out of my depth

Damien

oh, let's take a chance and roll the bones
try to forget all them enemies and debts

Damien listens without interruption, his glass balanced loosely between his fingers as her words drift through the creak of the docks and the hiss of the tide. She’s expressive in a way he isn’t, her warmth worn openly, the flush of rum painting her cheeks, the glint in her eye carrying more weight than her tone sometimes admits. It isn’t performative, though—it’s an honesty he recognizes when he sees it. Not the kind that bares everything, but the kind that refuses to pretend.

When she mentions the Greatwood, his brow twitches in thought behind the shades. The Fae’s forest was about as far from Halo’s snowfields as one could imagine, but raised by a grandmother—he knows what that implies, the steadiness it can lend when the rest of life is chaos. His jaw shifts slightly as she speaks of her brother, though she’s already told him once before. The fact that she repeats it now, stripped of dramatics, just a plain shard of truth, lands sharper because of it. Where most would crumble under that weight, she hadn’t just endured—she’d built something new, turned grief into structure, into legacy. He feels something knot low in his chest. Pride, maybe. Strange thing to feel for someone whose life he barely knows, but there it is all the same.

“You didn’t fold,” he says finally, his voice steady and quiet enough that it nearly disappears into the roll of surf. His thumb brushes the rim of his glass, a small, grounding motion. “Most would’ve. But you turned it into… this.” His chin tips slightly toward her, toward the fountain, the sea, the fact of her sitting here in power. There’s no envy in it, no false flattery either, just the recognition of someone who understands how survival works.

He takes another measured sip, more to pace himself than out of thirst, before setting the glass down. His gaze stays on her, steady through the dark lenses, even as his tone shifts, lighter but edged with curiosity that cuts deeper than casual banter. “Do you like it?” A pause, then, more pointed: “Being queen. Being a leader.”

He leans back a fraction, arms loose but the line of his shoulders still deliberate, thoughtful. “It suits you,” he adds, the corner of his mouth twitching with something wry, though the undercurrent is sincere. "You don't wear the crown like anyone else I've known." 

karma's a relaxing thought, aren't you envious that for you it's not?

Flora shakes her head slowly, curls slipping forward as the crooked curve of her smile fades into something wryer. "I very nearly did," she admits, the words carrying no shame, only the easy candour of someone who’s lived through it already. "Lost my first election to rule Torchline, actually. And gods, it stung. Bad." She laughs once, low in her throat, but it’s more rueful than bright. Spite was a hell of a motivator, and it had just made Flora work all the harder to get the things that she wanted.

Her gaze drifts to the fountain, weighing whether to fill her glass again before deciding to hold off. Instead, she shifts, turning until her back presses lightly against the cool stone, one arm folding across her stomach. "Mostly, I do like it," she says, aqua eyes flicking sidelong at Damien. Then her brows bounce, a grin tugging at her mouth. "I mean, it’s nice being able to threaten to throw woodworkers from Halo into jail if they don’t go for strolls down the beach with me."

The joke ebbs, though, her smile thinning by degrees until it sighs out of her altogether. "This past year was hard," she admits. "Trying to keep Torchline safe from the Family…I was murdered. Then about a month ago, I was carved up back to the brink of death." Her hand curls loosely around the cup at her side, the gleam of rings dulled in the shadow of the fountain. "Had to move out of my home to keep everyone I cared about. I put the city first, and because of it, my boyfriend broke up with me." The word tastes bitter enough to wrinkle her nose, Jack having been so much more than just her boyfriend.

