[SE] She could ruin my life all the same

Raining on me so damn long, but that's relief to a man who calls a desert home

It does not take her long to retrace the path to this particular bar. Even if the shape of it is different, renamed and rebuilt, the things around it remain the same. It sits like a snag in the fabric of time, caught and twisted until the folds in some areas are patterned with the past, others rolled with speckles of the present, and in between it all, the threading of the future shimmers with the inevitable promise of ruin and change.

Standing before the closed doors, Colt takes a moment to soak in the new face. Her head tilts back, golden wig-hair shifting along the cloth poncho draped cozily against her shoulders. A breeze strums the pale feather stuck in her hat, the faintest whistle given off the edge, a nose-driven exhale joining it. It'd be wrong to call her anxious, but there's nothing easy about this either, and Colt uses what little time she's got left to button down the full span of her composure.

Lifting up the bottle of champagne, she uses the wide base of it to knock at the door, careful to do just enough to encourage the sound of her arrival. Her other hand pulls the cigarette from her lips, smoke shooting out the side of her mouth as she tilts her lips to one corner, thumb and forefinger squeezing the red light out.

---

Colt

Still gripping the shovel that got me here, fear if I let go I might disappear

flora

The knock sounds through the empty bar cleanly enough to carry, and from somewhere beyond the back room there is the brief scrape of movement before Flora appears, not hurried exactly, but certainly not leaving Colt standing long enough to decide she has been made to wait on purpose. The door has been unlocked; this is not an ambush, nor a test, nor any of the other things Flora has spent the last handful of days trying very hard not to turn it into inside her own head.

Spice is draped around her shoulders in a loose white curl, her small body cool against Flora’s collarbone, and as Flora steps fully into view the little dragon’s pale eyes flick toward the door with immediate, chilly interest. Flora’s own gaze lands first on Colt, then on the cigarette, then on the bottle of champagne, her expression smoothing into something bright-edged and careful as she slips behind the bar rather than going to meet her in the open space between them.

"Oh," she says, eyeing the bottle before one brow lifts with polished precision. "Are we celebrating something?" Her voice is chilly rather than sharp, the kind of cold that has been deliberately poured into a pretty glass instead of thrown, and with her brows still raised she reaches beneath the bar for a champagne flute, setting it down in front of where Colt can take it if she wants. For herself, Flora chooses a highball glass, because apparently whatever this is going to be, she has already decided she would prefer not to drink it delicately.

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Raining on me so damn long, but that's relief to a man who calls a desert home

She doesn't hear a lock slide, but the door shivers open to reveal the shape of Flora and her living scarf. It's the first indication to her that maybe there's more potential here than she dared hope for when she wrote the letter. It's simple, but an unopened bar, even when set as a meeting place, has every right to be kept under lock and key. That this wasn't feels more like an invitation than the now open doorway before her.

"Course we are," Colt asserts with the easy confidence of someone who doesn't let hardship diminish well-earned accomplishments. Life's too short not to enjoy the wins. Stepping inside, she turns the door closed with her elbow, her hand busy slipping her half-used cigarette into her pocket and wiping ashy fingertips into dark streaks across her jean pocket. "First, the bar," she explains, one of her hands sweeping out towards the scenery of Flora's efforts. Her gaze follows, skating over tables waiting to earn water rings and seats that manage to appear new and yet well broken-in already. "It's no easy feat rebuilding something from the ashes." She'd know, because she just gave up on the attempt, decided sand served as a better medium.

"Second." Colt's attention swings back to Flora and the glasses she's arranging, sliding up to the other side of the bar and leaning into it with a comfort born of familiarity. "I hear you go by the Hot Take now." Her brows lift with the unspoken point behind that new moniker as she works the cork free with a controlled pop. "So...congratulations, Flora." Tipping the glasses into the slow and careful pour, amber liquid fizzes and streams bubbles up the side of each. Colt's focus lifts partway through one, meeting Flora's gaze for a moment and offering a subtle smile before the task at hand calls her attention back, not about to commit the sin of spilling.

"I'm afraid the bottle lost most of its chill on the way over," Colt laments with a soft frown and a wrinkle to her brow. "So we might need some ice to properly enjoy this." A touch redneck, but, well, it always worked for her before.

