funny how true colours shine in darkness and secrecy

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

The words settle into the air like dew—light, gentle, and devastating. Flora doesn’t move, not right away, and the world around them stills with her. The flutter of leaves above fades to a distant hush, the birdsong stutters and then picks up elsewhere, too far away to break the silence his confession leaves in its wake.

Her breath stutters in her chest, snagged like silk on thorns, and for a moment it’s not Flora the Queen or Flora the friend or even Flora the ex—just Flora, sitting small and stunned with the weight of Koa's words pressing down on her collarbones. The last time he’d said he was in love with her had been right before everything fractured—before they ghosted around each other in Torchline’s streets and Stormbreaks roads, both too full of unspoken things to manage even pleasantries. She hadn’t expected to hear it again, but certainly not now, not like it was an infection that refused to heal.

When she speaks, it’s softer than before. Not dulled, but less defensive, less frantic, her voice drifting out like mist across the glade. "It was like that for me, before.." she begins softly, the words hushed and careful, like stepping barefoot across broken glass. "With you." She lets that hang between them for a moment before breathing in, her voice steadier when she continues. "Even though I made my choice, there was a part of me that never left the Celestine. That version of my life stayed there, frozen in time, playing out in soft moments I didn’t get to keep. Little things. Like what it would’ve felt like to fall asleep beside you. Or what your hand would’ve felt like around my waist when we walked past the bakery in Haulani. Or how you’d look at me when you thought I wasn’t paying attention."

She swallows hard, blinking down at the flower. "That life...it didn’t stop just because I chose a different one. I’d see it out of the corner of my eye, or dream about it. Not vividly, just...fragments. A smile. The press of your shoulder. Laughter that never actually happened." A pause, ragged and quiet. "It felt like I was living two lives. One real and one that was just...laid over top, only visible sometimes." Her hand tightens instinctively around his, needing the warmth of it, the familiarity, the realness

"But...we can’t," she says finally, voice hushed with something tender and tragic. "Not anymore. Sohalia is in love with you, and I—gods, Koa, I love her too much." She breathes in, a sharp, sea-salt thing that scrapes at her lungs, finally lifting her gaze, ocean eyes finding copper, stormy and glistening. This had gone so much farther than it ever had before, when Sohalia was queen and they'd all been flirting with the idea of forevers rather than actually laying them on the line. "I want you to be happy, and if you love her...even a little, you owe it to both of you to try." Her hand doesn’t leave his. If anything, she threads their fingers together tighter, grounding herself in the ache. Because letting go doesn’t always mean pulling away.

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

He breathes out slowly, but it feels more like a sigh caught between relief and something heavier -maybe regret. Flora's words settle over him like a fog, beautiful and painful, and suddenly the glade feels too small for all the things he can't say. He tightens his grip on her hand for a moment, like holding on will keep the shared dream of summer romance and bakeries and sly looks from slipping away, back into the shadowed world of things that will never be.

"I see it too - the life we never had," Koa murmurs, voice rough with everything he's trying not to let break loose. "Every time I look at you, I catch a glimpse of it." His gaze drops to the grass, then back up, flickering with sadness and regret. "Maybe that's always been our problem. What we were- what we could have been- it was always based more on dreams than real life, wasn't it?"

And Sohalia? What he'd had with Sohalia had always been real. Messy and confusing and difficult, yes, but based on the things that were said and experienced rather than a potential painted by infatuation and youth. And maybe that's what scares him most about it, what makes it so hard to choose the Luminary, even as she stands before him with heart and love outstretched.

Sighing again, Koa rubs his thumb gently across the knuckles of Flora's hand."I'm not saying I want to try again. I know you're right. Even if things were different - even if you still felt the same - I know we can’t. Neither of us could do that to Soh." His eyes meet hers, raw and searching. "I want to do right by her. I do. I- gods, Flora, she's so good, and she deserves someone who will love her the right way. Who can give her everything she'll give back, and then some." Someone who isn't still half-trapped in the impressionist painting of a summer love.