She twists to dip her cup beneath the spout, the stream of rum catching sunlight as it pours clean and bright into the glass. "I felt super bitter about it for a while," she says, voice quieter now, almost thoughtful. "Which good leaders probably aren’t supposed to." The queen shrugs as if to dislodge the weight of it, raises the glass to her lips, and takes a slow sip. The burn slides down and she lets it chase the heat of his question out of her chest, a crooked smile curling back into place though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Damien

oh, let's take a chance and roll the bones
try to forget all them enemies and debts

Damien’s mouth curves in a sharp smile at her jab, the kind that cuts just enough to match hers. “And to think,” he drawls, lifting his glass in mock salute before finishing what’s left of it, “all you had to do was ask nicely.” The humor sits between them, quick and easy, but he doesn’t linger in it. He sets the glass down on the fountain’s rim with a soft clink, the gesture neat, as if shedding the joke so he can turn to the weightier part of her words.

He listens, arms folding loosely across his chest, head angled toward her. Murdered. Carved back to the brink. Broken up with because she chose a city over herself. The catalogue of it is brutal, but she lays it out without drama, and he respects that. The truth lands heavier for being unadorned.

“Leaders hurt more than most,” he says finally, voice even but pitched low. His gaze flicks briefly over the liquid gold where the fountain spills into the basin, watching the light fracture against it, before turning back to her. “Not because they deserve it. Just because they’re standing in front.” There’s no pity in the words, only recognition. It’s not advice, not comfort, just the kind of plain truth he traffics in.

He shifts his weight, pushing off the fountain so he can wander a slow step or two toward the dock’s edge, the sea air sharper out there. He gestures lightly with one hand for her to follow if she wants, a simple offer to move with him, to trade the stillness of the fountain for the shifting brightness of water and sails.

“You’re allowed to be bitter,” he adds after a beat, his tone gaining a rougher edge, almost a challenge. “You’re human. Or close enough.” A faint smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, though it softens quickly. “The idea that leaders are supposed to be all.. perfect and carved out of stone is a lie. It’s better to be flesh and blood than to be brittle.”

His gaze flicks toward the sea, the sunlight glancing off the water like a thousand cutting edges. “Me, I try and just keep my distance from people. Easier that way.” The words came even, unburdened, but a pause lingered after as if the ease he claimed came at a cost. Solitude had been his choice, yes, but sometimes it pressed too close, an emptiness he carried like a shadow. 

karma's a relaxing thought, aren't you envious that for you it's not?

Flora chuckles, tipping her glass toward him with a grin that’s playful at the edges. "Always good to have a back-up plan," she teases with a playful grin.

But when his words drift heavier, when he speaks of what leaders do or don’t do, her nose wrinkles and her posture shifts, just enough stiffness to mark disagreement. She bites the inside of her cheek, aqua eyes narrowing as if weighing how much she wants to press. In the end, she tilts her head, brow arching, and lets the dissent come soft instead of sharp. "I don’t know about that..." she murmurs, the cadence light but edged with thought, unwilling to concede the point even if she won’t pick a fight over it.

When Damien gestures, Flora is happy to move closer to the water, her bare feet carrying her onto the dock where the tide’s breath hums through the boards. The faint reverberation of waves sinks into her skin, and she exhales with something like relief, as if the sea itself has set her bones back in place. At his confession, though, she turns, shoulder nudging firmly into his as if to underline just how little distance there is between him and people right now. "Sure, sure," she says, the words playful but underscored with warmth. "Says the man who sailed all the way to Torchline to help a complete stranger. And now he’s drinking with her." She lifts her glass then, tilting it so sunlight scatters through the rum like spun gold, the gesture as deliberate as the sparkle in her smile.

Her gaze lingers a moment longer, softening at the edges. Because she hears the truth in his words—the cost hidden in that claimed distance—and though she doesn’t call it out, her eyes carry the understanding, bright and unflinching.

Damien

oh, let's take a chance and roll the bones
try to forget all them enemies and debts

Damien lets the nudge press for a heartbeat longer than strictly necessary, the faint weight of her shoulder grounding him in the present. He doesn’t pull back, doesn’t shift—it’s subtle, but deliberate. A corner of his mouth quirks up, sharper this time, more like an acknowledgment than a smile.

“You make it sound heroic,” he says dryly, lifting his sunglasses, the golden rim catching the sunlight. “Sailing halfway across the realms, helping strangers… next thing'll have me rescuing lost puppies, too.” He pauses, eyes flicking to the way the light scatters across the water, restless yet steady.

