[SE] If you're in a coma, just wake up

Kaisel

Women come innately armed with a series of invisible traps that they can fling out at will. Some have better aim than others, and unfortunately for him, Flora might as well have a dexterity that rivals Ronin's. "I do like you!" he crows instantly, arms flung out on either side of him, palms skyward as though he intends to beseech divine aid in this matter, not about to let her slander his feelings even if in pretend. "ObbbbbvIously!" he scoffs. "I mean, I like like you girl," which, as everyone knows, is a tier above love. "I just also dislike nature, and both can be true at once, but I'm here and absolutely s'more-less at the moment, which I think speaks for itself." It's a grand, entirely unnecessary defense, but he's laid it out for the sake of understanding, certain if he let it pass by it'd come back to haunt him.

His utter disappointment in the record only being nine feet (an impressive and unwanted length in other matters) is made plain to the backpack as he frowns into it while performing his best magician's endless ribbon trick. "Lame," he announces, all dreams of his glow stone bedazzling gone out the window. Unlike some woodland wild child, he never carted the stones away from their resting place, doing as told, aside from the one he his friend ate. Take only memories and leave only footprints or some such Dragoon-scout-bullshit that'd been drilled into him.

Everything he's doing comes to a screeching halt as he catches a fucking stray for no reason. With the precision of machinery and the creep-factor of an old doll, Kaisel's head turns by degrees to level her with a flat stare. There's no real wound, but he holds her with the discomfort of it as long as he can manage, before sucking in a long, loud, slow breath, one that seems due to end at any moment before continuing. "If that were true, not that I'm saying it is, it would be because your highness is so damn fine. I mean, gyatt damn gurl, how do you make camping fit look so good?" Not that he hasn't been sneaking a look here and there, but he shamelessly gives her the once over now, humming with a satisfaction usually reserved for the first bite of a fantastic meal after being struck thoroughly by hunger.

Not only are women, especially Flora, experts with laying traps, but bitches can disarm them in a blink too. Caught red-handed in his friend of a friend of a sister's twice removed mother-in-law tale, he can't fight back the sheepish smile that blooms. "Hot tip, doesn't do shit."

Turning his backpack over and dangling out the rest of the contents, he finds the tent finally, the very last thing to come out, of course. "Alright, let's tag team this. Between the two of us, we're great at pitching a tent. You grab that end, I'll grab this end and we'll tug until it pops up." Not oblivious to his own words this time, his brows lift in expectation.

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora tilts her head as Kaisel crows his defence, the movement sending her ponytail swinging with exaggerated doubt. For someone so immediately wounded by the suggestion that he might not like her, he’s certainly doing a lot of explaining, and she lets him do it with an expression that grows more skeptical by the second. Her gaze drops first to the engagement ring on her finger, then to the sparkly orange hair tie at her wrist, before she exhales a soft, deeply unconvinced sigh. "Oh, obviously," she murmurs, lifting her eyes back to him with sly amusement tucked into the corners. "So if there were no s’mores on this whole trip, you’d be fine with that?" Her brows rise, playful challenge brightening her face as if this is a far more serious test of devotion than the ring, the bond, or the whole being married thing could ever hope to be.

When his head turns toward her with all the slow, haunted precision of a doll left too long in an attic, Flora only raises her eyebrows with wide, innocent patience, as though she hasn’t just casually called his stamina into question while holding a pillow against her chest. The innocence lasts just long enough to become insulting. Then she folds her arms, not so subtly lifting her tits at the same time, her chin angling upward as she lets him take in the very compelling evidence of how unfairly difficult she makes his life. "Oh, you would try and blame that on me." Leaning forward until her cleavage is right at his eyeline, Flora lowers her voice into a whisper shaped entirely out of mischief. "Same way I do everything else, babe. I get my ass up in the morning and run."

Straightening with a smirk, she catches the sheepish little bloom of his smile and feels its answering flicker through the bond, which only makes her laugh outright. "Worse," she adds, glancing toward the glowstones with renewed horror and delight and thus affirming IC the reason I put what would happen if you ate things in the F&F section. "I bet it really hurt coming out."

