place your hant in mine

Flora

"What, like get a shave and a haircut?" Flora jokes as they leave behind the warmth of Frey's Breath and instead head toward the hellish humidity of the Burrows. "Cause I'm pretty handy with a pair of scissors and a razor." She adds with a laugh that echoes off of the walls as they begin to narrow.

"No I know, but..." While she can't quite articulate it, the queen lets a barrage of memories flash behind her eyes as she recalls the various trials and tribulations that Ludo had put her dad through. Once upon a time he hadn't been a hero type, but still he'd found himself in pole position #1 in the last war, and was currently the only person to have ever visited Starfall.

'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

”Are you sayin’ that I need a shave and a haircut?” Jack fires back with a sly raise of his eyebrows. Given that they’re most of the way through Flowerbirth, it’s about the time where the captain would take a knife to his bronze hair now that it’s starting to curl past his shoulders, but he’ll be damned if he goes to one of Haulani’s many salons about it. Regardless, Flora, no, it isn’t for that.

”Last time I saw Safrin was a mess,” he explains, ”and I’ve a feelin’ this time’ll be just the same. Havin’ front row seats into a goddess’s mind?” Jack winces. ”Ain’t somethin’ even I’d wish on someone.” And he’s a downright murderous bastard when it calls for it, so she knows he means business.

As for Melita, the captain gives Flora a gentle elbow. ”Ludo didn’t ever give your father the ability to create rubber ducks on a whim either, did he?” he reminds her. ”I feel as though their purposes are different. She’ll be fine.”

you're the last of a dying breed; write our names in the wet concrete
I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Glancing over her shoulder, the queen lets her eyes slowly drip from Jack's hairline down to the collar of his shirt and then back up again. "If you want to impress a goddess like Safrin?" She raises an eyebrow, her lips twisting into a smirk. "Yes." The good captain had been working his way through ruggedly handsome during Deepfrost and was now right on the doorstep of homeless crack whore.

"Worse than Dahlia's?" In terms of raw power Flora thought Safrin would likely win, but when it came to the actual content of their respective thoughts? If Flora's mind was filled with fireworks, Safrin's was likely like a meteor shower, whereas Dahlia's was probably closer to an atomic bomb.

Glancing over her shoulder at Jack, Flora shrugs stubbornly. "I wonder how many people can actually channel her..." She muses softly. She could, as could Talyson. Could Koa? "Oh, speaking of--" Not that they had been, but if he wanted to Jack would likely be able to follow the strand of who could channel Melita, to Melita, and then to Maea. "Do you know someone called Maea? I saved her life a week or so ago." Raising her eyebrows, Flora's thoughts turn cunning and careful as she shoves forward the memories of what had happened in the desert, both in terms of having saved Maea as well as having tried to hide that it was Mel who'd shot her twice.

'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

“I have already impressed a goddess like Safrin, thank you,” Jack says with a raise of his eyebrows at Flora, tracking her aqua blues as they run down the length of his face and back again. Granted, whilst once upon a time he’d not have let anyone near him with a razor, these days he might just consider it for the Doubletake. “Go on then. What would you do?” he wants to know, tilting his head as he continues to follow after her. 

Granted, as the conversation turns to Safrin and Dahlia, of all people, it’s with a wrinkle of his nose that Jack shakes his head. “Nowhere near the same level,” he says of the Reaper. “Safrin is like starin’ into a black hole, or listenin’ to the heartbeat of a star. I’ll need scrapin’ off the ground afterwards.” If last time had been any indication, anyway. 

Jack has to run his fingers through his hair to dispel the residual memories of Safrin, and so talk of Melita and the potential for her being channeled is a welcome distraction - as is Maea, of all people. “Think I met someone like that once. Real pale?” He tilts his head, letting Flora’s memories wash over him and nodding, confirming that they seem like the same person.

“You wanna make good on that favour?” He assumes.

you're the last of a dying breed; write our names in the wet concrete
I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

"Okay, continue to impress a goddess like Safrin." Flora amends with a roll of her eyes.

Glancing over her shoulder at him, though her gaze rakes over him once more, this time her thoughts are more focused and less flirtatious. She takes in the sun burnt ends, the salty highlights, the lacklustre waves. "Much as I like having something to grab when I run my fingers through your hair, you do have a lot of split ends." Flora points out. "And unless you're going to start conditioning your hair, they've got to go." A few inches, at least. "I am good with scissors, though." She adds more emphatically this time. He'd seen her with her daggers if nothing else.

It wasn't the heartbeat of a star description that made the Doubletake's steps falter for just a step, desperately beautifully as those words were, it was the scraping him off of the ground that had Flora's mouth going a touch dry. Competing with the likes of Aurelia or the whores at the Halenani were one thing, but Safrin? Clearing her throat Flora just nods as she sips in a deep breath and were such a thing possible, she'd have mentally flicked Jack away from her current thoughts.

Luckily talk of Maea has Flora's thoughts hardening sufficiently that she's able to look at the captian again with a straight face. 'Super pale.' She confirms. "I suppose I wondered what you'd do." The queen admits. "I figure that if I use my favour too soon I might not make the most of it, but if I wait too long..." Maea seemed like the type to try and shrug off having her life saved if too much time went by.

"I feel like if anyone knows where the sweet spot is, it's you." She says, unable to stop the way her mind fills with a dirty laugh rather suggestive thoughts, and the apologetically helpless way she shrugs at him says she knows as much.

