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Character of the Season
Once known as the Butcher of Whitebrim, he's now The Butcher of Dygra, stepping forward as the first created demigod of the Ancients. There is no question that Astaroth casts an intimidating silhouette. Tall, domineering and dangerous, if looks could kill you'd be dead already, but to get up close and personal with the Grounds' resident cannibal tells a much different story. Dripping with charm and clad in only the finest attire, Asta is a gentleman monster, as polite as they come and committed to his role as security for the Dusklight and those who have earned his loyalty. Be careful of that smile, though - those teeth are sharp.
Congratulations, Asta!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
Taking the commitment to camping to heart, the Oerwoud seems like the perfect place. It gives them a proper chance to scout out the most recent fuckerys of the world, and all the while, he can make a statement about how a city boy can embrace and conquer nature, should he so choose. Even the beach with all its damn sand is something he only complains about once in a while now.
"Alright, I've got all the essentials," he informs her, not bothering to look up from his deep dive into his backpack. "Water, snacks, matches, pajamas, weapons, pillows, or the ones that I could fit in here anyway, aaaand the camera." He's got a glimpse of each item as he ticks it off, although the pillows prove encompassing and require some digging around. Satisfied, he glances up at her, the backdrop of the twisting forest and semblances of trails amid the roots and boughs awaiting behind her like some version of an invitation to get lost. Behind him, the Sugartide rests like a safe haven, and not for the first time, he wonders how far they have to get from her hull to properly consider it camping.
Shifting the backpack around and settling it on his shoulders, Kaisel smooths out his hunter green hoodie. Flora's name is stitched down the back of the left arm in an embossed fashion with plain and thick lettering, barely visible because the color is the same as the body. Similarly, Hot Take follows the same pattern on the right arm. Beneath, his tight, nearly black pants narrow down into his boots. "We have enough light to head in and scout out a good camping spot." He motions in a general direction behind her, squinting briefly to get his bearings on what actually matches the map he'd been perusing as prep for this. "I also memorized some camp songs we can sing as we go. Supposed to drive off predators, or something."
Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
Flora watches Kaisel inventory the backpack with a smugness that grows harder to hide with every new item that appears from it. Water, snacks, matches, pajamas, weapons, pillows, a camera; at this point the thing is less a bag and more a portable breach in reality, and she has to wonder whether he’s packed a second, smaller Sugartide in there just in case. Given that the real Sugartide rests only a short distance behind them, all polished safety and familiar comfort, Flora does briefly consider pointing out that staying aboard technically counts as camping. They would still be outside, they would still be sleeping somewhere that was not their house, there could even be bugs if Kaisel felt strongly enough about the authenticity of the experience.
But he’s so earnestly determined to prove that he can conquer nature when he puts his mind to it that she keeps the thought to herself. Sand hasn’t managed to drive him away from the beach, bugs apparently haven’t broken him either, and now that he's standing at the mouth of a damp underground jungle with a backpack that could probably sustain a small village, she wants to see who wins out between hostile jungle and optimistic himbo.
Like his, Flora's clothes are practical without giving up anything important: fitted cargo pants tucked into rubber boots, a black crop top beneath a light rain jacket, and her curls pulled into a high ponytail so that they stay out of the wet glow and tangled roots ahead. When she glances over at her husband, the smile that catches at one corner of her mouth is crooked enough to make the question on her tongue feel less like curiosity and more like the first of several tests she has just invented for him. "And what counts as a good spot, do you think?" she asks, lifting one brow.
At the mention of predators, Flora turns in a small flourish, catching the bottom of her jacket and pulling it aside just enough to show the daggers strapped against her thigh. "Oh, I’ve got predators covered," she says, letting the fabric fall back into place with a little shrug. Her smile warms as she looks toward the twisting paths beneath the roots. "I’m always down for a sing-along, though."
Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
The SMUG creeps over the bond like a neighbor's overgrown tree, reaching out until the branches are rasping down the side of the house he built out of concentration and serious business. He ignores it, at first, the same way anyone does when noises can easily be attributed to a settling structure or the wind outside, even when they're starring in a horror movie (especially then, actually). It proves relentless, and it's part of what drags his attention up at long last from the inner folds of his backpack and all its treasures.
Taking more traits from the thriller stars, Kaisel fails to get a proper read on it, and a frown dapples his expression briefly. "What?" It's less a question and more a doorway cracking open on doubt. "Did I forget something important?" He cranes his neck around to peer back at the Sugartide as if he can see through her boards into all the missing pieces of survival still tucked away in an expired game of hide and seek within the quarters. His lips press together, breath humming over a malformed though. "You know, I almost packed some firewood, because I know what you're thinking. What if all the wood we collect around the campsite is too wet and won't light and is super smoky instead?" His brows lift in emphasis of the predicament this would cause as he swings his gaze back upon her. Confidence reseats itself with a small smile, a finger holding itself up, shushing the air. "But then I thought we could just hold each other for warmth so we'd be fine." He shrugs, clearly convinced they could tackle whatever the woods saw fit to throw at them, as long as it was them.
With packing firmly resolved and backpack settled behind him, all that remains is to actually go. "Height," comes the swift response of someone whose Stormbreak roots show themselves without even trying. "Don't want to get trapped in any valleys or ravines, and we'd have a better vantage point. Then, uuuuh, somewhere flat enough to get comfortable." He's half of the mind to find a way to rig their tent up in the tree canopies, creating some relative of a hammock. If glamping includes pillows though, suspending yourself several feet above the ground between trees feels like it would be something other than camping, which isn't what they're here to do.
His gaze drops to the whirl of steel and fabric, drawn by the motion less than the open appreciation of just how deadly she can be. Never mind how well she can hide it, which is its own admirable talent. "I'm hoping the loud singing means we don't have to resort to that." It's liable to wake up the whole area and send everything running, or so he hopes. It could ring a dinner bell instead, in which case she'd be doing her best pineapple impression. "But if it does, I'd love nothing more than to watch you be the hero to my damsel." He'd be sure to give an appropriate wail as well, once it seemed they'd actually survive whatever it is. She'd recognize it at once as his almost-fell-in-the-shower scream.
Tugging his backpack on tighter, thumbs hook around each strap and the rest of his hand hangs there. He nods as though her enthusiasm is only proper, declaring it "natural karaoke," and steps forward into the jungle for her to follow. His voice lifts before long, declaring it a repeat after me song.
"Blaaack socks,
They never get dirty.
The longer you wear them,
the blacker they get!
Ooooone day,
I think I will wash them.
But something keeps telling me,
Not yet, not yet, not yet!"
The instant his worries turn to wet wood, Flora’s thoughts slip straight into the gutter. It is far too easy, really, and the brows she raises at him are already halfway to skeptical by the time he finishes outlining the dangers of smoke and poor fire-starting conditions. Her smile unfurls slowly, all bright innocence in the shape of something that very plainly isn’t. "That’s funny. The wood I normally work with does end up getting quite wet, but it still works just fine for me."
The look she sends him is coquettish enough to be almost sweet, lashes lowered and mouth tilted just so, while the pulse she lets unfurl through their bond is anything but. It is a deliberate, low heat that has no interest in pretending she is talking about firewood anymore. At his proposed solution of simply holding each other for warmth, Flora rolls her eyes with all the adoring exasperation of someone who finds his answer ridiculous solely because it is difficult not to love. "Mmmm," she says, as though weighing it seriously, "that sounds like a fairly compelling reason to get cold, to me."
"Height?" The word comes out with a small pinch between her brows as she glances toward the tangled dark ahead. "Er...I mean, maybe if you’re worried about flooding?" Her gaze returns to him, one brow arched. "But not whether it’s dry? Or if there are obvious signs of predators around? Or how close we are to fresh water?" It isn’t that she expects him to have every answer; quite the opposite, really. Testing him is more fun when he has enough confidence to answer first.