He swallows, glancing down at their entwined fingers before meeting her gaze again, copper searching aqua. "You deserve that too, Flora. To be loved completely, for exactly who you are and what you want to be, without feeling like you're under a microscope or having to hide away parts of yourself. And I'm so, so sorry that Jack was such a fucking asshole and made you feel like you weren't enough." He squeezes tightly, a half-smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. "And if you want me to beat the shit out of him, just say the word. Seriously. Please. It'd make me feel a helluva lot better, honestly."

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

Flora’s fingers tighten in Koa's like they’re trying to stitch something back together—not to undo what’s been said, but to hold it in place for just a little longer. Her smile grows, blooming in the softest corner of her mouth, but it splinters too, bittersweet and delicate, like something fragile catching in the wind. It means everything and nothing at once, to know he saw it too—the half-life folded into the seams of their days apart. A mirage neither of them could ever drink from, no matter how close it shimmered.

"Back then, everything was a dream," she murmurs, the words brushed in warmth and weight both. "Not pretend, not fake...just softer. We were too young to know what real life even was, and maybe that was the magic. That we had everything we thought we needed with nothing pulling us down. That summer, it was a world of our own making. And it was real in the way that first things always are." She doesn’t want to strip it of its truth, even if time and change have carved new stories into them both, because for however easy it was, however young they both were, it had been real.

Hadn't it?

Her hand tugs gently at his, wanting to coax him down from the stump, to ground him beside her in the tall grass where sunlight filters through the trees in flickering gold. Sighing Flora turns his hand over in hers, cradling it like something sacred, like something that once held every part of her heart. With slow fingers, she begins to trace the lines on his palm, her thumb ghosting over the intersections of fortunes and fate like she used to do when they were younger, when she'd make up stories about how their lives would end.

Her eyes lift to his again once he pauses, ocean locked with copper. "If you don’t think you can give that to Sohalia—the everything you know she'll give you—you have to tell her. We both know how good she is, how deeply in love with you she is, and that kind of love...it deserves honesty. Not a trail of breadcrumbs to see how long she’ll follow before she starves from the waiting." Which, as they both knew, would be a long, long time. "At least that way whatever she does will be her choice."

As Koa continues, Flora's smile returns, sadder now but no less sincere, and when he offers to fight for her—quite literally—it lifts into a tired, worn laugh. "As tempting as that is," she hums, pressing softly against his hand with her fingertips, "if you beat the shit out of Jack, it’d make my life so much more complicated than it already is. So…thanks, but no thanks."

Flora glances over her shoulder, where the sun has begun its slow descent behind the trees, setting the edges of the glade alight in honeyed fire. The light slants long across the moss, drawing shadows that whisper of things ending. A breath sighs from her lungs, soft and aching. "Our hour’s almost up." Turning back to him, her voice drops to something barely more than a breath, something gentle enough to be mistaken for prayer or a plea. "You won’t remember any of this. But I hope...somewhere, deep down, it makes things easier. Even if you don’t know why." That maybe after this he'd just wake up feeling lighter. That maybe he could look at Sohalia with a bit more clarity, and maybe, if she was lucky, he could look at her without so much resentment, too.

"Anything else before we go?" she asks, holding his hand like it’s the last chapter of a book she already knows the ending to, but isn’t quite ready to close.

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

Koa lets Flora pull him down beside her without resistance, sinking into the grass like it's something sacred. The sun catches in her hair and paints her skin in gold, and for a moment - just a moment - it feels like the world has been slowed to a hush, like they’re tucked between heartbeats. He watches her fingers move across his palm, a ghost from another life, and his chest aches as he thinks about the dream they never got to live.

He listens to what she says about Sohalia - about the breadcrumb trail, about love deserving honesty - and something in his jaw tightens, just briefly, before he nods. "You’re right," he says, voice rough with restraint. "And I told her that. That she deserves the whole thing. The whole version of someone. And that I wasn’t ready to give it to her, not then, not with everything in the world going wrong and the ghost of us still haunting me. The last thing I want is for her to feel how I did, y'know?" The words aren’t designed to twist the knife, and there’s no accusation in his voice, no resentment or plea or bitterness for the heartbreak he’s endured. The weight of the past few seasons has worn down that particular chip on his shoulder; how can he blame either Soh or Flora for the choices they made, now that he’s trapped on the other side?