By the time Kaisel turns the backpack over, Flora is more or less just watching him Mary Poppins their entire campsite onto the ground. There are pillows, supplies, bags and bags of gummy worms, and finally the tent itself, because of course the most important thing has waited until the end like it wants a dramatic entrance. His innuendo lands cleanly enough that she has to bite the inside of her cheek not to reward him too quickly, though the sparkle in her eyes gives her away.
She crouches to gather one of the poles, sliding her fingertips slowly and suggestively along its length. Her gaze flicks up to him from beneath her lashes, mouth curving. "And that’s your professional opinion, is it? That we both just tug until it’s up?"

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Kaisel

His own suspicion deepens immediately in return, voice lowering into the careful volume and speed that a hostage negotiation requires. "Why? What have you done with them?" Or will do. He wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if she pulled up a remote feed of her own memory of the chocolate being melted slowly by a candle, just close enough that the heat would take its time dismantling the integrity of the bar, the torture drawn out with an attention directed solely at him. She's conniving enough, but he holds her in the corner of his gaze with a scrutiny that means to discover if she's cruel enough.

His delve into his backpack has a new purpose besides setting up camp, fingertips searching for the goods. There might not have been much that would have delayed his search party for them, but when he turns with a willingness to stare her down until one of them yields, the tier of his priorities becomes clearer. He breaks first, which maybe isn't a good showing of the endurance he's defending, but between the wind-up of his breath and the honest flattery, he expects to come out on top. She gives him two very good reasons to stay down.

The bob of her chest as it cinches up over her arms draws his attention immediately. The motion also reveals more of her midriff as the crop top's full cover struggles to reach above and below with anything akin to equality. The urge to halt everything and chase the hem of her shirt higher nearly possesses him. Although the bra beneath would ruin the attempt as it is now, he'd like to see just how the fabric rolls beneath his palms, and how taut he needs to pull it over the swell of her tits before her nipples are at risk of exposure. He wouldn't let them escape. He'd wait until her own impatience eventually freed them, driven to release by the methodical teasing of every inch of her around them.

They loom closer in a test of restraint, and his smile melts into something hungry, teeth clicking as he bites at the air and lifts his eyes back to her championing features. She's never finer than when she's victorious. A low chuckle rolls free at the whisper, and he shakes his head as he resumes the work at hand. "Mm, and thank the gods for that. Give my best regards to all your miles."

As for his bowels, he shrugs a touch. "It was like the size of jellybean, wasn't so bad." I had to put it to use. Not that he's recommending it, especially given the lackluster shit show, but he's had some cooking attempts that've betrayed him worse. "Anyway, we won't be eating or moving any tonight. We're gonna paint with 'em." Maybe she's done it before, in her childhood, but it's been a while since he has and there's a magic to it he thinks will survive each attempt. The trick is not using the stones so much as the space around them, an art piece made of the negative with the intention of how the light can be used, or hidden.

All in good time though, as first they've the campsite to erect. Firmly gripping his pole, he meets the too-innocent gleam of her eyes over the limp canvas, a smirk cutting up the rest of his features in quick response to the suggestive sweep of her hand. "It might require a bit of, gentle shimmying," he clarifies. "Just be careful where it connects at the tip, that area's sensitive."

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora’s brows rise with the slow satisfaction of someone watching a suspect reveal exactly where the bodies are buried. The sudden shift in his priorities, the searching fingers, the careful suspicion narrowed in her direction, all of it confirms the charge she’d only just finished inventing. "Uh huh. Just as I thought." Her mouth presses into a solemn line that does absolutely nothing to hide how pleased she is with herself. "No s’mores, no camping husband. Good to know."

It is hardly a discovery that wounds her, not with the ring on her finger and the sparkly orange hair tie still looped around her wrist like a private punchline only the two of them are allowed to make precious. She knows exactly where she stands, which is why needling him about it is so fun. Even before they’d been dating, teasing Kaisel with her body like this had been one of her most cherished pastimes, and marriage has only made it worse in the way a bonfire gets worse when someone decides to throw more wood on it. Watching his attention catch exactly where she wants it to, seeing his eyes drink in the line of her crossed arms and the stretch of bare skin above her cargo pants, makes triumph bloom bright and wicked through her.

