[se] disclosure

flora

Feeling her stomach flutter, Flora forces the smile that wants to tug at her lips into something far more poised, and, dare she hope it, mature. "I don't need to come up with clever names for fucking you." She says, meeting his gaze only once she trusts her lips not to betray her, not knowing that her thoughts had already done that tenfold. No doubt it won't make it passed the captain's notice that the night he'd fucked her on the beach for all to see was easily one of her favourite moments to think of when she was alone in bed. Or even when she wasn't.

"As long as he's still a dragoon we should be careful." Flora advises. "Only because he still falls under Dahlia, and after her entrance at the Ball, we want to stay as far from her bad side as we can get." Which was why Flora had invited the Reaper to the Hanged Man for a drink. Surely there was nothing a bit of booze couldn't smooth over, even if Stormbreak's queen was on a mission to take over everything within her reach.

Staying put until Jack had appropriately moored them, Flora stood, trying not to overcorrect in her attempt to balance, before gratefully reaching out for Jack's hand.

"That said, if you have any advice on dealing with someone like her..." Someone with no enemies and who held all the cards and then some. "-I'm all ears." Flora wasn't keen to see Torchine handed over to Dahlia, but nor did she think they were in any position to just outright defy the Reaper if and when she came to their shores.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"I don't think you have ever fucked me," Jack counters, eyes glittering with mischief and a hint of challenge. "I'm usually the one taking that role." If their moment on the beach at Longnight is anything to go by, anyway. Still, he's more than happy to be proved wrong in that arena - or to correct it, if that's what Flora wants. Anyway.

Helping her onto the shore before promptly shrugging out of his coat to toss it over the side of the rowboat (the jungle doesn't get as cold as the high seas at Deepfrost, as one might easily guess), the captain grumbles and rolls his eyes at her caution. Both very much accustomed to being careful but also wildly impulsive and dangerous - and such is the dichotomy of Jack Barclay - he can understand Flora's point even if he doesn't like it. "Fine," he intones, before leading them deeper into the humidity and thick foliage.

As for his advice, he hasn't been close enough to Dahlia and her ilk (for very good reason) to give particularly bespoke details - but he knows the sitution well enough. "Keep your knife covered in silk," he says with an easy shrug, raking bronze hair out of his eyes as they duck beneath a few vines. "Be her best friend, until you're in a position to show yourself as her enemy. If that's the way you wanna do things."

you wanted perfect, you got your perfect
but now I'm too perfect for someone like you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

"Oh I see." Looking appropriately put in her place, if only because the more she thinks about it, the more correct Jack becomes, the Doubletake grins crookedly before pursing her lips together and shrugging one shoulder. "Pity that we've traded your ship with a bed for a rowboat and a poisoned jungle." Though fucking on a bed was far from one of Flora's normal requirements, it was a bit harder for a woman to fuck a man standing up. Quickly her mind had Flora pressed against a tree, her pants tugged down and her jacket lifted just enough to give the captain access to her thighs. The tree shook as Jack pressed himself inside of her, and...well. That just proved the captain's point, she supposed, swallowing.

Unless she had her own penis, which...was that even possible? She'd have to ask Mateo.

Opting to keep her coat, it was part of her overall outfit after all, Flora would quickly regret her choice as jungle vines and leaves sweating from the humidity reached out to tug against the thick leather jacket. "A knife covered in silk." Flora repeats thoughtfully, batting away a particularly gropey vine. "I like that." Hadama probably wouldn't, but given how he'd misjudged the situation with Dahlia and Maea, Flora thought she'd earned the right to follow her own intuition on this one.

"I've asked her to come for a drink so we could chat." Flora offered. "I figure with my compass, invisibility, and my dads just a call away, I should be okay."

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Quite a pity," Jack agrees with a sly smile over his shoulder at her, before he takes the lead in navigating the jungle. His hands rest comfortably in his pockets and condensed air magic razors the way before him, slicing at anything that might try to get in his way. It gives him more than enough headspace to enjoy the picture Flora is painting in her mind, whether or not that includes a penis of her own. Indeed, with raised eyebrows and a smirk the Doubletake won't see, it takes more effort than Jack would like to refocus on the conversation at hand.

"I thought you would," he drawls, slowing his steps as they grow closer to the Peepholes and hearing out her plans for Dahlia. "What do you reckon you'll chat about?" he asks. He doesn't add anything stupid or hero-ey, like do you want me to be there or is there anything I can do, because Jack isn't about to put his hide on the line for a knife covered in silk.