When he admits he's hoping the singing will save them from the need for steel, Flora turns just enough for her jacket to sway aside and the daggers at her thigh to flash in the damp, strange light. "Aww," she says, grinning at her husband. "But I like using my daggers." Then she starts after him without waiting to be convinced otherwise, boots finding their way over the roots and uneven ground.
"Blaaack socks," she sings after him, putting such solemn emphasis into the first line that her voice is already trembling with laughter before she reaches the part about them never getting dirty. She keeps going anyway, obediently dragging out the words about the socks getting blacker and blacker, until the final not yet, not yet, not yet dissolves into bright laughter that follows them down the narrow path. "Babe, that’s ridiculous," Flora says when she can breathe again, though it is not just the song she means. "Did they teach that in Stormbreak Boy Scouts, or did you learn it in the Dragoons?" Her head shakes as she snorts under her breath, then lengthens her stride so she can wedge herself alongside him despite the roots’ apparent determination to keep the trail too narrow for it. "Because that is absolutely going to make predators come toward us, especially since you sound like something dying. It’s like you’re serenading them before their meal."
Flora has to angle a shoulder past a low-slung root, her boots picking carefully through the wet dark beneath them, before glancing at Kai over her shoulder with her mouth still curled around the remnants of a laugh. "And I’m no expert," she adds dryly, "I just grew up in a magical and dangerous forest. But usually the best way to avoid predators is to be quiet and avoid their dens and hunting areas."
Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
There are times, rare times, where innuendo escapes him. This is one of them. Entirely engrossed in the mechanics of wood and heat, he's unaware of the opportunity he just handed her until she turns back around on him. For a moment, he is slack-jawed with the realization, stunned to be caught so unawares by it. That quickly eases into a wide, face-consuming grin, one that presses underneath his eyes so even they find the shape of glee. "Hardwood does best when it's wet, you're right." It's unfair, really, that he can't catch hold of the feelings that cross through the link any better than he can wind. He'd like to snatch up one of those little, teasing pulses, the way he might steal her hand when it slips in to prod or press, hauling her closer to him for taking the risk. This distance allows her all the same ability to pester with none of the risk, other than his own fireflies of heat lighting up through the channel, bright and brief.
He can tell immediately by her tone that he's made a choice. Not the wrong one, exactly, but not the right one either. His next step comes less sure, gaze slipping over her way in time to witness her lay out every other consideration into the neat order of someone holding the study guide. "Well, I mean," he fumbles for a moment, hands leaving his straps to try and roll up his thoughts into something better as they gesture in front of him. "Obviously those are super important too. I thought you wanted the less obvious answers." The secret, challenging answers, not just the ones he forgot.
As they sing and hike, they wind around and through the fingers of tree roots frozen on an old grip of soil no longer there. The buoyancy of happiness that lifts her lyrics higher, lilting like a stream of bubbles, each popping beneath the words at varying times and heights, infects his own. Even though camp songs don't usually see much change in pitch or require an inclination for musical talent, his flat approach to singing is made all the worse for laughter's interruptions, leaving the woods echoing with a joy that feels slightly, hauntingly, out of place as they go. "Great song right?" He grins, completely aware of its absurdity and loving it for that reason. "Catchy too, you're gonna be singing it in the shower when we get home, just you watch." An earworm that pops up at the most random times for him.
Reaching for a stick they pass on the ground, Kaisel spins it around experimentally in his hand. It's a touch wet. "Something like scouts," he agrees, thwacking his stick against a root. "A bunch of Dragoon boys and two of the dads took us every so often during Longheat to go practice weapons, and hunting, and stuff. We sang often when traveling from one place to another."
