life — or so he had thought. They'd once set his heart racing, now they made it ache and stumble, unsure, uncertain. Her eyes were closed, those wonderful honeyed lashes brushing against her cheekbones, her hair shifting slightly in the frigid breeze... and he tried to memorise the moment — not the hurt, anger and confusion, but just that picture, his flower girl in a moment of calm. He tried to pretend, just for a moment, that when she reopened her eyes they would be laughing, shining and happy.
“Are you no longer in love with me?”
It's a sentence, like so many before it, that he can't quite tell her the answer to. It's worse, he knows, not to know. Instantly words spring into his mind, cautious words, truthful words — I don't think I could ever not love you. His heart is too big, so vast that it could have encompassed all of them — Aislinn, Florentine, Isorath... but that wasn't the way the world worked, it wasn't the way he worked. A heart didn't break evenly, after all.
Each tear that tracked down her cheek was an agony, and in fact he'd rather have endured her screaming at him than this — this raw hurt, this soft, sad hurt. It's not all soft though, for he can see the anger gleaming behind her eyes too, the stoicism and determination not to be undone.
"When one dusk hour does not return to you fast enough, you look for another so readily?”
He frowned — that was not what had happened. He hadn't touched Isorath, hadn't sought him out... it had just.. he didn't really know, he only knew he felt guilty despite his technical innocence. He knew all too well that not touching someone did not mean you didn't care for them, and Isorath... he cared for the man, a lot.
Florentine's satin cheek touched his neck and Reichenbach stilled, going so silent and so frozen that he might have turned to stone underneath the gentle contact. His heart sputtered and started again, her scent overwhelming against the winter air as she spoke, gently, sadly. His Dusk girl, his wild, unrestrained petal fluttering upon the breeze... how she ruined him, tore him to pieces — only now it was misery and not joy that tore him apart. He was the maker of his own ruining, their downfall, their end. It could be placed upon his shoulders, strong as they were, and he would take what punishment the world deemed fit.
When she stepped away coldness took her place and Reichenbach felt the chill of winter for the first time that evening, watched her with pained silver eyes as she dismissed Lysander as nothing. He wanted to believe her. In fact he wouldn't have minded rewinding the whole evening and starting over, if only to avoid the sudden void that had yawned between them. But they were too similar, and he had loved her so much that he knew that razor-filled breath was in preparation to tell a lie.
A gentle drumbeat filled his soul, thrumming along with his heart, a music that was so ethereal and eternal that he knew it came from another world — from a demi-goddess, perhaps. When he spoke next his voice was infused with that music, mournfully soundless but full of song. His shadows coiled in preparation as his voice, unbeknownst to him, shifted into something compelling and coercive, an impossible voice not to fall down, down, down into...
"Please don't lie to me..."
The shadows upon his nape curled outward, tasting Florentine as if she were a delicious flower and they the bees at harvest. There was a strange feeling, a vibration, humming along his bones as if Caligo were present, unnerving and new to him.
"Tell me what history lies between you two, then I will return to Night" his voice softened, hurting, "and I will let you be."
For as long as she needed.
@Florentine ew bad ending!! So I kind of left this open for the hypnotism, I will discord you about it tonight! <3
She is there, awash in his warmth, in the scent of jasmine that calls to his flower still lying upon her window ledge.
A young part of her waits for him to say something. It is the part of her that would watch a ship sail into the sunset yet still hope to see it turn back for her. But the ship disappears and Reichenbach’s words never come.
Her question, a tremulous thing between them, Are you no longer in love with me? has no answer. But in this silence, there is a reply, it is as loud as a clanging symbol and it is there in what he doesn’t say. It is in the silent unspooling of her heartstrings. Reichenbach leaves her so open she does not think this part of her will ever fully close.
Florentine feel her heart Dusk heart beat and wonders when she began to feel it again. At what point had he returned it to her and how she did never know of its return?
Stars fill Flora’s eyes and set her mind adrift with galaxies and memories. There is one and it is so filled with a moonlit night of shrines and failed prayers. It was then the Night King stole the Dusk girl’s heart, beneath the stars that crowned Verenor’s Peak; oh it seems so long ago now.
What song do those stars sing now where once they sang of Dusk and Night? Maybe one day the godless girl will be brave enough to return to Verenor and stand upon the mountain’s peak, before the altars of the gods and listen to those stars again.
Dusk had not meant to fall in love with Night that day and she does not mean to fall out of love now. But they had. They were apart, they were driftwood with so much water pouring between them. Universes had swelled and grown and pushed them further and further apart.
Her cheek presses to his and he becomes so deathly still. He is stone beneath her and she knows then that it is done.They are done; there is nothing more for them here. No matter the way their hearts still ache and want and crave each other. These hearts of theirs, oh these wayward instruments, just do not hold enough to keep them together.
Flora hurts for him, her gypsy boy of night and stars. But she does not fight for their love. She realizes it only now as she stands cocooned in jasmine and shadow. Had Reichenbach returned her heart or had she merely taken it back when neither were aware?
Florentine draws away from him, her heart within her chest, but never to be whole again. Might he hold that piece forever? Flora smiles, content with that.
Oh she might have gone to move and disappear back into the darkness of the festival, alone, alone, alone. But it will not come to pass, not when his voice becomes such a heavy, enchanting thing. It becomes a song Dusk yearns to hear and dance within forever.
She would dance right here if she could, beneath this sound, this melody of his that sinks into her bones. Oh he makes her light, light, light. Florentine is air and he is the hand that moves her here and there. The festival is gone, fallen away into nothingness. To her there is only him and his voice of magic and music asking for her truth.