"We're here," he adds as the strange, man-shaped holes suddenly sprawl out before them, tucked right at the bottom of the Undergrove.

you wanted perfect, you got your perfect
but now I'm too perfect for someone like you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

"Mostly what her plans are, if she'll share." Flora explains, hovering in Jack's wake to try and take advantage of the way his magic cuts a path through the jungle. "Rae said that they were here to take over everything, but so far it doesn't seem like that means killing all of us. I mean, look at Stormbreak." From everything Mateo had said thus far, not much had changed so long as you didn't openly oppose Dahlia. "And I know she beat up my dad, but honestly...it isn't like she's the first." And he'd been the one to sneak around Starfall first, so..

Trailing off as Jack announces they'd arrived, Flora peers over his shoulders with a slight grimace. "Where do they lead?" She wonders of dark holes. "And what even made them?" They were just irregular enough to look natural, but equally Flora had never heard of a species of giant mole living in the jungle, and that was the only sort of creature that came to mind.

That or a giant snake.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

Unable to help it, Jack's smile takes on a very sly and satisfied edge, and he gazes over his shoulder to look at Flora properly. "You're a lot cleverer than anyone gives you credit," he tells her quietly - because even without telepathy, he can sense the train of her thoughts and where he thinks the end of them might lead. "Why directly oppose Dahlia if lettin' her get on with her plans in peace keeps you alive, right?" Oh, it's absolutely not the most noble outcome, and nor is it one Jack suspects Torchline's do-gooders will ever go for.

But it is the smartest course of action.

As for the Peepholes and what made them, the captain shrugs and bats at the thick and overhanging vines to get down towards the holes themselves. "Some of 'em are filled with water. They head straight to the Mistbanks. Heard there was a big basilisk in one before the war, too," he says. "People just tend to hide things in 'em, though. There are weird stories about that, too." Not that Jack is all that interested - he just wants what he came for.

Which - lo and behold - there it is; a non-descript package nestled against one of the entrances to the holes, an elegant J scrawled on the paper.

It's a shame, then, that as the good captain reaches for it, some of the surrounding vines take offence. Some of the more void-touched ones. And given that Jack can't read the thoughts of weird and sentient plants, as a nether vine snakes around his neck and yanks upwards, there's shit all he can do about it.

you wanted perfect, you got your perfect
but now I'm too perfect for someone like you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

Lifting her eyes to meet his, Flora finds herself momentarily trapped in the dangerous blue waters of Jack's gaze. Quite how he was able to make her feel as though she was treading water in a vast ocean even as they strolled through the jungle, she had no idea, but gods he did and it had her wanting to reach out for him all the more. Instead, she smirked, rolling her eyes a touch playfully. "I'll let the heroes deal with the Family and until then, I'll just try and keep a bullseye from being drawn on Torchline." Of course with one of those heroesdown with a member of the Family, it seemed a worthwhile tactic.

"Sounds...lovely." Not able to stop herself, Flora imagines dead bodies tossed inside only to reach back out with groping decaying fingers; spiders with too many legs and eyes skittering about; the low moans of a landshark deep beneath the surface.

"J—" Cutting off her cry as it came too late, Flora shoved her hands toward her pockets where her daggers were kept. Reaching for two, she took a step back and flung them up toward the vine that was currently acting as a noose. If she missed, and honestly with such a small target she probably would, Flora would recall the daggers into her waiting hands with the hopes of slicing the vine on their way back.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

Later, in the confines of his bed (or from Mort's realm, perhaps, who can tell at the moment), Jack will reflect on the pure luck that prevented the vine from snapping his neck entirely with the force it yanks him up and into the canopy of the jungle. With teeth clenched around what little air remains in his lungs, one of the captain's hands instinctively goes for the vine squeezing his throat, even as his air magic lances to and fro to try and sever its grip.

It's probably the magic, too, that causes Flora's knives to go off the mark, by which time, hello, another vine has come to latch around Jack's arm. There's a sharp crack - it's his wrist, not that he can tell anyone about it - before the Doubletake's blades come back to finish the job Jack has started. Able to hitch in a lungful of fresh air (and finding himself dangling from broken bones, but more on that later), at least the captain doesn't waste a moment.

"Flora, run," he bellows in a voice suited to yelling across the busy deck of a ship. Meanwhile both air and water attempt to freeze and slice him free, as well as batting away any other too friendly nether vines coming to investigate.

you wanted perfect, you got your perfect
but now I'm too perfect for someone like you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

Flora isn't a hero and Jack, for whatever place he occupies in her heart or between her thighs, isn't worth dying for. Then again, as if she'd worn shoes made for running.

Twisting the ring on her finger to render herself invisible, the Doubletake once again threw her daggers, focused more on the nosey vines that were slithering towards Jack rather than the one grasping his wrist. If nothing else she thought it would buy him a bit more time before anything else tried to tangle itself around him.

That she couldn't be seen didn't mean that Jack wouldn't be aware she hadn't left, and no doubt through the flurry of his own thoughts he'd heard Flora calculating whether or not she'd be able to slip her compass into Jack's hand so that he could just magically yeet himself back to Torchline. It would mean she'd have to get the boat back to the Ark, but she couldn't manage that on her own, right?