"Woo000000ooaw." The word is drawn out with disbelief and drama. "That's so botanist of you to assume every forest is the same." His eyebrows lift with the accusation, though his mouth can't hold the shape of condemning her for long, a laugh soon spilling free. "Maybe it was because we were in a bigger group whenever we sang them, so it made us sound large and scary, all singing in unison, but it's definitely a survival tactic." The survival might have been the adult trying to corral a herd of young boys.
Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
There is something about the way Kaisel reacts to the pun—first the moment of utter blankness, then that grin that seems to pull all the warmth in his face up beneath his eyes—that keeps Flora’s own smile from behaving. It is one of the things she loves most about them, perhaps: that her teasing never needs to arrive armoured, and his never asks her to pretend she isn’t delighted by it. The little bright bursts of heat that flicker down the bond are answer enough, brief and buoyant, and she lets her satisfaction curl through the connection in return without trying to make it into anything subtler than it is.
As Kaisel begins explaining the outings, Flora’s expression softens as she tries to picture him as a boy in Stormbreak, trekking after the older Dragoons through Longheat with a knot of other children, all of them presumably armed to the teeth with wooden weapons and singing terribly because someone had decided that was better than letting them get bored. Then she remembers that she does not actually have to imagine. "Show me."
Her magic reaches forward gently, catching on the thought as it forms rather than tugging at it, and the Undergrove ahead of them fills with the pale, living echo of another set of adventurers. A younger Kaisel appears first, smaller but already unmistakable, marching with the sort of confidence children possess when they have been told they are doing something important. A few other boys move with him, all of them headed purposefully onward beneath the bright, remembered shape of Stormbreak’s Longheat, their figures wavering lightly between the roots as though the jungle has decided to grow a second memory alongside its fungus and leaves.
Flora watches them for a few moments with a softness she does not bother hiding, then lets the image drift away as Kaisel accuses her of being botanist about it. "I’m not assuming the forests are the same. I’m assuming predators are." Her brows lift, because on that point she is quite certain she is right. "Or they got all of you singing so you’d forget about kicking each other’s shins or blowing spitballs down each other’s necks while you wandered along." Having grown up with both a twin and an older brother, Flora isn’t remotely ignorant of the sorts of shenanigans boys get up to when they’re bored and given a stretch of jungle to cross
The path begins to loosen as they travel, the roots no longer crowding so tightly together beneath their boots. It opens into a shallow pocket of the Undergrove where the ground is mostly flat beneath a scattered quilt of damp leaves and strange luminescent growth, with enough room between the twisting supports overhead to pitch a tent without fighting the entire jungle for it. There is no grand view to speak of, only the soft green-blue spill of light along the roots and the low hush of the jungle settling around them.
Flora nudges Kaisel with one shoulder, looking up at him with one brow already raised. "Alright then, scout leader. What do you think? Here, or farther in?"
Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
He catches her meaning the moment she asks, a hand offered up with the memory bunched up in his fingertips. It sparks to life as they make contact with her, a current of thought and history as vibrant as electricity humming through a conduit. The motes of shadow and light that materialize around them flicker into place, shaping a series of hikers that travel alongside them. It tugs his attention with such a captivating quality, awe stretching out all his features as he watches, that he doesn't mind the next root. It collides with his stride, jerking him to the present for a moment with a sharp sip of breath and a scowl towards the offending nature. Rubbing at his leg with one hand, his other smacks his stick against the root, inanimate things (if a root can even be called that) always requiring the proper punishment for standing perfectly still and being inconvenient about it.
As soon as he's managed to sort himself out, he pops right back towards the memory, stick jabbing at the magic. "Look!" he gestures, waving his wood. "That's me! Wasn't I the cuuuutest" He slings his gaze her way, batting his eyelashes with extreme exagerration that he's forced to rub a knuckle against one to resettle them. "Then that's Taleetah," he says, bobbing behind the child in front of him. "He was always a chungus." Indeed, the boy is eating snacks rather than singing as they walk. "Hubert was the best," he acknowledges to the boy in the front of the line. "I mean, literally. Damn teacher's pet." He rolls his eyes. "Travis was cool though." The boy behind Kaisel, swaying along to the song like a branch in the wind, a testament to how much movement he required at all times.
