[SE] 'Cause I'm on my bullshit like a matador

Used to keep it cool, used to be a fool

Offering up the best word in an adult's arsenal, Kaisel launches an attack on her eagerness. "Maybe." The lack of commitment means he hasn't made any promise for her to turn against him, nor has he denied her, which should allow the thing to be put to bed until he's certain she'll be distracted by a new, shiny thing before long.

He has never dived so eagerly into flower crowns as now for this reason, hoping the craft will busy her body and mind enough that other matters will simply, fall away. "I think we have enough to make two crowns each," he declares, and suspects she'll be making one for her mother as well as herself, while he'd braid one for Flora and himself.

At her query for confirmation, he leans over, properly giving her arrangement the notice it deserves. "Just like that!" he concludes the inspection. "Great job Knell-bell," he beams, proud that she's picked it up so readily. "Then you grab the outer stems in one hand, the inner stems in the other, and cross and tuck them like sooooo," he says, once again moving across his own flower stems. He glances up from his work to watch her attempt at the fine art of braiding.

Kaisel

All about the bounce in my step

Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle.

The mind of a child is a combination of sieves and vaults. Useless scraps of information - like math and the benefits of brushing your teeth - find themselves dumped into a pile of mangled understandings that get filtered out via a single yawn. However, important information - like the best type of cheesecake or the mention of a legitimate unsolved mystery waiting to be solved - slip easily into a steel vault kept under lock, guard, and key that can't be circumvented by any attempts at distraction. 

Although she takes the 'maybe' as a good sign she'll be traversing Starfall by morning, her eventual disappointment will only be brief, replaced by a determination to force him into taking her or find a way on her own. After all, mysteries were made to be solved. 

But for the moment, flower crowns will buy Kai some time, her attention shifting to the hyacinths spread across the counter. She puts her knees under her, elbows propped on the surface while she arranges the stems. Kai's approval and subsequent nickname elicit a beaming smile and a delighted giggle. "Thanks Kai-" she pauses with pinched concentration before alighting with "fry!"

Once her giggling dies down, she hops between watching him braid and doing it herself. It's not as pretty this time, and she has to fix things when she skips a stem on occasion, but it's... progress. Still, Knell frowns softly at the stems that have been broken or folded in her efforts, noticing how it's not nearly as nice as Kai's.

Knell

They read it to get to the end.