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I watched it begin again - Flora - 11-03-2025
The stained glass shimmers with light; gold and turquoise and violet spill across the floor like the ocean learning how to be light, and Flora stands in the middle of it all, barefoot, trembling, her curls pulled up and still refusing to behave. The cream silk dress she wears is the one Enzo bought for her oh so long ago, soft as breath and clinging faintly to her skin in the humid air. Wildering House feels alive around her, and tonight, it is.
Every window has been opened, every curtain drawn. The air smells of salt and wax and damp earth. Kaisel had helped her clear the space, his steady hands doing what hers couldn’t. Now the room breathes; candlelit, blooming, every shadow softened by life. Ferns stretch toward the glass ceiling, their green leaves shivering in the breeze; orchids bloom in chipped cups, roots coiled in bowls of rainwater; a hundred small flames flicker like held breaths. On the table at the centre of the room rests a single white lily, its stem half-submerged in a vase that glows faintly from within.
She’s been preparing for this for years. Six long years of prayers whispered to the dark, of promises made and kept, of lessons learned that no one saw. Flora doesn’t think of them now, she just feels the weight of all that wanting, the ache of it pressed into her chest like a second heartbeat.
The spirits of Wildering House have been invited to witness this moment as well. She can feel them in the shifting air, in the curtain that lifts and sighs without a hand to touch it, in the silver chime that sings above the doorway. They crowd close, unseen and waiting, drawn by the pull of what she’s daring to ask. Her fingers fidget with one of her gold rings, twisting it until the metal warms beneath her skin. Then she steps forward, into the wash of coloured light, and raises her chin. [say]"Hey Mort,"[/say] she begins, voice soft but steady, [say]"it’s me."[/say]
The words tremble, but they don’t break. [say]"You’ve seen everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve tried to be, to be worth of this, and now... I’m ready."[/say] Her breath hitches, and she swallows hard, blue eyes bright and wet and hopeful. [say]"Please. Bring him home."[/say] The candles waver. The house exhales. And Flora, surrounded by life and ghosts and the weight of her own heart, closes her eyes and waits.
Flora is using her Impossible Thing to bring Enzo back!
Magic: Divine Acknowledgement | Can pray to a god from any location (does not have to be at a shrine) .
Type: Light | Rank: Mastered | Cost: (None)
RE: I watched it begin again - Mort - 11-03-2025
The air stills first, a hush so complete it feels like the world has stopped to listen. Then the light begins to shift. The stained glass above glows brighter, colours blooming outward until gold pours like sunlight through water, and from it steps a figure who might have always been there, simply waiting for her to notice.
Mort’s smile is easy, almost boyish, the kind that carries warmth rather than awe. His presence is gentle but absolute; not a weight pressing down, but a quiet radiance that fills every corner of the room. He glances around, taking in the living offerings she has gathered: the plants breathing softly in the candlelight, the lily standing like a promise, the glow of life laid carefully at the feet of death. [say] "I see you have brought beauty into my presence,"[/say] he says, voice low and lilting, as though each word is meant to soothe. [say]"Even in honouring me, you have chosen life. Vi would be pleased."[/say] There’s affection in his words—a fondness that runs deep enough to eclipse time—and then his gaze shifts. The unseen spirits stir, and the air ripples faintly as if acknowledging their maker’s herald. Mort’s smile softens further, and he inclines his head to the empty air. [say]"And you as well, little ones. It is lovely to see you."[/say]
When his eyes return to Flora, the warmth does not fade, but there is a weight beneath it now; not judgment, but the gravity of what he is. [say]"Flora,"[/say] he murmurs, her name carrying the kind of reverence reserved for those whose hearts have already broken open once before. [say]"I have seen the shape of your pain. The echo that has lived beside you since your twin crossed into my keeping."[/say]
He steps closer, light bending faintly around him. [say]"But you know, do you not, that death comes to all in time? There is no soul untouched by the ache it brings, no heart that has not learned to live with its absence."[/say] His head tilts, curls catching the golden light, his tone neither unkind nor indulgent. [say]"So tell me, child of death and love, why do you believe that you should be spared that lesson? Why should your grief be the one to end?"[/say]
RE: I watched it begin again - Flora - 11-03-2025
Flora breathes in like she’s trying to stitch the room back together with air; the sound comes out half a gasp when he appears, a small, surprised thing that trembles into steadier breath because she has to make it steady, because steadiness is how she proves she means it. The last time she saw Mort was a rawer memory—Remi calling him down with a voice that trembled, everyone gathered to say the things that meant goodbye—and even now the recollection tugs at her like a tide. Her body shivers though Mort's light is warm, as if the part of her that remembers loss keeps its own winter no matter the sun.