The memory fades out, Kaisel's happiness like a warm, steady breeze between them, only fed further when his attention settles back on her. "Those were good times." Easy and carefree, even if the intent had been to train and instill discipline, it felt like fun.
Her defense earns a crooked twist of his lips and a shake of his head. "Suuuure, sure. Not like different forests might not have different predators. Sounds like a cover up to me." He immediately abandons the pursuit the moment she brings up spitballs though, a bright gasp erupting in his throat. "Spitballs were one of my specialities." A wolf's expression slips on over his, and he tilts the toothy thing towards her. "They're yours too, I've come to find." Just, a different sort of ball, or balls, she's getting her spit all over.
"Show me one of yours," he urges as he swerves back onto the path beside her, fighting the roots for proximity to bump into her gently. "I wanna see kid Flora, master camper, unleashed in her woods." Where he expected she also did a lot of fishing, which certainly makes her a master baiter too.
"Let's go further, we can always turn around and come back if this is the best we have." There's a brighter glow even further ahead, suggesting a particularly rich deposit of glow stones, which he has every intent on collecting to make some campsite artwork, if nothing else.
Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
The little procession catches Flora’s attention so thoroughly that she misses the actual stumble, only turning at the sharp little intake of breath that follows it. By then, Kaisel is already rubbing at his leg and administering whatever punishment he thinks a root deserves for the crime of existing in his path, and her head tilts as she looks him over with all the playful judgement he’s earned.
Her attention returns quickly to the figures moving ahead of them, and to the smaller version of her husband in particular. Watching little Kaisel march along beneath Stormbreak’s remembered Longheat with all the confidence of a boy who’s been handed something important to do makes something soft and helpless spread through her chest. When he flutters his eyelashes at her, it only gets worse; her smile runs away with itself, mirrored through the bond as she shakes her head. "Shut up. You’re actually so adorable." Then, grinning fiendly at him, innocently she wonders, "whatever happened?"
She follows along as he points everyone out, taking in the boy who’s eating rather than singing, the teacher’s pet at the front, the one swaying like he might burst apart if he has to walk in a straight line for too long. It feels strangely intimate to be allowed this glimpse of him before her, not because it’s some grand secret, but because it’s so ordinary: Kaisel as a child, surrounded by other children, having a good day. As the shapes soften and begin to fade from the reach of her magic, Flora sighs quietly, watching them disappear into the glowing roots as though they’re simply off to finish the rest of their adventure without them.
"Obviously there are different predators," she counters, rolling her eyes as they continue on. "It’s just that most of them act pretty much the same. They’re usually eager to eat you, for one, which seems like a fairly obvious commonality to avoid."
His mention of spitballs earns a look from the corner of her eye that is far too knowing to be innocent, but when he asks to see one of her own childhood outings, Flora’s grin returns properly. She stands a touch taller, brows lifting as though he’s requested something especially impressive, and then reaches into the familiar places of her memory and the Undergrove ahead of them fills with the Greatwood.
It comes in pieces at first: a river bright beneath filtered green and gold light, the enormous shapes of trees rising around it, and then the children themselves. Flora, Enzo, and Mateo are all there, with the twins splashing through the shallows of the Stongsong after giant gold fish while Mateo pauses near the bank to collect seeds. Above them, tucked high into the branches of one of the towering trees, their treehouse sits broad and familiar against the canopy. "The best part about living in the Greatwood is that once you learned how to get the woods to listen to you, you could go super far from home and then still make it back for dinner in, like, five minutes."
As though summoned by the thought, Enzo's voice carries lightly through the memory when he announces that he's hungry. The three of them climb up the riverbank, and almost immediately the forest shifts around them. Trees and roots rearrange themselves with the quiet certainty of something making room, and where the Greatwood had stretched endlessly ahead only moments before, Vai's cottage appears just a few yards away.
Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
Not that his confidence needs feeding, however constant its appetite might be, but he consumes every morsel of her attention without leaving any crumbs. "RIGHT!?" It should go without saying how fucking cute he is, but it's definitely okay to say it. "You're so lucky, honestly." His grin, spread wide enough to hurt, only sharpens at her query. He shrugs one shoulder in a partial, lazy motion with a subtle shake of his head and a quiet sigh. "Just grew into greatness. Became fucking badass instead." Humble, too.
With an expression begging for her explanation, he throws a dramatic hand up and smacks the side of his leg as it lands. "Ooooh, obviously!" He wrestles with the word like it's a discovery all on its own, fighting to contain the smile that's trying to splinter his faux seriousness. "I'm glad you think so too," he adds, reaching out to touch her shoulder with a bless you quality. He understands, truly, botany runs in her family.
Losing his grip on that ridiculous argument to the wonder of the Greatwood peppering into view bit by bit, Kaisel darts forward the moment he spies kid Flora. Backpack jostling, chuckling faintly with the simple, happy disbelief of this magic, he leans over to get a good look at her echo. "It's you!" he announces with a shout tossed over his shoulder, too busy watching little-her to properly turn and tell her. Little Enzo too, he notices, features softening to see the boy who hadn't yet met Mort. Beyond, Mateo, fucking around as expected. "You're so cute I could eat you," he sighs, resigned to the fact he'd have to starve, until seeming to remember she's still very cute. He stands up and falls back into line at her side as she draws near, throwing an arm over her shoulder and leaning in with a grin as he sets a long and obnoxious kiss at the corner of her mouth.
At her explanation of the woods carting them back home in time for dinner, he slides his arm off her, instead curling it around hers, fingers claiming her hand. "Man, we should add something like that to the house." Not that the haunted mansion fully compares with the Greatwood, but sometimes it would be nice to not play dry land Marco Polo just to ask her a question. The bond is already a nice quality of life improvement in that regard, but only when it's in range.
Curiously, he looks over as Enzo pipes up, the woods offering up the house suddenly. "Whoa." His eyes widen a touch. "Maybe not, on second thought. I'd never get out of range of you if it could do that." Ordinarily a fine issue, but a problem if she's on a tickling rampage.
Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
Even though it’s nothing more than a throwaway comment, tossed out with that too-wide, cheesy grin because of course he wants more flattery he can hoard away like treasure, Flora doesn’t meet it with the easy scoff it probably deserves. Something in her opens instead, petal-like and helplessly soft, her expression gentling as she looks over at him. Her smile turns sweetly crooked, touched with all the sincerity she rarely lets sit unguarded for long. "Yeah," she murmurs, nodding. "I am."
Of course, he immediately ruins the tenderness by continuing, and whatever has gone warm and bare in her face tarnishes back into laughter. Flora rolls her eyes, the sound bright and fond, because naturally he hasn’t simply been cute and then grown into her husband; he has grown into greatness, apparently, with all the humility of a peacock standing in front of a mirror.
When he trots forward to get a better look at her younger self, the affection that pulses through the bond is entirely unintentional. It catches her by surprise, as these little gestures of his always seem to; the way he darts toward the memory as though child-Flora is something precious he might miss if he doesn’t hurry, the way he loves her so plainly that even an echo of her in a river is worth leaning closer to see. A girlish, twitterpated flush rises through her stomach before she can do anything sensible about it, and by the time he falls back into step beside her, she’s already turning toward him.
She melts easily beneath the weight of his arm, her own sliding around his waist as though there’s no other place it could possibly belong. The kiss he presses to the corner of her mouth is ruined almost immediately by her smile, though she tilts into it anyway, bright and helplessly pleased as the memory of the Greatwood continues to shimmer around them. Only when his arm shifts away does she let him go, trading the wrap of her hand at his waist for the claim of his fingers instead.