His teeth click around nothing but air, and Flora’s grin sharpens. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d been given something useful to do in the Oerwoud only to offload the work onto spirits so they could make much better use of their time, but the tent lies limp between them and the campsite is still very much not a campsite yet. Waiting until it’s set up is probably prudent. Annoyingly responsible, but prudent.

At least the glowstones offer a new, safer distraction, and her eyebrows lift at the idea as she glances from the scattered shine of them back to him. "Oh, are we now? And how will that work?" Her interest is genuine, even if the curve of her smile makes it clear that she’s still holding the whole jellybean-sized crime in reserve for later.

For now, she turns her attention to the pole in her hands, letting her fingers slide along it with the kind of unhurried familiarity that makes the tent between them feel abruptly much less like the point. "Oh the tip is sensitive, mm?" Her grip shifts with exaggerated care, thumb brushing near the end as she looks up at him from beneath raised brows, all wide-eyed innocence laid over a trap with teeth. "Any other tips you think I should know?" The question hangs there sweetly, daring him to suggest there’s anything about her hands, her mouth, or what she already knows how to do with him that could possibly need improvement when it comes to pitching a tent.

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Kaisel

Her lack of a direct answer leans dangerously near a villain preparing a monologue, finding some exceptional logic to make s'more violence seem heroic and telling every step along the way how she got there. "Glad we understand each other," he returns, grabbing hold of the accusation rather than allowing her to strike him with it. "So if I were you, I'd be very careful about what you'd do to those s'mores." His eyebrows lift up over the warning, encouraging her compliance. "I am a man, Flora. I have needs. Sweet, melted, gooey needs."

Swiftly he is reminded of a much greater need, and traiterously he feels his concern for the hostages shift into something wholly selfish as he descends to a fallen hero. She is bringing him over to the dark side, the eclipse of her chest making him wonder what had ever been worth the light.

Drawn back to some source of light at least, his gaze flicks with hers towards the illuminated stones, and he can't help the little boyish shape his mouth takes. "Can this be?" he wonders, eyes widening with the proper shock of it even as his hands do not delay in the unshucking of canvas and poles. "Do I know something about the woods that the feral Flo-ro doesn't?" His grin is insufferable, even more so because he likely just did a poor job naming it, no paint involved. "Glow. Stone. Painting." He repeats it, slower, like she needs the reminder. "It's kinda like how you make a shape out of a cloud, except you also have to make the cloud...out of rocks and stuff." Maybe better demonstrated than explained. All in good time.

The pole in her hands is all kinds too long and skinny to actually mirror anything properly, and yet he can't keep the recognition of her careful hands sliding with such deliberate care from reflecting down his pants. His movements slow, focus drawn to the subtle bow of the pole straining beneath her fingers. His gaze lifts with considerable delay to hers, the connection with her dangerously angled aqua flaring like a rogue wave through the bond. "Oh, I've got a tip for you," he all but croons, color rising into his ears. "You want it now, or later?"

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora meets his menacing look with the lofty stillness of a villain who has absolutely been caught before the monologue was ready and refuses to let that matter. He has somehow managed to turn her own trap around on her, which is rude, inconvenient, and not a little impressive, though she has no intention of letting any of that show. Her chin lifts haughtily, the curve of her mouth sharpening with a promise she hasn’t yet bothered to define. "Oh, I’ll see to it that your needs are met." It lands like a threat rather than a reassurance, which is really the important part. Whether she knows yet what form the threat will take is beside the point; paying lip service to being menacing is more than enough for now.

His reaction to the glowstones catches her genuinely off guard for a moment, surprise opening across her face before she realizes he’s being sarcastic. Then her eyes roll hard enough to make up for the brief betrayal. "What about the way I grew up makes you think we spent our time doing arts and crafts with stones?" Sure, on the surface it sounds perfectly plausible that a little girl and her brothers might have made glowing pictures out of rocks in the magical woods, but that only holds up if someone ignores the building war around them and the few neglectful demigods they had for parents.