The rejection of his offered violence earns a laugh, Koa raising an eyebrow back Flora’s way. "I'm not gonna make any promises I can't keep. Especially if I won't remember them in a few minutes, anyway." All he'll know is that he hates Jack even more than he did before, with no context for why.

He looks down at their joined hands, thumb brushing slowly over her knuckles, like he’s memorizing the shape of her before he loses it again. "What if I don't want to take the potion?" he asks softly, though not with any real force. He knows better than to think he can change Flora's mind once it's made up, and while he may not have explicitly promised he'd follow through on this stipulation, the oath was implied. Still it feels worth an effort, and his eyes are beseeching as he searches hers. "I don't want to forget this, Flora. And you- you shouldn't have to carry what you've been through alone. Let me remember. Please."

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

Flora nods, slow and quiet, her gaze tipping downward as she lets his words settle between them like autumn leaves drifting to the forest floor. Then, with a soft exhale, she shifts just enough to nudge her shoulder against his, a small press of warmth that speaks to the closeness they once shared and still, somehow, manage to carry. "It shouldn’t haunt you," she murmurs, voice the gentle hush of moss underfoot, of water slipping over stone. "That life—the one we didn’t get—it’s still out there somewhere. Our younger selves, wide-eyed and sunburned and hopelessly in love, they get to live it out in some other version of the world. Somewhere, they still fall asleep on my roof and steal pastries and whisper secrets in the dark."

Her smile curves, wistful but sure, and when her eyes lift to his, they glow like tide pools catching the last of the light. "It’s not a ghost, Koa. It’s a memory from another self, another life. You don’t have to carry it like a weight. Just...let it remind you that you know how to love. And in this life?" She leans in a little, her voice dipping with affection and a hint of teasing warmth. "In this life, you get Sohalia. So don’t be a dummy about it."

The playfulness in her tone draws her up and over the edge of sorrow, letting her laugh as he refuses to promise restraint. Groaning dramatically, Flora tosses her head back before fixing him with a look that’s half exasperation and half fondness, the kind of look that only someone who’s known him forever could give. "Ugh, fine." She rolls her eyes for effect, but when her gaze drops to their interlaced hands, the humour softens, quieting into something gentle. Her smile lingers, small and steady. "You know I don’t want to make you forget. But if you refuse," she says, drawing out the pause with theatrical consideration, "I’ll pin you down myself and make you drink it. And I’ll tell everyone the resulting bruises were because you fell out of a tree."

Her fingers tighten slightly around his in one last, grounding squeeze. "I’ll remember it enough for the both of us." The promise hangs there for a breath, then two, before her smile fades into something more solemn, something shaded with the sadness of things she’s never said aloud. Not only would Jack kill Koa for knowing his secret, not only would the captain never forgive Flora for sharing it, but more importantly, it was her weight to bear. And now, with so little of him left in her life, she wasn't willing to part with this last sliver of him that was hers, and hers alone.

Her free hand slips into the pocket of her shorts, retrieving the small vial with a soft clink of glass. She doesn’t let go of him, not yet, not until she glances down at their joined hands and laughs under her breath. "Suppose we can’t be like this after you drink it," she murmurs, voice light but threaded through with goodbye. She gives his hand one last squeeze—gentle, reluctant—before drawing away, the separation like the parting of tide from shore.

She stands slowly, the movement fluid but weighted, and takes a step back into the lengthening gold of light. The vial remains between them, resting where her hand had just been, catching the sunlight like a shard of memory. And Flora, lips pressed together, eyes wide and glistening, looks at him one final time the way you look at someone who once held your entire world, and still, in some small corner, does.

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

"I know you would." It's said with the warmth and nostalgia of a day on the beach, of K ♥ F scrawled in sand, bold and emblazoned and flush with youthful love that's destined to be washed away with the turn of the tide. Flora has always been the ocean, capricious yet immutable, wholehearted yet fluid. "I just hate that you have to be alone again. And I hate losing this." He looks at their fingers, interlaced, perhaps for the last time. "This hour. This one perfect, impossible hour where we said the things we never did." Because when it's gone Flora might have closure, but Koa will still be left with that open hole full of dreams and the past and the what if's and if only's.