Glancing at him over one shoulder as he works through the obvious flaw in giving their house a forest’s ability to rearrange itself, Flora’s brows rise, and the smile that follows is edged with wicked little delight. Her fingers pulse once against his, snug and possessive in his hand. "Oh yeah. And when it comes to things like that, it absoluuuuutely matters who the trees like more." Her shoulders lift in a smug little shrug as her eyebrows bounce. "That’s why so many people get lost in the Greatwood all the time."
Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
It doesn't much matter where they are or what they're doing, not when the world falls away around them anyway, reshaping itself into something meant just for them. Although her abilities do a fine job of it outright, it's her vicinity that grants its own kind of magic, one that doesn't belong to any particular element or god, just to all the ways they love each other. Here, wombling through this moment of her past, entwined with the present of her, there's nothing left but the shape of her smile and the warm, certain curl of her hand in his. The weight of her breath catches somewhere between a laugh and a hopeless sigh, and he finds himself grinning quite by accident at the thought of hearing that joyful exasperation for the rest of his life. It's strange, in the best way, to know he'll keep falling in love with versions of her he hasn't met yet, just as surely as he adores this past one he'd never known until now. They're all Flora, and every one of them he meets only gives him another reason to love her all the more.
He forgets, for a moment, to scheme and jest and sprinkle himself over the conversation. Even when her hand squeezes his with its own little heartbeat, effortless in its ability to ground him, the bond echoing it like a knock upon his soul, he only answers back with a quick roll of his thumb over her knuckles. When her gaze splashes across him with all the sureness of the tide creeping over bare feet, the u sure 'bout that? plain in her expression, he only slides back a look wild with the delight of even sharing a dream about a house that conspires with her.
When the silence presses in, it catches him, and a breathy laugh slips free at last. Still vulnerable with all the care he's written her name on, his voice rouses low and dreamy "For sure forget I said anything then. I don't have the best reputation with the stairs or the doorways." He'd like to blame the spirits, but it feels like it's the actual house always tripping him up, and is not at all related to how quickly he takes the stairs or turns corners. "And you definitely don't need more backup." Spice is plenty, and there's always Enzo and Mateo happy to jump to her side whenever the shenanigans really spill over.
Suddenly, he darts forward, leaping out of the little reverie of fondness and soft edges, pulling her along with him where they're linked. "Come on!" he encourages brightly. "We're gonna make a new camping memory, one that kid-us would be proud of." One they could look back on when they'd gone grey and laugh as surely as they will today. "I think we could make camp at the spot ahead." Winking around the treehouse of the past, an impressive deposit of glowstones awaits them, each rock slightly varying in hue and shape from the other. Practically, it's not as good as her original claim she'd staked behind them, but aesthetically, it's got all the promise of camp rave.
Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
Flora nods sagely as though abandoning the idea has been Kai's idea all along, her expression arranged into something solemn and approving that is immediately betrayed by the golden smugness blooming through the bond. It’s thick with affection too, warm and honeyed around the edges, because yes, obviously giving their house even more ways to take her side would be a disaster for him and a tremendous success for her, which makes his retreat both sensible and, unfortunately, a little disappointing.
The sudden tug of his hand has her taking one long, lunging step after him before her balance catches up with the rest of her, and then she’s moving properly, boots landing nimbly between roots and wet vines as she keeps herself at his side. The last of the Greatwood memory thins around them as they go, the river-light and child-laughter fading back into the dim glow of the Undergrove, and Flora glances after it only briefly before her attention returns to the ridiculous, wonderful shape of what they’re doing now.
"Oh, kid us would probably think it was gross to be hanging out with each other," she points out, snickering as she hops over a root that seems especially committed to taking one of them down. The thought only lasts as long as it takes for her mouth to twist with reconsideration, because there are very few principles a child can’t be bribed out of under the right circumstances. "Though with all the s’mores we brought, maybe they’d suffer through it."