“It isn’t always simple,” he admits after a beat, voice quiet now, roughened by thought rather than intent. “Sometimes people choose to stay close, 'n make you realize… solitude’s not really yours to keep, an' so you just try to leave things better than you found them.” The words hang, too solemn to be a boast.

Then, leaning back just enough to catch a stronger breeze, he nods toward the horizon. “You know,” he says, smirk threading through the roughness of his tone, “for someone who nearly packed it in, you make it look… easy.” He lets the compliment hang, understated, genuine, not the kind that demands thanks. “What keeps you going when the cost is so high?” If it had cost her love and life. 

karma's a relaxing thought, aren't you envious that for you it's not?

Flora lets herself notice the solidity of him where her shoulder presses against his arm, the heat of the sun mixing with the firm line of muscle beneath his shirt. When he doesn’t shift away, her nose wrinkles with easy amusement and she tilts her head up, nodding in emphatic agreement. "All you need now is a damsel in distress to rescue and fall madly in love with," she teases, her grin flashing bright, "then you’ll have the perfect storybook ending."

But as his words turn heavier, her own smile slips, her gaze drawn back out to the restless glitter of the ocean. She nibbles the inside of her cheek, a small grounding habit, and nods softly. "No, it isn’t," she agrees. The things he says—about solitude’s fragility, about leaving things better—make her glance up at him without her usual armour, unguarded for a beat too long. The closeness of it sits uncomfortably near in her chest, so she lifts her glass and lets the rum’s brightness give her a reason to look away, to swallow more than just the liquor.

When he says she makes it look easy, her laugh bursts out sharper and louder than she expects, a bark of surprise that crinkles the corners of her eyes. "Thanks," she says, shaking her head as though it’s almost ridiculous, "but the trick’s just being really good at faking nearly everything." She beams up at him as she says it, daring him with her eyes to try and read whether there’s any truth in the shine of her smile. Then the breath leaves her chest in a longer exhale, carrying far more than just air.

"Honestly?" she shrugs, lifting one bare shoulder, her grin softening into something more earnest. "Stubbornness, most days." Plenty of people still didn't believe in Flora, and proving them wrong kept her company more often than not when the nights grew long and her bed felt wildly empty. "Don't get me wrong, I do care about Torchline a lot, but I'd be lying if I said that what got me out of bed in the mornings were purely altruistic reasons."

Damien

oh, let's take a chance and roll the bones
try to forget all them enemies and debts

Damien huffs out a short laugh at her storybook line, more gravel than mirth, but he doesn’t look away. “If that’s the ending, then somebody else is writing the story,” he says, and though it’s dry, there’s a pause in his cadence and footfalls that admits he isn’t dismissing the thought entirely. Certainly wary of it.

Her laugh hits sharp, her grin daring him, and Damien watches her ride it out, head canted, like he’s trying to weigh whether she really means it about faking. When she lands on stubbornness, though, that pulls a genuine twitch of his mouth, like she’d just named something he knew too well.

“That’s not faking. That’s survival.” His gaze cuts back toward the sea, following the restless gleam of the waves as if the ocean itself might agree. “People like to dress it up, make it sound noble—call it selflessness, sacrifice, all that bullshit. But half the time? Folks just do what they gotta do to get out of bed, same as you said. Nothin’ wrong in that.”

He shifts his weight as he walks, shoulders rolling, the sunglasses catching a glint of sunlight as he tips them back into place. There’s no sermon in his tone, no lecture, just the blunt honesty of someone who’s long since stopped apologizing for it. “I get it. Doing things for yourself isn’t the same as being selfish… you ever feel like the world doesn’t make that distinction?” 

karma's a relaxing thought, aren't you envious that for you it's not?

