[SE] wearing that same smile

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

He didn't know it was possible for the words I love you too to be so unreassuring as that, but Flora manages to turn a declaration of affection into terror. Fresh dread prickles through him, and his next step hesitates, wondering if maybe his best bet isn't just staying in the middle of the pool at this point. He might have looked back over his shoulder to fully consider it, but taking his eyes off Flora for even a second right now seems most unwise.

Still attempting to reason with the adoring wife buried somewhere inside this supervillain, Kaisel carefully ventures his voice out again. "Rooooo..." The call is gentle, as if volume alone could be a trigger that makes her snap. He freezes as she turns, tumsea shuddering against him as his grip tightens on its sides. At first, he can only offer up a nervous, broken laugh at her question. Spice's chilly exhale offers no encouragement that it's a joke however, and he swallows down all his noise abruptly with a gulp.

She moves like a woman possessed as she takes out the jar. He's half-tempted to point out that's sticky, not slippery, but aside from the fact that correcting her in this moment would be an immediate death sentence, he's not entirely convinced she didn't choose that exactly for that reason. "Babe, be reasonable," he pleads, but his heart isn't in it, quite certain she's past the point of reaching with words.

Taking the only option he feels is left to him, the one behind door number three, he takes one large step further in and then dives forward. The tumsea held up to his chest serves as a barrier for the ice as he hits the floor with it, skimming against the kitchen rink as his (limited) momentum carries him onward. His weight, and the bouncy quality of the air trapped inside the tumsea, threaten to unseat him at first, and the 'sled' is precarious at best, especially in the hands of such an untrained sledder. "You'll never take me alive!" he shouts as he goes, which is all he gets out before spectacularly wiping out far too near the kitchen witch.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

Kaisel’s low, careful murmur does nothing to reach her. Flora is too soaked, too cold in the particular damp way that makes every movement feel heavier, and far too committed to the performance she has built for herself to be softened by a gentle use of her name now. When he asks her to be reasonable, her head only tips slightly to one side, the look she gives him carrying all the patient disbelief of someone who thinks the answer ought to be obvious. He has thrown her into the pool twice. Whatever border separates reasonable behaviour from vengeance has already been left somewhere behind them, probably floating facedown near the rest of the tumseas.

She doesn’t even get the chance to answer before he makes his break for it. The jam slips from her fingers as Flora staggers after him, bare feet skimming over the ice while she throws one hand out to steady herself. The jar lands somewhere behind her with a dull clink, but she has had enough practice earlier while Spice was building this spectacle to stay upright, catching her balance in a quick, graceless slide before pointing sharply toward him. "Spice!"

The dragon needs no further instruction. She swoops down with her claws extended, dramatic enough to suggest Kaisel’s throat is in imminent danger before she veers at the last second and sinks her talons into the tumsea instead. The inflatable gives up with a long, sad squeal, air rushing out beneath him as Spice tears free and flaps back toward Flora with a chirrup of satisfaction.

Flora comes to a stop nearby, one foot sliding out before she catches herself, and plants both hands on her hips as she looks down at him. Water still drips from her curls, her leggings cling stubbornly to her legs, and there is something very satisfied in the slow curve of her mouth as Spice settles across her shoulders, tiny and pale and entirely too pleased with herself. "Well," Flora says dryly, "if you die, that’s one more thing we’ll have in common." Her brows lift as though this is a perfectly sensible conclusion to reach, while the dragon gives a low, anticipatory trill against the side of her neck. "Any last words?"

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

Aware he's fucked, Kaisel's arms and legs scrabble for any semblance of purchase on the ice from where he's landed on his back, having rolled off the tumsea that spit him off its back when the stress of weight and motion proved too much to bear. He's trying to push off something, anything, to create distance, but it goes about as well as trying to grab mist does.

"SpIIIIce!" he hollars as he sees her shape descending upon him, an extension of Flora's cold fury. She doesn't relent, and his yell morphs away from language into noise, his arms folding over his face to protect it as she goes in for the kill. He feels the wind of her passing, the tip a wing and her tail brushing past him. He peeks an eye open between both arms before pulling them down, quickly checking himself for injury, but finding none. The low whine of air escaping the tumsea near him would be why, his head turning as his eyes seek it out from the tilted view of the floor. "Sorry friend," he whispers to it with all the drama of watching a brother losing the light in their eyes on a battlefield.

When his gaze turns back straight, it's because an ominous shadow has fallen over him once more, too large to belong to the dragon's second pass. No, this is much worse.