As the brighter glow ahead begins to resolve itself into a scatter of glowstones, Flora understands immediately why the earlier site has lost to this one. It might not be the most practical choice, and it certainly doesn’t offer the kind of open view that would make a proper lookout happy, but the stones shine in soft, shifting hues that turn the damp dark into something much prettier than it has any right to be. "You know, when I was little, we played a game where you’d try and move glowstones as far as you could without them going out." Grinning, Flora reaches for his backpack, fingers already working at the strap to pull it from Kai's shoulders so they can begin unpacking.
Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
A loud, deep laugh answers her statement at once, the reality of it landing too cleanly. "Oh absolutely," he concurs, glancing back at her. "Girls have cooties, everyone knows. Even now." Awkwardly, he shuffle-runs under a vine, avoiding being clotheslined by the cord of plant. "But, you're also pretty cool, and kid me would have taken the risk to get in on that kind of temperature." Might have done it via blowing spitballs at her when she wasn't looking, and pulling her hair, and trying to trip her in the mud, but still. "The s'mores would for sure have baited me. I mean, why do you think I'm here today?" Copious amounts of sugar would always be one of his weaknesses.
Coming to a breathless halt, given the sudden need to spring the rest of the way here, Kaisel proudly surveys the agreed upon campsite as if he has just discovered this land all his own and not read tips from a map. "It's perfect," he deems, working opposite of her hands to noodle himself out of the straps as his backpack is set down. "So," he prods, crouching down to unzip the pack, pausing only to glance expectantly up at her. "How far was it? Leave the Greatwood far, because if we could put these all around in Torchline, I'd be so down to collect hella rocks." Torchlight has nothing on glowing rocks.
Reaching in to hoist up their supplies, he begins to unload them in rapid succession into her hands, including sets of pillows that he flings up with gusto, passing off his intentional aim for her face as nothing more than exuberant unpacking. "I knew a kid once who ate one to see if his poop would glow." he adds as an aside.
Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless
Code stolen from Queen Sky
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
The thought of their younger selves meeting delights Flora more than it probably should, mostly because she can picture it far too easily: him with all that bright, insufferable confidence in miniature, and her with all the same certainty that she was the most interesting thing in any forest she happened to be standing in. Her nose wrinkles as he mentions cooties, her expression turning theatrically doubtful as her eyes sweep over him.
"I bet little you was for sure stinky." The accusation comes with all the seriousness it deserves, which is very little, though she does feel confident about it all the same. Many criticisms could be fairly levied at Enzo and Mateo, and Flora has levied most of them herself at one point or another, but being smelly had never really been one of them. At his claim that the s’mores are the true reason he’s here now, her mouth drops open in immediate outrage, one hand lifting to her chest as her chin tips haughtily into the air. "And here I thought maybe you liked me."
Looking down as he crouches to open the backpack, Flora laughs and shakes her head. "Oh no, it’s, like, just a few feet. I think the farthest anyone got was maybe eight or nine, and that’s only because the stone was huuuuuuuge." Her hand spreads in front of her as though this might properly convey the size of the glowstone in question, though any further explanation is interrupted almost immediately by the sheer volume of things being thrust up at her.
She starts collecting supplies as best she can, though the process very quickly becomes less like unpacking and more like being the unwilling assistant in a cartoon routine. A blanket is trapped under one arm, a tin of something or other pinched between her fingers, and a pillow hugged against her ribs before another one comes sailing upward with entirely too much enthusiasm. Flora sacrifices the croquet set she'd been holding without hesitation, letting it clatter to the ground so she can catch the pillow before it hits her in the face. Her glare down at him is fond enough to spoil the intended anger, even as her brows lift with pointed accusation. "Ohhh, Kaisel. Always such a fast unloader."
The aside about the glowstone-eating child has her pausing with the pillow still clutched to her chest, her expression flattening into bright suspicion. Slowly, one brow rises. "Oh, you knew a kid, huh?" Her smile twitches, entirely unconvinced. "That’s a very interesting way to phrase a confession."
Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
