funny how true colours shine in darkness and secrecy

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

set pre tower-fall

---

The Wildwood hums around her, alive with birdsong and the soft crackle of shifting paths, its tangled canopy lit gold by the late light of day. It’s golden hour in every sense—too warm, too lovely, too deceptive—as if the forest itself is trying to distract her with beauty, like it always does when things are about to hurt.

Flora sits with her back pressed against an old tree, one wide and knotted enough to hold the weight of memories. Her name and Enzo’s are carved into the bark in familiar loops, softened by time and weather and the brushes of fingers that once belonged to children who thought they’d never grow apart. Her hand lingers over the grooves now, tracing the curve of her twin’s name with a reverence that says everything she doesn’t speak aloud.

She hadn’t dressed up, not really—just a soft cream tank tucked loosely into a pair of cut-off shorts, casual enough to say this wasn’t a clandestine meeting, flattering enough to hope she didn’t look like she was trying. Her gold rings catch the last of the light each time her fingers twitch restlessly, fussing with a loose thread near the hem. Flora's curls fall free around her shoulders, kissed by sunlight and stirred gently by the breeze, and somewhere above her, Spice perches on a low-hanging branch, pale tail wrapped neatly around the bark as the little dragon keeps watch for Koa—and maybe Pip too.

Flora doesn’t look up. She just stares out into the trees, toward where the light slants deeper into the maze of green and flickering wisp-light. The Will-o-Wisps are beginning to flit around now, dancing through the undergrowth like thoughts she can’t quite catch. She’s trying not to fidget, but her heart won’t stop playing its nervous rhythm beneath her ribs, and her chest aches with the weight of everything this place remembers.

The last time she saw him—really saw him—he couldn’t even meet her eyes. And the time after that, she’d told him he could date her best friend with a smile that felt like shattered glass behind her teeth. There’s history here, twisted and overgrown like the Wildwood itself, and lately it’s only gotten more tangled; the memory of Koa stripping off his shirt and Sohalia's tongue dragging up his neck is the sort of thing she both understands and resents in equal measure.

And so...she waits; afraid of what she’ll see when he does come down the path..and more afraid of what she won’t.

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

Any return to the Greatwood is too soon in Koa's mind; despite his season-long tenure beneath their boughs, he's never truly managed to feel comfortable among the impish trees. Today they seem to taunt him, reaching out to ruffle his hair and snag his clothing, the dynamic pathways opening up with suspicious obligation. It does nothing to soothe the uneasy feeling in his gut, the butterflies of dread that always seem to riot whenever she is around.

Flora is ravishing, as always, but Koa doesn't notice that (or so he tells himself). She's also small, pressed into the tree trunk as though she believes that if she tries hard enough she'll disappear into the embrace of the forest, become one with the tree that holds the name of herself and Enzo upon its back. It sets his instincts into overdrive; he wants to kneel down beside her, to take her hand and peer into her eyes and bully a smile back onto her face. Instead, Koa stops a few strides away from her, nerves brushed under a calm exterior, years of training serving as a semi-adequate alternative to actual chill.

"Flora."

There's a note in Koa's voice that is practiced and calm, but foreign, also - especially when it's directed at her. With Flora the young man has never been professional, for better or for worse, but today the Doubletake will be treated to the full force of Dragoon Koa: pressed shirt, hands behind his back, a pleasant distance in the mild mask affixed to his handsome face. Even Pipsqueak, her long tail draped over his shoulder, is uncharacteristically subdued, the turmoil in her companion's heart weighing in her fiery little chest.

"What did you want to talk about?" And why is it the fact that your ex-boyfriend tried to turn my cousin into crispy shrimp?

