[PQ+] [SE] menaces to society

So tired trying to see from behind the red in my eyes
No better version of me I could pretend to be tonight

Ah, it all goes sideways at last.

One minute Koa is dodging a final onslaught of balloons, the next he's watching Mateo fucking freefall off the roof, into the crowd below. Koa gapes, scrambling to the edge to peer below at his fallen friend.

Who seems.... okay, based on a very quick assessment? Not surprising, given the creepy healy fingers he always wears. Reassured that his friend is not about to die, Koa pulls back before he can be spotted. "He's okay," he tells the girls (he can only assume they're still around).

Running his hand through his hair, he heaves a relieved, tired sigh. "Well, it's been... a time. I'm gonna go convince a lot of nervous citizens that they're not being haunted by Ludo. Just its demigod." Saluting in the direction of the ducks (and, he assumes, Mel), Koa will take off down a nearby ladder, actively affecting a soldier's demeanor as easily as one might don a coat.

---

Koa goes to run interference

Koa

No other version of me I would rather be tonight
And, Lord, she found me just in time

we write out the ends on our palms, then forget to read

'MAT—' Is as far as Flora gets before her brother disappears off the roof. Running toward the edge and peering over just as Koa was, not unlike the dragoon she's aware of what the botanist wears around his neck, such that as he straightens, she huffs a relieved sigh.

Twisting the ring on her finger and glancing at Mel and then the basket, Flora smirks and then snorts under her breath as she plucks out a duck. "I'll be sure to leave this somewhere that Jack will hate." She vows playfully, pocketing the yellow toy and then glancing nervously down at the ground where...her brother seems to have disappeared?

Groaning, she waves to Melita (Koa has already departed), before finding her own way back down to the street and trailing her brother (presumably) to Molly's.

---

Flora goes after Mateo!

Melita

they should have checked the ashes
of the women they burned alive

One had to admit Mateo’s falling with style instance was smooth, and Melita shrugged, fairly impressed with how he fared with the predicament. Snorting at Koa, and handwaving off the whole thing, honestly if the citizens were that dramatic about water balloons, gods knew she was going to be taunting them for a good long while, she singsonged her entire notions about it. “You’re welcome~!”

Remaining invisible but still grinning in Flora’s direction, because the idea of taunting Jack from afar was never a miss, she gave a spirited salute. “Fantastic. Thanks everyone for a job well done," she hollered out to the greater public, but it was probably drowned out by the rampant screaming. Oh well.

From there, they could all safely depart (escape) and seek out another day of mischief and mayhem.

--

Thanks everyone!

[FIN]

because it takes a single wild ember
to bring a whole wildfire to life