Colt

Still gripping the shovel that got me here, fear if I let go I might disappear

flora

Flora is not, as a rule, accustomed to people being the bigger person. Or maybe that isn't quite fair. People are capable of kindness, obviously, and sometimes even grace, and Flora has been on the receiving end of both often enough to know what they look like when they arrive without teeth hidden behind them. Still, coming from Colt, standing here with champagne and compliments and a tone that doesn't immediately try to wedge itself beneath Flora's ribs, the whole thing lands somewhere awkwardly between unexpected and inconveniently nice.

"Mmm," Flora hums, her aqua gaze sliding briefly around the bar as if the place itself might help her decide what to do with the compliment. "Well, it took a bit." At the mention of the Hot Take, though, her lips betray her, quirking into a slight, almost helpless smile before she can quite stop them. It doesn't bloom into anything bright, not fully, but it is there, small and real at the corner of her mouth as her fingers settle around the highball glass. "Thanks," she murmurs, softer than the rest of her has been.

She watches Colt pour, eyes tracking the fizzing amber as it climbs inside the glasses, and for just a moment the whole thing threatens to feel normal. Two women at a bar, champagne between them, a rebuilt room waiting for noise and music and the sticky-gloss aftermath of other people’s terrible decisions. As Colt mentions ice, Flora lets one shoulder lift to nudge the pale dragon curled around her throat. "Well," she says, glancing sideways at Spice, "you heard her."

Spice lifts her head at once, all pearly scales and bright, chilly attention, before fluttering down from Flora’s shoulders to the bartop. Her claws click lightly against the polished surface as she steps between the glasses, inspecting them with the solemn importance of someone who has been asked to perform an extremely sacred duty and absolutely not merely chill a drink. Then she opens her mouth and exhales. The icy blast rolls over both glasses in a glittering breath, frost blooming up their sides in delicate white lace before catching along the rims. A few stray crystals scatter across the bar, sharp and pretty as powdered diamonds.

Flora’s mouth twitches again despite herself, but when she looks back to Colt, the smile is already cooling. Because the champagne is thoughtful, and the congratulations are kind, and the fact that Colt can stand here and offer both without immediately defending herself is something Flora has enough sense to recognize, but it doesn’t mean she has to trust it all at once. She curls her fingers around her glass but doesn’t drink yet. Instead, she lifts a brow, the shape of it arch and deliberate, her expression settling back into something bright enough to be pretty and guarded enough to be dangerous.

"Really," Flora says, almost conversationally, "I might have you to thank for my first ability from Safrin." Her aqua eyes raise fully to Colt’s then, holding there with the same polished chill as before, only now there’s something sharper beneath it. Not anger exactly, or not only anger. Hurt, yes. Vindication, definitely. The desire not to be made to feel insane for reacting exactly how she had. "It lets me replay memories of what happened in the past."

With a small wave of her hand, light spills into the air beside them, gathering itself into shape and colour until the empty space of the bar is suddenly overlaid with another scene entirely. The spa appears in soft, warm fragments: the ease of lounging bodies, wine glasses, familiar closeness, Sohalia and Flora tucked comfortably together in the sort of peace that comes only after difficult honesty has finally softened into something survivable. There is no accusation in the beginning of it, no grand setup, no careful trap laid at Colt’s feet. Just Flora and Soh, relaxed enough that the silence between them has become friendly again.

Then Sohalia’s voice, hesitant but clear, carries through the illusion.

“So... about Hak Etme. You should probably know that Colt's trying to poach me from Torchline.”

Flora watches the memory rather than Colt at first, her jaw tightening faintly as the scene continues. Her remembered self laughs at first, bright and immediate, because of course Sohalia isn’t moving to the desert. Of course Colt wouldn’t have done something like that without saying anything to Flora first. The memory shows the disbelief plainly enough, the ease of it, the assumption that they were all friends now and therefore certain things were obvious.

The memory fades before it can become anything more than it needs to be, the spa dissolving back into the empty bar, leaving only frost, champagne, and the newly rebuilt Last Word between them. Flora finally looks back to Colt, brows lifted. "I can even do it for memories I wasn’t there for," she adds, her tone light in the way that means it isn’t light at all. One shoulder rises in a small shrug as her fingers tap once against the side of her chilled glass. "So...y’know. Pretty handy."

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

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!