'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

Raising his eyebrows, the words a lot of what? might as well be audible to Flora for all that Jack’s expression says it anyway. The captain, funnily enough, does not spend a lot of time in the minds of hairdressers or aestheticians, and so Flora’s knowledge in such an arena might be a valuable if not dangerous string to add to his bow. For now, at least, he shrugs to her and is willing to let her near him with scissors - which is a lot of trust, by the way - and thus considers the matter closed for now.

Instead, tilting his head at the unexpected slant of the Doubletake’s thoughts, Jack almost reaches for her, but instead contents himself with snorting out a laugh. ”You’ll see. It ain’t pretty,” is all he says, because somewhere deep inside himself, the captain doesn’t believe Flora would want to reduce him to a sorry mess in the same way Safrin does.

As for Maea, though, the captain tilts his head, and his response when it comes is both blunt and easy. ”I’d probably speak to her now, make sure she knows she owes you. Then when you’re ready to cash in the favour, make it clear that you can take make what you gave her if she ain’t inclined to play along.” What’s a casual death threat between acquaintances after all?

you're the last of a dying breed; write our names in the wet concrete
I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Rolling her eyes in response, had their current conversation not been predicated on Flora's fears of losing Jack and Melita to some vague and violet threat, she might have reached for the captain and pulled one of his split ends apart so he could see the damage for himself. Instead she merely grinned, more to herself than to him, imagining the sorts of mischief she could get up to while cutting his hair.

Pressing her teeth together, the queen's aqua gaze darkens somewhat as she stands a touch taller, not quite able to parse Jack's tone to assess just how bad not pretty would be. "So...by prepare you mean..." Getting drunk? Stoned? Bringing a wheelbarrow for Flora to take him home in? If Safrin wasn't the sort of deity to find fault in Jack having someone speak to her on his behalf, Flora would have happily saved him the trouble.

"I honestly think she's hiding out on my dad's houseboat right now." Flora murmurs tersely, her lip curling up in a half sneer to imagine Remi and Ronin waiting on the ancient as she ReCoVeRed. The implication of this being that it might be difficult for Flora to have the necessary sort of conversation Jack had suggested with the Knight and Bastion constantly around. I have a feeling if she says anything at all about it, she might try and blame Melita. Flora thinks. The burrows certainly seemed empty enough, but there was no need to risk it when strolling along with someone like Jack. Mel's second arrow had already hit her I'm pretty sure, and then she did something. It nearly killed someone else too, but... Shaking her head, Flora glances over her shoulder toward Jack before sighing.

I should have pulled Mel's arrows out of her before Remi and Ronin came. I thought I'd have more time, but.. She'd given the order to bring the Knight to her and had expected a few moments where she could yank the arrows out (or at least snap off the fletching), when Remi had just...appeared.

'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

Narrowing his eyes briefly - he can decide against allowing her anywhere near him as quickly as he'd agreed to it, after all - Jack gives a somewhat brusque shrug in response to her question. Not pretty ought to have been enough, he thinks, and expanding on that too much just reminds him of how bad things had been the last time Safrin had gotten in his head. "Just... try an' be there to pick me up when we're done, and make sure I get back to The Ark," he says quietly, wrinkling his nose.

She'd see soon enough, after all.

Anyway - back to Maea and the problematic nature of Melita's arrows being buried in her back (or front, either way). Falling predictably quiet to listen to Flora's thoughts, Jack tilts his head and considers the situation in the same way as one might consider what to have for dinner. "I mean, I'd prob'ly not bring that up at all," he says in a low voice, despite knowing that no one is in immediate earshot.

"That way if she does try to blame Mel, it's all comin' from her. You can be ready with a denial right away." And if she doesn't, Flora hasn't opened a box of worms unnecessarily.

you're the last of a dying breed; write our names in the wet concrete
I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

It's times like this that Flora would have once been inclined to play it cool, and just offer Jack a little nod over her shoulder while quietly letting her thoughts churn. Only now that such illusions had been shattered, the queen can only try and dim the concern that spears like lightning through her thoughts and try to wait until she was out of his orbit to try and guess at how many people had ever heard the captain describe needing to be scraped or picked up off the ground.

"Alright." Flora agrees, sighing slowly. It's good advice of course, and while she wouldn't have expected anything less from Jack, a not-insubstantial part of Flora's mind is still inclined to really lay things on thick with Maea. Likely the feeling would fade once she was home and sneaking onto her father's houseboat under the guise of checking up on the ancient, but for now thoughts of revenge were far easier to focus on than what sort of state Jack might be in after meeting with Safrin.

"I have some things to do in King's End if you wanted to meet me there? There's a shrine in the Barrows." The Doubletake's mind envisions the shrine at midnight when the grasses look blue-black beneath the starlight. No doubt Jack would prefer a shrine he could sail to, and if she was going to need a shovel to pick him up afterward, better they be far from Torchline.

'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did

Code stolen from Queen Sky

JACK

Shoving his hands in his pockets and finding himself following along at Flora's side without any interest in delving into the details of what they're about to do, Jack nods at her suggestion of King's End. "It'll look good if I start makin' trips now, too," he adds. If he's going to head off into the great blue yonder for who knows how long, anyway. If The Ark starts nipping here and there before a big departure, it would be more plausible.

And so with that said and done, the captain picks up his pace as he spots the opening out of The Burrows up ahead. Already sweat is beading down the back of his neck, and he has no interest in lurking in The Climb for longer than absolutely necessary. Especially if there's a shrine to visit sooner rather than later.

~FIN

you're the last of a dying breed; write our names in the wet concrete
I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

Code stolen from Queen Sky