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

The second she sees him—really sees him—Flora feels her stomach twist, the ache sharp and familiar. Koa stands like she’s some obligation he’s honouring out of duty, not choice, and gods, if that doesn’t tell her everything. Her eyes drop at once, lashes sweeping downward as she swallows hard, regret pooling thick and heavy behind her ribs. Maybe this was a mistake. Apparently, it had been foolish to think he'd look at her like anything but a bruise he hadn’t quite learned to stop pressing on.

Still, she doesn’t tell him to never mind, must as the words bead on the tip of her tongue. Instead, Flora clears her throat softly, the sound half-caught on the weight in her chest. "You said you wanted to talk too," she says, voice quiet and unsteady despite her effort to keep it level. Her hands knot together in her lap as she dares a glance at him, gaze flicking over the pressed shirt and the distance in his posture. "Why don't you go first. My thing..it might be better if it's what we end on."

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

Flora doesn't so much as turn away, but she retreats all the same, each minute movement of her expressive face another door closed between them. From his lofty position looming above her Koa can only watch, his hands clasped, his emotions shuttered behind the steel blinds of a cool facade. Does Flora still know him well enough to recognize the way his fingers twist, the flickering eyeline that gives away just how angry and hurt and scared he is, how much lurks beneath that soldier's mask?

She did, once. But that was countless battle scars ago.

Her invitation for him to start is met with a raised brow - even if she doesn't care about him anymore, if she's intentionally put the distance of Sohalia between them like a human shield, she has to know what it is that has Koa wound as tightly as a tin soldier on parade. "If you say so," he answers doubtfully, glancing away with a shifting jaw. It's incredibly awkward to have a conversation when one person is seated and one is standing, but Koa makes no move to settle into the grass. It would be too familiar, too informal, and he needs to keep his professionalism intact if he isn't going to split in two.

"As you probably know, a couple days after your party, Kaisel Ashborn - a Stormbreak Dragoon, and my cousin - was attacked and nearly killed in Torchline." His voice is unsettling steady, the same tone he'd use to give report to a superior at the end of shift. There's steel in his spine, but it's brittle and patched, a support strut straining under the weight it's been asked to hold.

"His attacker was Jack Barclay."

There's a moment where he nearly buckles, palms shifting to clench and unclench at his side, anger flashing brief and hot as lightning over his face. "I would like to know if there will be any consequences for this unprovoked act of violence." Or if he will have to seek out justice on his own.

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

That is not a normal tree and you well know it. Whether you’re just passing by or if you’re here to try and gather some of her sap, all I can tell you is that you’re going to absolutely have a bad time if you try and fuck with this tree.

---

You’ve encountered a Wicker Woman. This counts as a rare creature encounter for the purposes of levelling, but does not count as a Random Event for levelling or MP. There will be no further admin/re intervention. If you choose to follow this creature, you do so at your own risk, however, just having it in this thread is enough to satisfy your levelling requirements. You may not kill your rare creature without admin permission.

Wicker Woman (rare/mythical): Whilst the name suggests a person, this is actually a species of tree. The Wicker Woman has gnarled and twisted branches which will fold gently around anything that brushes past it. Whilst it causes no harm, it is incredibly difficult to escape its embrace, and travellers have starved to death in the past after becoming snared by it. The sap of the Wicker Woman is rumoured to be a potent hallucinogenic.

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

The worst part is that she sees it coming.

From the moment Koa's arms stay crossed and his jaw ticks sideways, Flora knows exactly where this is going. That little hitch in his breath between sentences, the way his thumbs rub against his knuckles when he’s trying to stay calm—he used to do that right before turning away in a fight, before dragging in a breath to say something he didn’t want to. She’d once counted the freckles on his collarbone while he slept. Knew the exact way his mouth pulled when he was trying to be serious and not laugh. She used to tease him about the way he furrowed his brow when he was concentrating, how it looked like he was trying to out-stare a problem until it blinked first. Every single one of his tells still lives inside her like thorns—just duller now, rusting under the skin.

