stormborn // francisco + ambrosia

The fire’s orange tendrils scream for the star-blown sky above but they never rise high enough to reach the vastness. Francis sits with his knees pulled close to his chest and counts the flying embers – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven – before the tedium settles into his bones completely. There’s a heavy sense of unease, resting in his guts and chewing at its walls, at this serenity they’re granted for the time being. After three days of bloodshed, he’s expected the same routine, the same violence and the same wounds. He’s began to feel some sort of twisted comfort in the repetition of it all and when that doesn’t occur, Francis is made even more restless, teeth gnawing on the stray ends of his nails.

He slept as a newborn would inside Nico’s arms yesterday, left cheek tucked into the crook of his neck and their fingers intertwined like a held promise for the whole of the quiet night.

     It is a serendipity – him and Nico,
     Nico and him, flowers and bones.

They are a creation of chance, a romance of four-leafed clovers, something random like a bolt of lightning. He never knew how perfectly their hands would fit each other, or how comfortable Nico’s chest is for his head. Nico Thorne is something out of the blue, a soft drizzle that has instantaneously grown into a storm. His eyes avert to where the other boy has wandered off to, scouting for the water in the tall grass, and narrow when they don't discover him. 

Unable to bear the tedium any longer, Francis rises to his two feet and pave a clumsy path of his own, wending past the glow of the bonfire, past the dark and dancing silhouettes, towards the soft darkness ahead. Places where the bonfire’s light kissed the grass birth long shadows that stretch on and on in front of him, like ribbons with no fixed length. The distances beyond the grass plains are astir with shadows, all dead seas of black.

In the midst of it, Francis spots a figurine, shipwrecked there. His instincts move his hands immediately to the knives hooked to his belt but when he narrows his eyes, he grasps the features of Ambrosia Sinn, sharpened by the night shadows.

“Ambrosia?” What illuminates the other enough for Francis to see him, are the fiery axes on his lap. The flames clinging onto the axes’ steel move and shimmer like all flames do, and Ambrosia is painted divinely with their light.

“Why aren’t you with the others?” The answer to his question, Francis realizes quickly, is Ambrosia Sinn himself; he’s learnt enough about the other from their short little run-in in the training center to know that the boy isn’t particularly fond of little soirees and stories around a campfire. Francis is honored to be an exception of some sort.

Taking a seat close to the other, he places the sunflower head he’s been toying with for a while on Ambrosia’s thigh, near the aflame axes.

     “I knew you were alive.”
     Francis admits and teases.
     “The clichés never die.”

Francisco Bloom has always held onto hope like a drowning man does to a piece of wood, hope for his friends, hope for dying flowers, hope for Nico Thorne. It's a shame he has no hope for himself.