She pushes that winter back with the same stubbornness she has used for six years, and her chin lifts. The cream silk clings in the slightest to her ribs where her breath rides it; the gold ring bites into her finger when she twists it because she needs something solid to hold. Her eyes find his and hold—not pleading at first, only explaining—because she has rehearsed this explanation for a thousand private nights and it has become as clear as bone.
[say]"It’s because of me,"[/say] she says, and the words are an offering and an accusation at once, poured steady into the coloured light. [say]"We could have gone into the Refuge. We had the chance, but I told him we didn’t need to, that we would be fine. It was because I wanted to feel like we were doing something important that we stayed in the city."[/say] Her throat works around the words, each one heavier than the last. [say]"It was my fault we were on that street when Haulani started breaking apart."[/say] Her throat tightens but she keeps speaking, because truth is the only currency she will tender here. [say]"If I’d gone when we were supposed to, he’d still be alive."[/say]
The silence that follows is too wide, too sharp. She breathes through it anyway, holding Mort’s gaze with all the defiance she has left. [say]"If you want me to learn from it, I will. I have. I’ll carry that lesson for the rest of my life. But don’t make Enzo pay for what I did,"[/say] she says, and the seed of anger she has learned to wear like armour flares gentle and bright, not cruel but incandescent. Tears shine at the rims of her eyes, catching the stained glass like tiny moons, and she looks at Mort with something that is almost terrifying in its simplicity: a woman who will not let her brother be the price of her mistakes.
The next words are smaller, rawer. [say]"I don’t care that others accept their fates. I—"[/say] Her breath hitches, and then she says it without theatre, the strength of it born purely of missing: [say]"If you won't bring him, I'll find a way to take him back myself."[/say] There is daring there, a too-bright promise made of grief and stubbornness, and it trembles on the edge of being reckless because it is.
She folds in on herself a moment, whispering so low it is nearly the pulse in the room, [say]"Please."[/say] The single syllable is all the magic she has ever been able to keep bottled: a plea for mercy and a dare all at once. [say]"My parents cheat death on your behalf every year. Ronin would have dragged Enzo back if this had happened now, and if anyone should bear the weight of bad timing and bad choices it shouldn't be him."[/say] She shakes her head, slow and resolute as a ship righting itself, and the plea becomes a command to the universe because there is nothing softer left in her: [say]"Please let me have him back."[/say]
RE: I watched it begin again - Mort - 11-03-2025
Mort listens as she speaks, the words washing over him like a tide. He doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t flinch at her anger or her grief. His expression stays soft—open, kind—as though every syllable she utters is something sacred. When she finally threatens to take Enzo back herself, his brows lift, and for a heartbeat there’s silence. Then he laughs, warm and delighted, the sound like sunlight glancing off still water.
[say]"Oh, I do believe you would,"[/say] he says, boyish grin returning with gentle mischief. [say]"If I barred the gates, I’ve no doubt you’d find your own way through. You have your mother’s daring and your father’s tenacity both. A rather dangerous combination, where I am concerned."[/say] He lets the amusement linger for a moment before softening again, eyes bright with a deeper affection. [say]"But fortunately, that won’t be necessary."[/say]
He turns then, and as he does, the air behind him begins to shimmer. Light bends, gathers, and forms the shape of a doorway; not built, but becoming. Its edges are molten gold, its heart a vast forest of towering oaks that rise into an endless sky. The light that filters through their leaves is warm and honeyed, alive with quiet motion. [say]"Enzo has already been told to pack his bags, as it were,"[/say] Mort says, looking over his shoulder with a smile that borders on conspiratorial. [say]"I saw this day coming long before you called me, just as I saw the other, six years ago, on that corner where you both stood."[/say] Fate, worked in both directions.
Folding his hands loosely before him, he steps aside, light brushing over his shoulder as the doorway widens.
Enzo has been brought back to life!