Right??

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

You know what? Fair.

He might have gotten angry about Flora's haha interpretation of his shout if he didn't know all too well the type of footwear the Doubletake is likely to have worn to their outing. Or who knows, maybe he wouldn't have - Jack is a little too focused on staying alive right now to be aware of much beyond his own thoughts.

With that being said, he does notice the knives lance through the air nearby and Flora sort-of-but-not getting the fuck out of dodge, and the nether vines are distracted enough for him to get free. Granted, that means he falls a not-so-clever distance onto the jungle floor, but fuck it. Alive, remember?

Huffing a few wheezing breaths and getting unsteady feet beneath him, one of the captain's eyes is flooded red from the capilliaries bursting, and his left wrist is at an angle best described as hella janky. He's already on the move, though, and it's with an error in judgement that he'll later consider entirely justified that he reaches out with his good hand to snag Flora's (invisible) wrist, pulling her along with him.

you wanted perfect, you got your perfect
but now I'm too perfect for someone like you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

Wincing as Jack falls to the ground, but yes, alive, the Doubletake is already on the move to try and help hasten his departure. It doesn't occur to her to shout hey I'm invisible or even to twist her ring again given the utter chaos unfolding around them. Perhaps a surprise to them both as Jack reaches to grab her, the first thing that comes to the Doubletake's mind isn't how the fuck has he done that, it's, "—do you have the package?" Gods knew they'd be trudging right the fuck back if he hadn't, broken wrist and bloody eye or not.

Recalling her daggers to her other hand, Flora lobs them back toward the Peepholes once more, recalling them a final time once she was nearly out of their range to deter any nearby vines from getting any ideas about following them.

"Fuck sake." The queen pants, sliding her arm around Jack's waist in an effort to try and provide some support. She really should start carrying fountain water with her, but hindsight wasn't doing her any favours just now. "Are you okay?"

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"We wouldn't be runnin' if I didn't," Jack grates out; luckily said package sits safe in his pocket, small enough not to have to worry about fumbling with it. Glancing fleetingly over his shoulder as Flora's blades lance out behind them, he spots some angrily retreating nether vines and treats them to a well placed wall of ice, the magic raw and unsophisticated and likely using a great deal more energy than it should. Panic's a funny thing though, hey.

"Fountain water won't work outside the islands," he reminds her, voice rough but his steps steady, even if the pounding in his head and burning in his lungs isn't the best. He doesn't need either of those things to carry him back to the beach, but that being said, he's still grateful for her steadying arm around his waist. "I will be," he mutters as the canopy starts to thin, revealing the beach in the near distance.

"Didn't realise the void was takin' over the Oerwoud too."

you wanted perfect, you got your perfect
but now I'm too perfect for someone like you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

flora

"Just checking." Flora huffs invisibly at his side. It was altogether too easy to forget about being invisible when you were looking ahead. Not unlike the way your eyes just blur out the presence of your nose, if you weren't actively thinking about what your hands looked like or whether you could normally see your legs moving as you walked, it just wasn't the sort of thing that would otherwise grab your attention. Not after seeing Jack strung up by the jungle, anyway.

"It..?" Frowning slightly—had she said that out loud?—Flora just shook her head. "Right. All the more reason to have those items stashed on the Ark, huh?" Laughing nervously, she twisted her ring using her other fingers. "Yeah. It's probably what led to that thing rolling up onto the beach a few days ago. My brother said he saw a smaller version of it in the jungle."

Exhaling with relief and having not realized that she'd been holding her breath every few steps, once she saw the beach Flora felt as though she could relax again. With that sense of security, the queen did something that felt very silly. Hey Jack? She thought.

My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Mm. Didn't expect 'em to be so important so quickly," Jack mutters regarding the as-of-yet non-existent cache of healing items aboard his ship. Wrinkling his nose at the news that the ball of void nonsense on Torchline's beach had likely come from the jungle, if the captain hadn't just brushed his knuckles against the door to Mort's halls, he might have been more interested in potential ways to keep the void shit out here where it belonged.

But then the beach is upon them and Jack lets himself step away from Flora, trudging across the sand until he can flop down to sit next to their rowboat. In the distance, the Ark is still a steady and visible presence, her ruddy sails fully down to keep her from drifting too far. Feeling far too dizzy and unsteady yet to row them back toward her, instead Jack examines his thoroughly fucked wrist. Hissing out a curse and biting back a grunt of pain as he gingerly touches it, as Flora calls out to him, it's unclear even to the captain whether he responds knowingly to her thoughts.

"What, Flora?" he mutters, trying to force his wrist to straighten out somewhat.

you wanted perfect, you got your perfect
but now I'm too perfect for someone like you

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!