Flora laughs, the sound bright and unbothered even through the pause between them. She can imagine well enough what his storybook ending might look like—and how spectacularly wrong-footed it would be to pigeon-hole a damsel into it—but she smiles up at him anyway, shoulders lifting in a loose shrug. "Some of the best things in life show up when you stop trying to write your own story so rigidly," she says, the words easy but not without meaning. "So who knows. Maybe keep your eyes peeled for damsels, just in case." The nudge she gives his arm lands lighter this time, more companionable than teasing.

At his remark about faking being survival, she only shrugs again, not offering outright agreement but not contradicting him either. The Doubletake had never been called that for nothing—her ability to fool others had been armour, not art. It was a truth she carried, whether she wanted to admit it aloud or not.

His distinction between selfishness and survival earns a hum of thought from her, her lips quirking wryly. "Oh, for sure," she agrees, tipping her glass in a half-toast, "but the world’s very good at making that distinction when it suits other people. Not so much when it’s about you." With a crooked smile, she jerks her chin back toward the beach where they’d first stepped off the sand, a silent cue that they ought to wander that way again.

"It’s a fine balance," she continues as they move, her bare feet sinking into warm sand where the tide hasn’t reached. "Not giving a shit what people think, but still knowing when to take good advice. Can’t say I’m the best at walking that particular tightrope—" her grin flashes crooked as she glances up at him, "—but I’m getting better."

The rum sparkles low in her blood, heat and light thrumming steady through her, and she feels the ease between them settle into something she can risk leaning into. She tilts her head, eyes glinting with challenge as much as curiosity. "Go on, then. What’s your biggest character flaw at the moment?"

Damien

oh, let's take a chance and roll the bones
try to forget all them enemies and debts
'cause they'll just chase you round
and give you sour dreams

Damien gives a small grunt of amusement, not quite a laugh. The kind that comes more from his chest than his throat. The nudge she gives him earns the faintest tilt of his arm back toward hers. "You may be right." His brow tips up, humor edging his voice as he adds, “Tell you what. If one falls out of the sky, I’ll try not to scare her off.” He shakes his head faintly.

As she tips her glass in that wry toast, he’d probably feel the tug of recognition—the kind that knots in the gut when someone else names something you’ve felt but never cared to frame out loud. He wouldn’t say it, but he’d note how easily she read the same line between survival and selfishness he’d drawn for himself years ago. Not agreement for agreement’s sake. He’d follow her lead toward the beach without protest, even pausing to take off his boots and carry them in one hand so he might enjoy the feel of the sand. His silence was less about disinterest than giving her words room to breathe.

Damien huffs through his nose, the faintest crooked grin tugging at his mouth as he looks back up. “Just one? That’s generous.” He scratches at his jaw, pretending to weigh the options, but his eyes are sharp with humor. “Biggest right now?” He exhales through his teeth, like it’s an admission he doesn’t quite want to give. “Probably that I don’t see what’s right in front of me until it’s gone. Good people, good chances… doesn’t matter. I’m usually too busy looking over the next hill to notice.”

He lets that hang for a beat, the honesty raw enough to sting, before tilting his head her way. “Or it's that I eat like a raccoon in the wild. Depends who you ask.” The smirk that follows is self-aware, an easy out if she wants to laugh instead of linger on the weight of what he just gave her. And if part of him hoped to hear her laughter again, carried light across the coastal air, that was a truth he kept to himself. 

karma's a relaxing thought, aren't you envious that for you it's not?

Flora chuckles, tipping her head his way with a sly shrug. "Well hey, at least that means you’re always looking up, right?" The double meaning lingers, her grin cheeky.

When Damien stoops to tug off his boots, her own smile stretches wide, unguarded in its pleasure at seeing him give in to the beach properly. "Mmh, nope," she says with a snicker, "you only get one flaw for free. Anything else, you’ve gotta earn." She sneaks a glance at him over her shoulder as she angles back into the shallows, waves curling over her ankles, cool ribbons of foam threading between her steps.