And from the way he won’t sit, won’t meet her eyes, Flora knows that whatever softness had existed between them has been put to death. So fine, if Koa wants to just rattle off a report? Queen Flora it is.

Her head lifts slowly, golden lashes casting long shadows against the sheen of her cheeks. "If you’re not going to talk to me like a real person," she murmurs, soft but cutting, "then I’m not going to answer you like one." There’s a chill to her tone as she continues, the kind that could frost over a goblet just as neatly as Spice could. "Both parties have confirmed the attack was not unprovoked," she says, not even using their names. "And what Torchline does with its citizens is not under Stormbreak’s jurisdiction. Especially not that of a Dragoon."

And that should be it, because suddenly Flora doesn't actually feel like bearing her heart and soul to the man she'd been too cowardly to love, not when he was looking at her like some obligation he couldn't wait to final check off his to-do list. Her fingers twitch in her lap where the little vial from Ludo rests hidden, but before she can dismiss Koa like the soldier he is, her breath hitches.

She doesn’t move fast, doesn’t dare. Having grown up in these woods, Flora knows better than to flee a Wicker Woman with haste. The bark at her back feels soft as a shroud as she presses herself against it to stand, even as she can hear the dry creak of wood as the creature shifts and stretches towards Koa.

Even so, Flora’s eyes never leave Koa’s face, though they flicker past him once, barely, before she extends her hand toward him. "Come on," she whispers, like they're the oldest of friends about to set off. "It’s time to go. Just—keep looking at me, okay?" The smile she flashes is strained, though when her aqua gaze finds his again, it's devoid of its earlier coldness and distance as her fingers stretch for his. "It'll be okay if you just keep looking at me and take my hand."

Behind Koa, the branches stretch lower, gnarled and curling, shadowing the grass in a slow, strangling embrace.

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

"Shit-talking is not justification for attempted murder." Koa's fists clench along with his jaw, and if it weren't for the compulsive way he keeps his nails short he might have dug red crescent moons into the skin of his palms. He doesn't address her as a person comment, because what is that even supposed to mean? Does she want him to yell, to cry, to lay his vulnerabilities out and let her pick them all apart? Because he'd offered her that, more than once, and she'd turned him down each time. Rejected him in favor of Jack Barclay, and oh if the irony of that full circle doesn't cut far deeper than any knife.

His expression, already steely, hardens a fraction more as she carries on, the addition of a Dragoon like salt into the wound. "I am aware it's not my jurisdiction. Which is why I am asking if action will be taken, not demanding that it is." Likely none, as Torchline didn't seem particularly bothered by murderous actions. He'd learned that lesson the hard way, from Harper and Hadama, back when he'd tried to report Edmund's crimes to them.

It's impossible not to hate where they are, or the way his anger tastes on his tongue. How different would their lives be now, if they'd been able to figure out what they wanted before the insurmountable obstacles began to form between them, jagged and isolating as a mountain range? It's so exhausting, and Koa can feel the seams of self-control straining in his chest. It isn't in his nature to be hard, to wear hurt and fury like a cloak. But it is his nature to be stubborn, and if Flora wants to keep distance between them, so be it.

Except... maybe she doesn't? Because all at once she's rising up, slow and even, her aqua gaze locked onto his, and the expression within is changed so drastically it catches Koa's breath. Confusion cracks his careful composure, followed swiftly by fear as all at once he registers a number of things.

One, there's an unsettling stillness in the forest, the kind that spells a brewing danger no matter where it's found.

Two, there is something else in the space with them, perceptible only by the faint sound of rustling and the unsettling, hair-raising sensation of movement at his back.

Three, Flora is afraid.

"Flora?" Every instinct screams for Koa to turn around and draw a weapon, but Flora's instructions are clear and measured, and despite it all he trusts her. He reaches out to take her hand, mirroring the slowness of her actions despite the sudden thundering of his own heart. It takes every ounce of self control he has not freak the fuck out, especially as something distinctly branch-like brushes across his shoulder blade, causing Koa to shudder visibly as sweat clams on his skin. Eyes never leaving her face, he nods his understanding. "Right. Okay." His face, though pale, is calm as he can keep it, but the tightness of his grip upon her fingers betrays a well of terror underneath.

