"What would you do if I told you I was cursed?"
CASSIAN X OC
IN WHICH SHE IS HER FAMILIES BEST KEPT SECRET, AND ITS CASSIANS JOB TO FIGURE HER OUT.
PRE ACOTAR - ACOSF
'I painted you a picture, a picture full of light. Includes a heavy memory, a memory so bright. I can't change your thoughts, my dear I can't change your fears.' ~ Forest Fires, Axel Flovent. <>
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Florence Carlisle had grown up well aware of her own mortality. It chased her down, a hound biting at her heels as she kept up at a run. Her impermanence had been etched into ancient works of art and literature and music long before her cries filled a dark night, long before her feet first touched the grass and she first learned how to swim by the river.
She was a moment. A whisper. It was something she had come to terms with, somewhere along the way she had stopped hoping. As all children did upon the departure of their youth. Nothing could change how time treated her, how death cradled her still straining form.
Nothing at all.
Of course, she also had the frequent reminder chasing her, the soft presence of her sister, the loud nature of her brothers. Her father at the head table. Her mother in the servant quarters.
She gripped the Charcoal tighter, the line tearing onto the paper darker than the rest of the trees within the landscape of rolling hills leading into a deep forest, the occasional bird captured mid-flight in sketch and memory. Florence squinted at the view before her, leaning towards the section of earth belonging to her father. There was a deer grazing in the distance, silently basking in the summer heat. It must have wondered out from the forest but she couldn't work out if-
"There's two." She jumped as the familiar voice caught her off guard, "A baby just behind the mother - if that's what you were looking for."
She twisted her head towards her sister as Cora came to sit down next to her on the grass. "Thank you." She smiled, already darting back to the drawing in her palm.
"It looks beautiful." Her sister murmured over her shoulder a few minutes later. Despite her immortal life span, Cora had never been able to stay quiet for long, especially not when talking to her.
Florence also knew her sister well enough to notice when she was being flattered.
Giving up on the drawing and the landscape she huffed and put the charcoal and paper gently to her side. Placing the stone she had found earlier by the lake over the top of the thin surface and turning to her sister.
Cora's blonde hair shone in the light, spilling down in waves over the green dress that probably cost a whole year of her mothers wages. She had one brow raised as she stared down at her little sister. "Please." She pouted.
Florence immediately understood. She hissed, a slow dread filling her and dragging her heart down to her brown laced up boots. "Absolutely not."
Her sister ignored her; leaning forward. "Please. Florrie you don't even have to say a word." Cora pursed her lips, seemingly forming her next half of her speech. "It will be nice and father would be so pleased."
