Winter winds, premature but full of ice, carry the Dusk girl in above the jagged peaks. Its chill bites as her limbs and ruffles the golden feathers of her wings. Its touch upon her cheeks is the promise of snow flurries, and white, white mornings yet to come.
The ground has long ago opened its arms to the impeding winter and frosty grasses crunch beneath her feet as the Dusk girl lands. Florentine’s breath is a cloud of frost that withers and fades into the silvery blue of the morning sky.
The dawn is dreariest here, the land so consumed by night that the flower girl wonders if only daylight truly knows how to conquer the dark. Dawn light so weakly glimmers that even the mountain peaks feel only a weak phantom of Delumine’s glory.
Her feet skitter skip, weaving around sparse grasses and frost painted rocks as surely as a stream pours down the mountainside. Yet this girl is not as sure as water here, because, with every beat of her wings that flew her closer and every beat of her heart, she wondered why.
Why is she here at dawn and not at night when Denocte awakens with eyes of blazing fire and smiles that dance and dance?
Her every step is light and feverish, the dagger beating erratically at her breast. It’s every stroke against her breast reminds her heart of its wings and her soul of its restlessness. Dusk’s crown is heavy upon her head, but where it should have turned the girl as steadfast as an elder tree, rather, she has become its leaves, set free by the wind.
The wind has blown its flighty girl here and she will now never know why for her eyes settle upon a shadow-drenched figure. Its presence is familiar enough to dash every thought from Florentine’s mind and fill it with the song of gypsy coins chink and sighing feathers; none of whose are Reichenbach’s. The Dusk girl knows her lover too well and this shadow is too slender, too fine. It walks like a dance and stalks like a cat and sounds a drum beat in Florentine’s breast that lights the her up like gasoline.
Aislinn She breaths the name with white, white smoke and wonders just what this dreary dawn has in store for these two girls.
and who cares if i'm coming back alive
so what, at least i had the strength to fight
too much, too much, too much, too much
is never enough
Her breath was shudders of icy glass shards piercing the thin veil of her lungs; winter swirling in flurries of white dust around her ankles. A cocoon of stardust blanketed her, like a the thin cropping of frost covering the ground beneath her hooves. The silver shimmer enveloping her in a kiss, before dissipating into nothing as the first rays of sunlight broke across the horizon. Winter was here, a promise of snow and pink cheeks, chapped lips and the craving of warmth under thick furs. The sleepy dawn was a quiet beast, a yawning mistress of color that broke the spilled ink of the night sky in splotches. What little sun drops shone in the morning chased away the stars, not with the telltale spring of birdsong but with shivers dancing along spines. An all-consuming cold that settled into one's bones and stayed like a second shadow, only to be tamed by burning pyres and drink. As if the world itself had frozen, a time capsule, a hush of breath between moments. The collective intake before a star bursts into a brilliant supernova. This was the world she reveled in.
Slumber has long since failed her; Calligo blessing her with eternal nightfall and the passion hidden in gathering shadows instead of dreamlands. Her eyelids grow heavy with sandman's dust in the bright blue of her orbs. Pure exhaustion will soon pull her under, drowning in restlessness.. but not yet. For now, she wanders, an obsidian ghost floating in the glittering mist draped across the meadows stretched out before her.
Her hooves carry her through frost-kissed earth and pines, before she enters a never-ending sea of hills. She breathes slowly, puffs of ivory floating skywards from her nostrils. A touch of a smile barely pulling her lips upwards as her eyes find the pale sun peaking over the edge of the world. A warm hello, as sunlight catches stray strands of her hair and turning them into silver. Tears prickle at her eyes, either from the cold or the tug of a once-broken heart hidden in her ribs, she does not know. Instead, she blinks away those tears, forbidding them the justice of falling, and focuses on the tinkle of coins around her throat. A soft musical sound that sings to her, cutting through the silence of morning.
Much like the voice that catches in the dawn; a voice that brings with it the sound of waves breaking on cliffs and flowers coated in salt tears.
Aislinn.