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

Flora's brow lifts—slow, deliberate, unimpressed—and for a moment she simply watches Koa, letting the silence stretch between them like a curtain slowly descending. She doesn't dignify the accusation with a response, doesn’t waste breath defending something that doesn’t belong to him. Jack’s actions, Torchline’s justice, her own territory—none of it requires Koa’s approval, and certainly not his interpretation of the word attempted. If Jack had wanted Kaisel dead, there wouldn’t have been anything left to debate other than how small a box was required for his cousin's ashes.

But what cuts deeper than his words is the way his expression hardens in their aftermath, layer by layer until he’s someone she doesn’t quite recognise. And maybe that’s the truth she hadn’t let herself name until now; that this version of Koa, all sharp lines and military polish, isn’t someone she knows anymore. She’s spent seasons turning him over in her mind, shaping memories into maybes, daydreaming about what could have beens, casting the past in warmer light. But the man in front of her isn’t made of maybes; he’s made of distance. Of duty and scar tissue. Of something colder than the boy she once adored.

Her fingers tighten subtly as his close around hers even with fear rising like seawater in her throat. Her voice lowers, barely more than breath between them as she keeps her eyes steady on his. "If I tell you to channel, we’re going to call Ludo," she says softly. "But I think I can get us out. Just...think happy tree thoughts." With slow steps backward, she begins to guide him, her free hand lifting to brush against the rough edge of a nearby tree’s bark, fingers gliding along the grain with a reverence born of childhood secrets and whispered promises. "Just keep walking toward me," she breathes, still watching his face, still willing him to focus only on her and not give in to the creature still reaching out for him.

Beneath her skin, her heartbeat gallops. Her cheeks are flushed with fear and effort, though her expression remains composed as her fingertips press into the wood, coaxing the Wildwood like an old friend who might still care enough to listen. She doesn’t speak the prayer aloud, but the wish is there in every breath—that the forest still remembers her, still wants to protect the girl who once played barefoot beneath its leaves and trusted it with her whole heart.

The hardest part of it all is trying to hold Koa's gaze, not because it hurts, but because it doesn’t belong to her anymore. Once, he’d looked at her like she was his whole world, and she’d been a breath away from letting him be hers too. Now there’s too much distance layered between the moments that mattered and the ones they’re in. And yet, even now, with all the tension knotting between them, his hand feels achingly familiar and his gaze unfairly intimate with how hard her heart was pounding as she prayed for the trees to save them.

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

"Happy tree thoughts," Koa repeats weakly, a tight-lipped smile stretching his face at the absurdity of it all. Happy tree thoughts isn't really in Koa's forte; he really, really doesn't like it when plants do things they're not supposed to, and based on everything Flora's saying that's exactly what's happening behind his head. Some sort of plant monstrosity is misbehaving so egregiously she's considering channeling Ludo to stop it, and the images that thought conjures are enough to make him seriously regret having eaten lunch.

But he keeps his breathing largely even as she leads him backwards, their hands clasped and their steps in sync - the skewer facsimile of a dance. Once it had been the most natural thing in the world, walking toward Flora, following where she led; even now a part of him still aches for her, like a sunflower cast too long in shade. A tether exists between them, faint and sharp as piano wire now but still there, still strong, ready to be strummed into haunting music- or used to cut a throat.

Koa's eyes flicker to the path behind them, the invisible trail Flora seems to pick by instinct alone."Left," he whispers, copper gaze snagging back into aqua, head jerking infinitesimally in indication of the path that seems to be widening open, despite a lack of movement from the trees. "Right foot. Duck down." It shouldn't be this easy for them to fall into this collaboration, not with all the broken things between them. But somehow it works, and that in itself is marvelous.