"Maybe you just need glasses," she teases, though her smirk tilts softer, more lopsided, as she nods in understanding. "Hindsight’s a real bitch like that." She pulls in a breath, the salty air threading into her chest, and though she doesn’t pretend to know all the complexities of what Damien means or what he's endured to bring him to this point in his life, she thinks she understands enough. "Sounds like you need to keep your eyes up for damsels," she says lightly, "but also on what's underfoot."

Her shoulder bumps his again, gentler this time. "Take it from someone who was literally murdered while on a birthday vacation—you rarely have as much time as you think. No point in looking that far ahead." The words fall with a casual rhythm, but the weight beneath them is unmistakable; from Flora's lips, saying you never knew how much time you had left was anything but a platitude.

His deflection about eating like a raccoon earns a bright peel of laughter from her, head tipping back into the sunlight. "If that’s your biggest flaw," she grins, eyes glittering aqua as she looks up at him, "then you must be doing something right."

Damien

oh, let's take a chance and roll the bones
try to forget all them enemies and debts
'cause they'll just chase you round
and give you sour dreams

Damien lets her laughter linger, the sound catching in his chest more than he’d admit. He shakes his head, the corner of his mouth lifting just faintly. “Yeah? Guess that means my reputation is still intact, then,” he says, smirking. He gives a soft grunt, eyes tracking the foam curling over her ankles, the light in the water reflecting in a way that almost makes him forget the chill. Almost.

“Speaking of keeping an eye on things…” His gaze flicks to her, steady but not insistent. “Your new place—housewarming, or whatever you’re calling it—any chance you’ll be having… company? Wouldn’t mind seeing it properly, once the dust has settled. I'll even bring you a bottle of the good stuff from Halo.” He doesn’t linger on the invitation, doesn’t push it; it’s a simple opening, casual but sincere.

“And… on the matter of repayment, for the timber, take your time,” he adds after a beat, voice careful, not boastful, not awkward. "Though I wouldn't say no to some exotic goods.” Exotic if only to him, being the Halovian woodsman he is. If there happened to be a few bottles of that Torchline rum in the deal for him, well, he wouldn't complain.

He shifts his weight, looking out over the waves for a long moment, letting the conversation hang between them like the tide. Then, almost on a whim, he glances back at her, smirk faint, roughened by thought. “Y'know, you’re easy to talk to, Flora. Not… many people are. Just thought you should know.”

With that, he tucks his hands in his pockets and takes pause, letting the warmth of the sun and the sound of the surf fill the pause. 

karma's a relaxing thought, aren't you envious that for you it's not?

Flora’s smile flares bright, followed by a theatrical widening of her eyes as if she’s been scandalously accused. "Of course I’m having a party," she laughs, tossing her braid over one shoulder. "What kind of queen would I be if I didn’t?" At the mention of whiskey, she rolls her eyes skyward, aqua flashing with humour. "Great, I can use it if I ever need to start a fire." Laughing, her voice softens as she grins up at him. "I'll send your invitation with a +1, just in case a damsel falls out of the sky between now and then."

At the talk of repayment, her grin goes sly, mischief blooming quick. "Exotic goods, hmm? I’ll see what I can do. Might even slip in a few scandalous magazines from the Halenani. Warm you up just as well as your whiskey, I promise." The smirk that follows dares him to rise to the bait, her teeth flashing white against the rum-rosy colour in her cheeks.

When the compliment comes, she doesn’t let it linger long enough to weigh the air down. Instead she bumps her shoulder into his again, playful, brushing it off with ease. "You’re just saying that in the hopes of making me a repeat customer," she teases, holding up a finger in mock warning. "Lucky for you, I’m already planning expansions."

As they wander back toward the piles of timber stacked neatly on the sand, she slows, letting the sight of it fill her with the satisfaction of progress. The bones of her dream home, waiting. She tips her glass lightly in his direction, her grin softened with gratitude. "Thank you, Damien, really." Running her hand against one of the beams, the rough grain catching against her rings, she sighs with delight before tipping Damien a smile that was both crooked and alive with rum and salt.

~FIN