He doesn't look up as Flora rises, staring at that indentation in the grass, the place where she has given up, taking herself and all the potential of them with her as she goes. Koa's thumb brushes the glass as he picks up the vial. It's stupidly small for something so huge, fitting easily into his palm. Yet it somehow feels heavier than the heartbreak he's carried this past year. "An hour, huh?" Koa asks, his copper eyes reflecting the glow of the golden liquid as he gazes into its depths. "I hope... I hope I keep some part of it. Not to change anything. Just to remember that it happened. That you gave this to me. That we let each other go right."

There's a silence between them. A hush that feels like reverence. Then, finally, he breathes in and nods, more to himself than to her. "To doing better next time," Koa murmurs, flicking the cork out of the flask.

He drinks.

The taste is bitter - sharp at the back of his tongue, earthy and strange - but not unpleasant. Like crushed herbs and salt air and library dust. Like old magic meant to mend things that can't be mended any other way.

For a moment, nothing happens.

And then he blinks, feeling strange and unsteady. Like the world hiccuped. Like the thread snapped and left him blinking at something just out of reach.

He looks around the glade with a puzzled frown, then down at the empty vial in his hand, and then at Flora as understanding dawns, as those last few minutes before the hour started swim up through his hazy memory. "Oh. Is it done, then?" He remembers being angry, but he's not angry. Just tired, and sad, and like he's lost something important, closed the door leading to a room he doesn't remember being inside.

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

Flora laughs, soft and pained, like a chord plucked out of tune. The sound curls in the golden air between them as her fingers tighten around Koa’s, not with panic, not with desperation, but with the quiet, aching hope that some part of her might stay behind. That even when the moment slips into memory—into her memory alone—there will be a warmth left behind in his palm, some echo of what had been shared.

As she rises, the glade seems to hold its breath with her. "I hope you do too," she murmurs, the words drifting like the hush of wind in the trees, delicate and sincere. "That something eases. That you walk away from this lighter, even if you don’t know why, and that it...stays." But when he speaks of letting go right, her movement stills. A flicker of something crosses her face—not disagreement, exactly, but a tender skepticism, the kind that roots in truth too heavy to speak aloud. Her smile curves, bittersweet and slow, because she's not sure any amount of magic would ever really pull them out of each other.

As Koa uncorks the vial, Flora's breath catches. There’s a moment—a single heartbeat—where her hand twitches forward, instinct flaring like a storm tide against the pull of reason. But Jack’s fury lives vividly behind her ribs, and the wreckage this truth could leave in its wake is too vast to risk. So she swallows hard, roots her heels in restraint, and watches. Watches the way Koa’s throat moves. Watches the flicker of confusion pass through his eyes like cloud-shadow over water. Watches the emptiness where the hour had been hollow him out with gentle, unseen hands.

And still she waits.

When his eyes meet hers again—puzzled, searching, distant—she smiles like nothing inside her has changed, like she hasn’t just carved herself in half to protect the part of him that’s already gone. "I’ll talk to Jack," she says easily, picking up the initial thread of their conversation as if that's where they had left off. "Make sure nothing like what happened with Kaisel ever happens again."

The words feel strange in her mouth, like trying to speak around the shape of a memory that still clings to her teeth. But she pushes on, graceful as ever, determined not to let him see the edges fray. "It was good to see you," she adds, voice brightening, softening. "Maybe next time we can try meeting up when someone hasn't nearly died." She means it as a joke. It even sounds like one. But her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

And as silence settles again, she lets it linger for a breath too long. Her gaze drifts across his face, memorising what he no longer remembers—where he stood when he took the vial, the way the light haloed his hair, the shape of his fingers still curled loosely in the ghost of hers. Finally, Flora nods, lashes lowering as if to veil something too fragile to share. "Come on," she says gently. "I’ll walk you back to the Skyport." And with that, she turns—not away from him—but toward the path they’ll take together, for a little while longer, at least.

~FIN