RE: I watched it begin again - Enzo - 11-06-2025
[say]“Holy shit, she’s done it,”[/say] trips excitedly off his lips when the message comes, awe and wonder encased in a trill-tremble of adrenaline. Yet not a stroke of doubt amidst the swell of emotion beneath each syllable. As if Flora would ever fail to reach a height she'd set her sights on, no matter the claims of impossibility.
On his behalf, there's not much fanfare. As Mort said, the bags he has to pack are more abstract than material. He kisses his nonna's cheeks and holds her in his arms one more time, smile so big it would hurt if they could only feel such things in this place. But pain is as forgotten as time in this world that has been his only life - or afterlife - for longer than he'd ever been truly alive.
[say]"I'll see you soon, nonna. But on the other side, promise!"[/say] The cheshire cut of his gleaming grin is as good a send off as Enzo could ask for. It follows him to the other side to herald his return in equal measure, competing with the heavenly glow of the golden doorway that delivers him.
Flora's expression softens him like a trained dog hearing the command to heel, and though Mort's presence is as captivating as ever Enzo sweeps past him with single-minded focus, hands reaching for his twin to manage nearness just a moment sooner. [say]"Flora,"[/say] comes out of him; impossible to call it a croon, a sigh, a prayer. There is no singular word that could capture the weight of everything that rests in the syllables of her name; every emotion, every painful hour spent apart, every lost experience that was meant to be shared. And above all that pain - the euphoria of having the chance given back to the both of them. To have a cut thread be tied back into some form of wholeness, more pages placed in the back of a book after they had been ripped out too soon.
He's alive. He's alive. Not just for a single day, no more tether around his heart and soul by which he would be dragged away from her again. Enzo laughs even as tears spill over, relishing in the way his grin does hurt this time, and he pulls his sister into his chest until the world is gold and cream with the nearness of her hair and skin. The only part of the world he'd ever truly missed.
[say]"Honey, I'm home,"[/say] he sing-songs through wet laughter. Enzo doesn't turn to thank Mort - Flora deserves that gratitude far more - but he also knows Mort will hear it from his soul loud and clear.
RE: I watched it begin again - Flora - 11-07-2025
Flora opens her mouth as if to argue, words already rising sharp and desperate, but Mort’s calm cuts through them like sunlight through glass. That won’t be necessary. It’s enough to unravel her. Her breath stumbles; tears spring up before she even realises they’re there, blurring the god into streaks of gold and white. Whatever else he says becomes distant sound, something beautiful and unreachable.
Because the light is changing again. The door opens wider, spilling its glow across the floor until it feels like the whole room is made of sunlight, and when a figure steps through, her heart forgets how to keep time.
Enzo is exactly as he has always been. The wild brightness of his eyes, that grin too big for his face, the easy, uncontainable energy that once filled every space they were ever in. His curls are still the same deep brown, his jaw still sharply cut, his shoulders still boyishly broad in that way that always made him look like he was about to start laughing at something only he knew. [say]"Enzo—"[/say] The word breaks on a sob, part disbelief, part joy, all love.
Flora is already running before she knows it, silk whispering against her legs, bare feet sliding across the floor. The moment she reaches him, she collides into his chest hard enough that it might have hurt if either of them cared. Her arms wrap around him fiercely, greedily, as though she could press him back into the world by force alone. The sob that escapes her is ragged and wild, but she’s laughing through it too, gasping wetly against his neck, fingers fisting in his shirt.
[say]"Oh my gods, Enzo, you’re—"[/say] she can’t even finish. Words fall apart against her tears.
Her knees give out before her heart does, and she sinks, pulling him down with her in a heap of cream silk and golden light. Her laughter fractures into another sob, her face pressed against his shoulder, her whole body shaking with the sheer impossibility of it. She keeps saying his name like it’s a spell she’s afraid will break, breathless and choked and giddy: [say]"Enzo, Enzo, Enzo—"[/say]
When she finally manages to lift her head, her curls are tangled, her cheeks are streaked, and her hands cup his face as though she can’t stop reassuring herself he’s real. She peppers his cheeks and jaw with trembling kisses, desperate and joyful and aching all at once. [say]"You’re never leaving me again,"[/say] she manages between them, half-laughing, half-crying, clutching him tighter still. [say]"Do you hear me? Never. Not ever again."[/say]
Around them, the candles flicker brighter, the plants lean toward the light, and for the first time in six years, Flora feels incredibly and completely whole.
<3
~FIN