His feet still slide over the ice, searching for traction, the chill already biting into the skin there, as it equally does on his back with a subtle shiver. Her words give him no comfort that she's been brought to her senses or fulfilled enough to relent, which still begs the question of what will be enough for her, and what he can endure. "You started this," he offers up as a reminder, palms lifted up in a beg of mercy towards her.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

Maybe the tumsea’s last, shuddering exhale sounds like avenge me, but the deflated floatie wilts beside Kaisel in a sad little heap all the same. With Spice curled over her shoulders and Kaisel scrambling uselessly against the ice beneath her, Flora stands above him with the calm focus of a horror-movie villain who has finally caught up to the man foolish enough to run. Were this a film, surely her shadow would have sprouted horns by now and thrown back its head laughing, though she only watches him with narrowed eyes and a mouth that threatens to curl at one corner when he lifts his palms toward her in surrender.

At his reminder, Flora inhales sharply, drawing herself up not out of fear but at the astonishing degree to which her husband has apparently misremembered the last several minutes. "I was only trying to be a good wife," she says, every word carefully measured with the gravity of someone delivering testimony before a court, this clearly being her villain origin-story. "I wanted to bring a little winter wonderland into our home. To have a bit of fun with you." This she says as if fun is a rare thing around their home, before spreading her arms wide, taking in the ice-slicked kitchen, the doomed tumsea, the damp trail leading in from the pool, and Spice’s satisfied little presence on her shoulders as though all of it proves her innocence and efforts beyond question. "And how did you repay my thoughtfulness?" Her brows rise, waiting only long enough for the answer to become painfully obvious before she supplies it herself. "With complaints, and throwing me in the pool." Flora pauses, letting the accusation settle between them as her gaze sharpens.

"Twice."

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

For a brief time, Spice's descent to Flora's shoulders truly does throw some horns to Flora's shadow-head, the dragon wings reaching up perfectly just before the pearlescent body lands and turns into a scarf.

The threat of Flora above him remains as real as ever, but a warm and gold-dappled amusement slips in like sunlight through a tree's shade. The flexible talents of her truth are unparalleled, and she is never more magnificent than when she is knee-deep in the theatrics of their household fuckery. He adores her with a fierceness that could very well be his undoing in this next instant. "You are." His voice rises with a newfound confidence, as if through all the haze of poolwater and frost, they could simply wipe the window clean and see each other clearly again, rather than standing like Obi Wan and Vader. "And you did." Both a good wife and one who brought in some winter fun. He had plenty of fun watching her ass get dunked.

He starts to lift himself up off the ground into a situp-style sit, moving with a slow caution that works to avoid drawing the attention of the predator. For this, his core strength serves him well, and his numbing back is grateful for the removal from the ice, however brief it proves to be. "You took me into the pool too," he points out, proof that if she'd claim the water wasn't innocent the way she's made the ice, then neither are her hands clean. "and I could replay you better, if you let me."

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

Flora watches him with a predator’s stillness as he starts to sit up, her eyes never leaving his face and her posture making it very clear that any attempt to scramble away will be met with consequences. When he points out that she took him into the pool too, her expression shifts into something almost thoughtful, though there is far too much innocence in it to be trusted. "Did I?" she asks, drawing the words out as she raises one brow.

Before he can build the case any further, Flora turns slightly toward the open stretch of kitchen beside them and calls up the memory in a shimmer of light. From where she had been treading water, pointing at him from the pool’s edge, the replay is perfectly clear: Kaisel stands at the side of the pool, triumphant and dry; Flora lifts her hand in warning; then, without anyone visibly touching him, he suddenly jerks forward and sails headlong into the water. Spice is positioned directly behind him, her pale little body almost entirely hidden by his shoulders, and from Flora’s angle it looks for all the world like he simply loses his footing and hurls himself in. The memory loops once, neat and damning, before dissolving.

Turning back to him, Flora lifts her brows again, the look composed enough to suggest she has just presented irrefutable evidence before a very serious court. Her mouth twitches at one corner, though, because she knows precisely how ridiculous the argument is. "I didn’t touch you," she says, sweet and certain. "You jumped in."

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

He's aware that he's just triggered something, but he can't for the life of him tell what, because unlike Flora, he's still using reason to back his arguments. Suspicion wriggles through him with the same effect as her shaved ice down his shirt from earlier, and he shudders.

The sudden splay of light and shadow beside him averts his gaze forcefully. The moment he sees the poolside incident come to shape, interest settles sharply, because he doesn't suspect she'd so eagerly replay her own undoing. What's your angle? he can't help but wonder, his thoughts prodding and wary in equal parts through the bond. Angle turns out to be the very thing itself, because no way she cuts off the memory feed with that BS crop. His mouth pops open, completely flabbergasted for a second.