Marvelous, and even more terrifying than whatever tree monster is lurking in the woods.

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

"My left or—" she starts, the question barely leaving her lips before Koa’s head tips in that almost imperceptible way of his. Her mouth closes with a quiet breath, something tremulous caught behind her ribs as she adjusts without needing further explanation. Of course he’d already known what she was about to ask. Of course she’d followed without thinking.

She steps where he guides, spine bowing low beneath a branch that skims the crown of her head, its leaf-laced fingers catching briefly in her curls. Flora winces as they tug, sharp and needling like the past, but she doesn’t stop—not when the forest seems to shift for her beneath her breath, and not when the scrape of claws feels close enough to skim Koa’s back.

She stumbles over a patch of moss-draped root, lungs hitching as she catches herself with a tighter grip on his hand, the soft of her palm pressed quick and firm against his.

It shouldn't be this easy, moving like this, breathing like this. All those years of trying to untangle him from her chest, of pretending that just because they were bad at timing they were also bad at everything. And yet... here they are. Not even a glance traded, and she knows how he moves, knows how to match his rhythm, how to adjust without needing to be asked. It feels like falling into step with a song she didn’t know she remembered.

"We’re almost through," Flora whispers, though it sounds more like a promise than a report, her voice quiet and steady in the strange hush of the Wildwood. And if gaze keeps flicking over his shoulder again, it’s not only because of the thing still behind them. It’s because it’s easier to face a monster than it is to look too long at what they used to be. "Then it'll be over."

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

More gently spoken guidance, more obstacles overcome. He's followed Flora on their slow retreat, clung to the reassurance that is her aqua eyes and intertwined fingers like a man in the ocean clinging to a raft - and unlike with another flower-coded protagonist and her ill-fated lover, has yet to be abandoned to the cold unknown. It's steadying, comforting in a messed-up way, just how easily they fall back into this dance.

If only he could say the same for their relationship.

"Careful." Koa's grip tightens instinctually, arm contracting to pull her close as she stumbles on uneven ground. For a breath they're close to an embrace, but it's a closeness that doesn't manifest. Instead Flora steadies herself and Koa loosens his grip, relief softening his expression into a lopsided smile.

"And what, exactly, is it?" Koa murmurs back as mildly as he can, his panic finally abated enough to allow for rational thinking. He has to turn slightly to follow her between the trunks of two close trees, his broader shoulders not fitting as neatly as her lithe frame. It means he catches, from the corner of his eye, a fragmented view of their pursuer: gnarled branches that reach like fingers, skeletal and thin and impossibly long. There's the impression of humanity in the creature, and Koa has to immediately look away, swallowing hard as he squeezes his body through the narrow gap.

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

More gently spoken guidance, more obstacles overcome. He's followed Flora on their slow retreat, clung to the reassurance that is her aqua eyes and intertwined fingers like a man in the ocean clinging to a raft - and unlike with another flower-coded protagonist and her ill-fated lover, has yet to be abandoned to the cold unknown. It's steadying, comforting in a messed-up way, just how easily they fall back into this dance.

If only he could say the same for their relationship.

"Careful." Koa's grip tightens instinctually, arm contracting to pull her close as she stumbles on uneven ground. For a breath they're close to an embrace, but it's a closeness that doesn't manifest. Instead Flora steadies herself and Koa loosens his grip, relief softening his expression into a lopsided smile.

"And what, exactly, is it?" Koa murmurs back as mildly as he can, his panic finally abated enough to allow for rational thinking.

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat

and all that we intend is scrawled in sand

Flora smiles before she can stop herself—small, reluctant, but real. Reflex, really. Because Koa’s smile had always been that kind. The kind that crept under defences without asking permission, like sunshine through shutters, and it’s just as disarming now as it ever was.