Her name is a hushed breath floating in the air to her ears, catching on lips and full of so many things left unsaid. She knows without turning who's voice finds her in the breaking of day; the one who's presence lingers over her, who's flowers still haunt her dreams, and comforting touch still shivers like a phantom wing over her back. Aislinn is a whisper on the wind, the promise of stars in the coming night, and the thunder that roars in the eye of a storm. So unlike the girl that stands behind her now; a stark contrast to the ebony of her skin. Florentine, who held the heart of their beloved king, cloaked in gold and shimmer the color of the sun deepening into umber as dusk befell the heavens above. A young woman that was the opposite side of her coin; the sunset and night-blessed girls, forever chasing one another in the spindles of time. Her own heart still cracks as she recalls the sea spray splashing her as she fell towards the ocean below; still remembers the moment of betrayal that threw her into the underworld itself. She trusted this woman.. and then the truth was suddenly laid bare at her feet.
But whether she admits it or no, the stormsinger and the flower girl share twin hearts after all; together, they are more alike than she might ever know.
"Heavy lies the head that wears the crown," she breathes, somber, her voice a crackle of electricity across storm clouds. At last, Aislinn turns, a stormsinger who's soft gaze finally rises to meet a queen's; blue flames meeting amethyst gemstones. "Sovereignty lays a burden on your heart." She notes, that even now in the first touches of winter and snow, the flowers in her hair still blossomed. A spring goddess, defiant against the cold; the heavy perfume of lavender coating every inch of her lungs. She is a queen now; and still, Aislinn cannot deny that she is beautiful. Her breath catches, only momentarily, before her gaze tears sidelong and she instead stares into the shining white of the sun as it rises.
"Why have you come?"
@Florentine darling ♡ this is super super rusty and wordy, but I'm trying to knock the dust off xD "Aislinn speech."
Frosted grasses crackle and creak. They sway stiffly in the breeze and an icy mist hangs like a veil over the prairie. It glitters silvery and thin, cold to the touch and barely palpable. It settles in icy droplets across Florentine’s skin, dewdrops that escaped the dawn and linger close, warming against golden hair.
Flora looks to the gypsy girl with her coins that jingle and her feathers that sigh. Her eyes rage like electric nights and a sea that knows no rest. Florentine knows that look, that restlessness, she feels it in the wind, in the ever-moving dance of her dagger.
The winds dare to dally between them. It tugs Florentine and then Aislinn’s hair. It pulls them close and then pushes them away. It is a game, like fate, and Florentine knows this game so well.
A soft sigh rushes past her lips and rises, corporeal, to the mists that swallow it whole. That breath is chased by words, words so heavy with truth Flora feels their weight upon her spine. “How do you know?” She whispers, for the girls are close and her surprise so great.
That crown, of which Aislinn speaks, is heavy, not just on Florentine’s head, but her heart also. There is no coronet nestled within the tangles of her golden mane for flowers to twine around. She cannot bear to wear it, not when her soul roams and her feet feel such electric desire to run, run, run.
“It does.” And it is such sweet relief to talk of the crown and its unwanted weight. Her lips open to confess and confide to the girl who cannot think any worse of her but the moment passes. Aislinn drags their conversation on and, why had Florentine come? “I- I wanted to come to Denocte… to see Reichenbach, to feel the familiarity here, to meet friends…” She looks out across the prairie as she lists many reasons. None of them truly seem to fit, for Flora came for them all, not just one. “I came for my love of Denocte.” She breathes, softly, plaintively.
Her eyes lift to Aislinn, the girl of storms and savage seas. Sorry the apologies play upon Florentine’s tongue. They chase in circles in her mind. So many ways she could apologize to this girl, so many tears she could shed for them. So many furious words she could shout... “I beat up my brother because of you.” The words are whisper soft and for all their ominous meaning, there is a small tentative smile upon her twilight lips. It curls beneath wide, wide amethyst eyes that watch the gypsy girl warily. “I was so scared that you sought to hurt him because of me. Asterion claims it was not so.”
A breath, a steeling breath that yet trembles in her lungs and shudders through her muscles. “He is not hurt, but I think, rather startled by the affairs of girls...” that smile grows, ever tentative, ever wary.
Then, small and childish and full of a young girl’s hope she murmurs, “Can we start anew?”