The loudest scoff drags out of him at the smug draping of her words. "THA'S A SHIT TAKE!!!" he blurts out, an outraged hand sweeping the words out all the faster as it arcs towards her. "I didn't jump, I was driven into the water by Spice, on your command!" It's unfortunate the jury here is also the judge and the defendant, which makes his argument feel all the more futile the longer he tries to make it. "You set me up," he accuses, understanding clicking neatly in place alongside the betrayal.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

Flora’s expression does not change, which is perhaps the most damning part of it. Still entirely patient, still deeply smug, she only shakes her head and lets her gaze drift toward the invisible jury she has apparently assembled in the kitchen. "Did you hear me say anything?" she asks, gesturing toward the space where the replay had hovered a moment ago. The evidence, as far as she is concerned, speaks for itself, and the fact that it has been curated into a deeply misleading version of events is clearly beside the point.

"I set you up?" Her brows lift as though the accusation has caught her entirely off guard, and then she turns to Spice with a look that asks whether the dragon has heard this same nonsense. "So you’re telling me I planned all of this for you, just to make you throw me in the pool so that I could, what? Be standing at precisely the right angle to make it look like you jumped into the pool, so that when you asked me about it later, this is what it would show?" Flora lets out a soft, disbelieving tut, turning back to him with the air of someone attempting to explain something very simple to a person who is making it unnecessarily difficult. "I’m just showing you what I saw." Her attention flicks to Spice again, and her voice takes on the mild, judicial quality of someone calling their final witness. "Do you have anything to add?"

Normally, the little dragon might well have been inclined to take Kaisel’s side, but perhaps she is still a touch offended by the way he had squirmed and danced away from her ice. Perched against Flora’s shoulders, Spice gives one deft shake of her head. No.

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

His brow furrows with the weight of her questions. "No," he admits, the answer given up like a pulled tooth, resisting at first before spitting free. But that doesn't always matter, he points out swiftly in follow up argument to her point, not entirely sure why he's still fighting a clearly losing battle, yet completely unable to help himself from doing so. "She's bonded to you, it doesn't take much."

The more she spins out her point into something ridiculous, the more he's tempted to throw her back in the water for a third time, wondering if like whipped sugar and cotton candy, it all might just melt. Unfortunately, he's in no position to do anything more than daydream, and he can scarcely afford that when she's leveling him with such smug looks and curated bullet points. "Not then," he says with a quick shake of his head. "Now. You set me up, just now, with that memory. You tampered with it. There's no way you couldn't see what Spice did!" Or have known about it, at the very least, but trying to prove her thoughts is a nearly impossible task he won't be trying to go up against, there's enough David and Goliath already on hand.

At this point, Spice's chosen side is well known, yet Kaisel can't keep the withering look that finds him when she just as swiftly damns him as his wife does. "Wawawawaitwaitwait," he begs with another press of his palms towards her. One extends further, fingers reaching out. "Use my memory of it then." Not convinced it'll be any different, already certain this is rigged, he can at least stall for time with this tactic if nothing else.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

Flora’s brows lift again, and she adopts the expression of someone who has been handed a theory so elaborate it scarcely deserves an answer. "Oooh, so first I took you into the pool, but now I silently mind-controlled a dragon that no one even saw into somehow making you jump in?" She glances toward the space where Spice has settled against her shoulders, then back at Kaisel with a small, disbelieving shake of her head. "Babe, all I could see was you and your extremely broad shoulders." The implication is plain: if Spice had been hidden behind him, that was hardly Flora’s fault.

When he reaches out and asks for his own memory, her gaze drops to his hand with exaggerated patience, as though he has requested something wildly inconvenient and she is considering whether he has earned it. Eventually, magnanimously, she relents. Reaching down, Flora lets her fingertips meet his, and the memory rises around them at once.

From Kaisel’s point of view, there is no carefully framed sightline and no obvious accomplice waiting at his back. There is only Flora in the pool, soaked through and pointing at him with that smug little tut on her mouth, and then the sudden lurch of his own body pitching forward. The replay catches the surprise in him, the flailing attempt to recover, and the inevitable splash that follows, but it offers nothing more. No dragon. No visible push. Nothing that would make his case easier.

As the memory fades, Flora looks down at him with calm, judicial satisfaction. "Hmm," she says softly, as if she is genuinely considering the evidence. "Definitely looks like you jumped in, to me." Folding her arms across her chest, her expression changes to one of cague hostility. "Maybe what you're saying is that my demigod magic isn't good enough?"

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

Were it anything besides ice behind him, he would have happily slumped back into the grave that's been dug, content to rot. That sounds like a finer use of his time than trying to argue with a very determined woman. Although, his smile cannot help but flare up when she calls his shoulders broad, a bit of the peacock coming out despite the circumstances.