Flora could dance to this music voice for an eternity. She begs for it, and he speaks again, to send such warm delirium reaching into her bones, her muscles, her skin. Don’t lie to me.
“Never.” She sighs through dance, through the hum of warmth that makes her tongue speak only truth. Golden lashes close over punch drunk eyes as music washes lies from her skin and sinks her into a river of truth where she will, most surely, drown.
Her tongue his heavy with truth, so full of words she longs to tell him. They rush forward, for what truth can deny this allure? This is a call she cannot escape. But she frowns, with her golden lashes pressed against her curve of her cheek for there is no easy truth to his question. Not even Flora knows the truth of her heart, except that: “He is an old friend.” This confirmation is sure and her eyes flutter open, brushed-eyes gleaming as she takes in her enchanter adorned in his shadow and sorrow.
“But,” The word breathes, expelled from confused lips, expelled by a heart that struggles through its ruins to make sense of fate and eternity and the truths they both secret away. “I knew him when I was a child and said that I might marry him when I grew up. Lysander laughed, saying he was not good marriage material, that there were better prospects…” Her voice is a song to match Reichenbach’s own, the one that still sings in her veins. “I did not see him again until he came to Novus in a new body I did not recognise. He was pleased I had found better prospects to marry here. I was upset, for I thought it meant he was pleased not to have to marry me. Again, he just attested that he would make a poor husband,” There is a pause, a breath were she sighs, where she feels the weight of truth press down upon her tongue, upon her heart. “That hurt me too but I told him about you and then asked him to stay with me. I didn’t want him to go, not when I had just found him again.”
Then the flower-queen is silent, her head cast low, her fringe of flowers falling across the delicate curves of her face. She wonders and wades in the foggy truths of fate lingering in her heart, in the essence of her. Florentine is a girl who lived before she was born; and she has been born so many times, and died so many more. “I have lived so many lives and in all of them we have found each other. We are fated, Lysander and me.”
Her tongue is light for the words are gone and the truth is heard. His magic melody seeps from her like water from her skin. Down from his spell’s delirium she falls; a bird with cut wings. Florentine lands in heavy limbs that feel gravity’s pull and oh it is so heavy, heavy, heavy.
Blinking eyes awake, the festival din creeping back in like a storm from the sea. She remembers the allure, she remembers the truth and the way she desired to give him all of it she could. There was no lie she could tell for she could not deny him anything… Her heart clatters in her breast and she looks around, suddenly alert, suddenly wild. “What did you do to me?” The words hiss fearful and ragged from her lips. The breath in her lungs is not enough and she gasps with a chest too tight.
Back she steps back as the truth creeps up from her open, ragged heart. Fate fate. Not even she was ready for the truth her timeless soul hid.
The Night King’s magic, his songs of truth bring an ugly dawn of realization and her wings flare wide. “What magic did you weave? What did you do to me?” Her voice cracks with his betrayal and she steps away from the Denocte boy. She needs the water rushing between them, she needs the universes that push and push and push them apart. She needs an eternity to be rid of his betrayal. “How could you do that to me? You are not the man I thought I loved.”
Her eyes fill, fill fill with anger and fear. Florentine is broken with love, “Do not come near me again.” And with that she scrambles away from him, the air calling her up into the night. She flees his shadows, she flees his magic and she flees their love, so terribly lost.
@Reichenbach - Fin the love of Reichentine -broken hearts and much sobbing-
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
02-22-2018, 02:15 PM - This post was last modified: 02-22-2018, 02:17 PM by Florentine
He's not entirely sure of the moment she transforms, only that he is certain she is not herself — instead Florentine had turned into something dream-like, floating on the air in dance and delirium, as beautiful as she had ever been. Her hair swung like satin as she moved, her skin like smooth caramel. Reichenbach found himself simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the change, his brow furrowing as he watched her, as if trying to work out a particularly difficult puzzle.
"He is an old friend."
He knew she was telling the truth, not just through the magic humming within him, but by the purity of her — his Florentine. He'd dragged her down, down into the depths of his own misgivings, had lashed out because he thought if he were so messed up... then surely she must be too.
But perhaps the honeyed Queen of Dusk was everything she showed the world, no lie crossed her soft lips, only hidden truths.
He might have let the old God go, having heard what she had to say, until —
"We are fated, Lysander and me"
Reichenbach felt the beginnings of a growl in his chest, a low rumble that he did not release and yet which consumed him, reigniting the flame of anger that had guttered at her trembling lips. He wanted to look away as she came back, the magic fading from the air, returning them to some small semblance of normalcy... if any of this had been normal in the first place.
“What did you do to me?”
The first words are an accusation, her breath coming tight and fearful to the point that The Night King knew would haunt him, her eyes so sharp and betrayed against the starshine of his gaze. He could not answer her, even when she asked again, because even he did not know how his magic worked, what boundaries it needed. His heart hammered as she stepped away, her vast wings flaring in a way he hadn't seen before — defensive, angry... his own eyes flashed as her voice sounded, raw and broken;
"You are not the man I thought I loved..."
A damnation, because she'd thought he was so much better... so much more noble, incapable of causing harm — how had she not known that the chaos of him caused hurt and harm all the time, that the ups with Reichenbach went up, up, up! Until it was hard to breathe... but the downs...
“Do not come near me again.”
And she was gone. Flying away into the night, the starlight clinging to her golden skin as if loathe to release her from it's grasp. But release her it did, and soon the Dusk Queen faded into shadow, leaving behind The Night King, her boy of shadows and stars and passion.
He did not follow, only turned his silver eyed gaze toward the Keep, where a certain God loitered. So much pain had come of this night, and there was still yet more to come...
@Florentine CRY :c
