flora
Good, Flora says, light as seafoam, you need more sass in your life now that I’m not around all the time. Her thoughts are airy, teasing—but the corners of them catch a chill. She doesn’t mean to linger there, doesn’t mean to let her mind drift toward the shadowed places she keeps tightly sealed: stolen mornings in his cabin, the shape of his voice when it was just for her, fingers laced together and glances over shoulders.
She does the mental equivalent of clearing her throat, brisk and perfumed with hibiscus and sunlight, brushing the frost from her thoughts before it can spread.
Lingering a few steps behind as Jack checks in with the crew, Flora watches the familiar rhythm of the Ark—ropes coiled, orders given, that sharp-edged hum of movement and routine. It's comforting in the way only something once intimate can be. When Jack jokes about the rumour mill, she snorts, soft and quiet. Maybe they’ll think you’ve finally gone crazy, she adds sweetly, before her gaze follows his nod toward Bassian.
And then Jack turns; just a step. Just a shift. But something in Flora's throat catches, that ache she’s learned to bite back ballooning behind her ribs. The moment that this isn’t sits heavy, like driftwood waterlogged and sunk deep. She could follow him; she's pretty sure he'd let her. But her feet won’t move—not out of fear, but because the sand of knowing better has already risen around her ankles. So she exhales, gathering all the breeziness she can muster, and sends it after him like a ribbon on the salt wind: Thanks, Jack. Light, warm, glittering with all the affection she can’t say aloud.
Then she turns on her heel and floats over to Bassian, her thoughts slipping into something far more impish. "Boooooooo" The word drops into his head like a coin into water, unseen but unmistakable, before Flora is telling the big man to pack his things as he's coming with her for an extended sleepover.
~FIN
She does the mental equivalent of clearing her throat, brisk and perfumed with hibiscus and sunlight, brushing the frost from her thoughts before it can spread.
Lingering a few steps behind as Jack checks in with the crew, Flora watches the familiar rhythm of the Ark—ropes coiled, orders given, that sharp-edged hum of movement and routine. It's comforting in the way only something once intimate can be. When Jack jokes about the rumour mill, she snorts, soft and quiet. Maybe they’ll think you’ve finally gone crazy, she adds sweetly, before her gaze follows his nod toward Bassian.
And then Jack turns; just a step. Just a shift. But something in Flora's throat catches, that ache she’s learned to bite back ballooning behind her ribs. The moment that this isn’t sits heavy, like driftwood waterlogged and sunk deep. She could follow him; she's pretty sure he'd let her. But her feet won’t move—not out of fear, but because the sand of knowing better has already risen around her ankles. So she exhales, gathering all the breeziness she can muster, and sends it after him like a ribbon on the salt wind: Thanks, Jack. Light, warm, glittering with all the affection she can’t say aloud.
Then she turns on her heel and floats over to Bassian, her thoughts slipping into something far more impish. "Boooooooo" The word drops into his head like a coin into water, unseen but unmistakable, before Flora is telling the big man to pack his things as he's coming with her for an extended sleepover.
~FIN
Bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price
You know that I bought it
You know that I bought it