Briefly looking like a painting of creation on a chapel ceiling, Kaisel's hand stretching for the divine touch of Flora's, the moment appears merciful. He should have known it would be anything but, because narrow as his gaze becomes at his own replayed memory, breath held as if it might disturb the image, it results in no grand change. Expected as it had been, the disappointment curls cold and heavy in his gut, his options fast emptying out of his hands.

He draws in a sharp breath, fingers curling into his lap. "Wait," he demands, quiet. "What was that look you had on your face when I quote unquote "jumped" in? You were pointing and smug. You saw Spice!" His gaze whirls at once to the dragon, an accusatory finger lifting, as if there's any hope left in a court literally created by the pair of them.

Her attempt to damn her further by stuffing words in his mouth he spits out forcefully, unwilling to be gagged just yet. "PLAY THE DRAGON'S MEMORY!"

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

For all the calm certainty Flora has arranged across her face, there is a small, unpleasant awareness beginning to gather beneath it. She can feel the argument narrowing, the ridiculous little court she has built around them rapidly running out of places for her to hide the truth, and when Kaisel tells her to wait, she lifts her chin at once as though she has not heard a thing worth worrying about. "No," she cuts in, shaking her head before he can build any further momentum. "I was just...you know." Her mouth twists, trying to find a version of the truth that will sound convincing enough to survive him. "That was a smile because my super hot husband was coming into the pool with me." It is not wholly untrue, which is the important part.

When his attention swings toward Spice and that accusing finger rises, the little dragon recoils against Flora’s shoulders with a dramatic flutter of wings, pearl-bright eyes going wide as if she has just been implicated in something truly monstrous. Flora brushes a thought against her companion, quick and apologetic, and Spice launches away from her shoulder at once, taking flight toward the far side of the kitchen with a wounded chirrup that manages to sound remarkably like betrayal.

Flora gasps, flapping her arms once against her sides in a sharp, offended huff before turning the full force of her glare back on Kaisel. "See what you did?" she demands, watching Spice retreat as though the dragon has been emotionally devastated rather than conveniently unavailable to testify. Her arms fold tightly across her chest, wet curls still clinging to her neck and shoulders as she scowls down at him with renewed disapproval. "You hurt her feelings. I sure hope you’re proud of yourself."

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

No way you can deny, you feel the most alive when you are terrified

He doesn't buy it. Hasn't bought it most of the time, but didn't have enough backing to refuse the sale until now. He chuckles with the sense of vindication looming, convinced if he can grab hold of this shiny, real truth, he can be free, be spared. "Coming into the pool with you against his will!"

Admittedly, the theatrics of it all sweep him up, and without meaning to, Spice is reduced from sweet baby angel girl, the white betrayer, to just, the dragon. As if she's no better than a wild stray. This, at least, is what he assumed the immediate slight to be, and just as parents love to warn, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. "Oh, no, Spice, I'm sorry. Spice, don't go!" He winces at the sound of Flora's arms smacking her sides, and Kaisel's worried expression trails from the departing dragon back to her, eyes wide with the realization of his overstep.

"Shit," he mourns, trying to get back to his feet in earnest now, but he hasn't become less of a baby dear despite his ass nearing frostbite. "I didn't mean to!" Not a worthy excuse, he knows. "Tell her I'm sorry. I can go get whatever treat she wants, right now, ri—" An uuuuugh drags out of him as the ice jerks his hand out and he slams back onto his back. "Help me up," he groans, raising a hand towards her.

Kaisel

I'm a daredevil on the highway to hell

I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings

Flora does not rise to the point about being dragged into the pool against his will, because there are some arguments that are best left untouched when the logic underneath them is mostly decorative. She only raises one disbelieving brow at Kaisel, her expression suggesting that whatever story he is attempting to tell himself has already become more complicated than it needs to be.

Across the kitchen, Spice cranes her head at the mention of treats, pale wings shifting with sudden interest. A small pulse from Flora reaches her before she can give herself away, though, and the dragon immediately remembers that she is supposed to be hurt. With a very put-upon little chirr, she turns her head aside and curls more dramatically around herself, making a show of not looking at either of them. It is, Flora thinks, a perfect resolution: Kaisel doesn't have to die, she does not have to admit that her case was built on a foundation of very enthusiastic bullshit, and Spice gets snacks.

When he reaches for her, Flora moves in close enough to brace one hand against the doorframe, keeping herself steady on the ice before she takes his hand with the other. Her grip is firm as she helps haul him upright, wet curls slipping forward over one shoulder while she keeps a careful eye on the floor beneath them. Once he is on his feet, she leans in as though sharing something confidential, her voice lowered for Spice’s benefit. "I think we still have some of those mints she really likes," she whispers. "You know, the ones that absolutely freeze your mouth?"

and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3