"It’s a Wickerwoman," she murmurs, voice low and close between them. "Enzo and I used to run into them sometimes when we lived here. We figured out they hated it when you ran. Got more aggressive, like they fed on panic. So we’d walk instead, hand in hand, one looking forward, one back. Like this." Her fingers press gently into his to punctuate the memory, a tactile echo of a thousand childhood escapes, of a rhythm that had once meant safety.

The woods shift around them in almost imperceptible ways, the light filtering thinner through the trees, shadows folding like secrets into the moss. As they weave between trunks and tangled roots, her gaze flicks over his shoulder now and then, half-expecting to see twisted limbs or glowing eyes—but there's only forest. Only quiet. And Koa.

Fingers loosening from his, Flora exhales and lifts a hand to her hair, gently tugging a twig free from where it had tangled itself into her curls. A nervous laugh bubbles out—too airy, too bright for the heaviness she feels in her chest—but it escapes anyway. And as she glances back over her shoulder to check the path behind them, it hits her all at once: The hush, the way a small stream cuts a silver ribbon through the undergrowth, the encircling arms of green and bark like the forest itself exhaled and made room for them upon a tiny flower filled glade only large enough for two. It’s too intimate. She hadn’t meant for that. Quickly, Flora drops Koa's hand with an apologetic smile.

This wasn’t the setting she’d imagined for the conversation she’d meant to have. She’d wanted quiet, sure. Privacy, yes. But not this. Not something that might be mistaken for a memory in the making, not least of all because of how things had progressed between Koa and Soh. "Fuuuuuuck, I hate those things," she mutters under her breath, dragging her hand down her face in one smooth gesture, as if it might smear the nerves off her skin along with the dirt.

Koa

Don't you just wanna wake up dark as a lake
Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

"A wickerwoman," Koa repeats faintly, remembering the monstrosity from his studies. Definitely a creature that lives at the bottom of his list of favorites, gathering dust and mold and rot as he daydreamed about dragons and ursurs and lials. Focusing in on the hum of Flora's voice, he forces the images of misshapen faces from his mind, instead letting the warmth of her memory act like an anchor, soothing and warm. "Smart kids," he murmurs with a low chuckle, smile curving at the press of her hand. It's too easy to forget that they were fighting moments ago, that this is the same hand which held his heart and squeezed it tight until it bruised.

A hand that is gone, suddenly, leaving behind a prickly emptiness in his sweaty palm. Between Flora ahead and the wickerwoman behind, Koa's attention had been fully enraptured, so much so that he does not notice the change in setting as it unfolds. Only now that the tether between them is broken does his sense of reality extend to their surroundings, the glade materializing into existence like late-loading pixels in a video game. It's a beautiful space, the kind one might select intentionally for a romantic picnic on a summer evening, all soft grass and warm browns and the quiet symphony of wind rustling the trees.

It's probably full of those fucking orchids that have a taste for human flesh, but y'know. Idyllic otherwise.

Koa doesn't register the romance, though: he's still keyed up from their retreat. "Is it gone, then?" Flora's body language has shifted, simultaneously more and less at ease in a way he doesn't fully pick up on as he looks around, seeking any sign of movement amongst the pressing trees. Only once he's satisfied their pursuer has abandoned the chase (or is maybe just following very, very slowly) does the young man let himself breathe a sigh of relief, muscles relaxing as he scrubs a hand across his face and into the tangle of his hair.

"Yeah, fuck that thing," Koa agrees, but he's smiling when he turns back to Flora, adrenaline and relief buoying his mood, dulling the sting of their earlier discussion. He takes a step forward, warm and unthinking, reaching out to brush errant moss from where it's clung to Flora's shoulder. "You okay?" he asks, fingers lingering with thoughtless ease upon her upper arm. "I thought we were gonna be tree food for sure. But you were great."

If you're drunk on life, babe, I think it's great
But while in this world I think I'll take my whiskey neat