She gives him no ground at all, one brow rising as she echoes him with deliberate slowness. "Glow. Stone. Painting." Her gaze drops toward the stones, then returns to him with pointed scepticism. "Which involves literally no painting at all, based on what you just said." The arch of her brow deepens, smug and unrepentant. "Sounds more like glowstone arranging if you ask me."

Still, the argument doesn’t stop her from continuing with the tent.  Flora stretches her section of the pole out so it can eventually cross over the canvas, but there’s nothing innocent about the way she does it, her hands guiding the length forward with obvious, unhurried suggestion. She pretends not to notice the colour rising to Kaisel's ears or the answering heat slipping through the bond, just as she’d once pretended not to notice all the ways she could fluster him before they were anything so official as married. Her eyes drag slowly down the length of his body, lingering with enough intent to make the inspection feel like a hand, before sliding wryly back to his face. "It’s not that one about eating yellow snow again, is it?"

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Kaisel

The eyeroll has all the effect of thrown dice. The outcome that follows after sure to decide his fate, and the risk of a crit hit is quite real. What lands instead doesn't knock him over, but instead softens him, briefly. He glances back as if the young Flora he'd just seen in the memory might continue bounding up the trail to them, happy at least for a bit longer still. "Well," he starts with a touch of hesitation before his gaze swings back to her. "It's a good thing we're doing it now then."

The small consideration falls away to the return scrawl of her smug, and now it's his turn to roll his eyes. "Eiiiiither way," he pursues her rebranding without concern. "Whatever you want to call it, it's A R T. And we're gonna make it, and your life will be improved for having done so." Repeating what had essentially been told to him once upon a time, young boys being trained in swords not generally the first to take to arts and crafts. It had been worth it though, when it'd all been said and done.

Massaged into cooperation between the pair of them, the tent starts to take proper shape, even if it's at half the speed between glances and lingering touch. Absolutely fiddling longer than necessary with one connecting join and the drawing fit of the canvas around it, aware of the weight of her stare and the slip of it against him, as distracting as it is bolstering. His chest puffs out and shoulders square back for her viewing pleasure, but it all deflates into an abrupt laugh as she sweeps his guard away as neatly as ever. "What!" he demands, attention snapping to her as the tent finishes it's erecting. "Listen," he implores, both hands carving up the air in front of him alongside it. "That is a real problem and people have to be notified. Usually just children, but still." His smile roughens up a bit again, deviousness edging back in. "For what it's worth, I can also make fantastic yellow snow art." He clucks his tongue with a slow, sly sound. "Means I have good control, ya'know?"

Reaching for the pile of pillows, he begins to chuck them into the tent as padding, absolutely hucking one straight at her and feigning unawareness of the slip.

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

The softness in his voice catches her before she has the chance to make another argument out of rocks and semantics, and Flora laughs a little helplessly as her expression gives way beneath it. How Kaisel always manages to wriggle free of her traps and somehow leave her stomach fluttering with affection instead is beyond her, but it’s also, inconveniently, one of the primary reasons she’d married him. Rather than sharpening the moment into another bit of sass, she lets herself look at him with all of it instead, her smile warm and crooked in the glow of the stones around them. "Hard to imagine my life getting any better than it already is."

Still, she’s always been happy to watch him preen, and if there are ever times when she’s disappointed that her gaze doesn’t fluster him quite the way it had before they’d started dating, the way he shines beneath her attention more than makes up for it. As the tent starts to take shape between them, she lets her eyes linger openly while he squares his shoulders and puffs up beneath the weight of her stare, because really, if he’s going to offer a show, it would be rude not to appreciate it. His outburst has her snickering, and her brows lift with all the wide-eyed innocence of someone who absolutely started this on purpose. "I don’t actually think many people need to be told that." Her mouth twists as she pauses, reconsidering with exaggerated seriousness. "Or maybe just the ones already inclined to eat rocks need that particular lesson spelled out for them."

The mention of control pulls a much less admiring look from her, and Flora’s nose wrinkles immediately. "Gross." Whatever romance or temptation had been clinging to the tent poles dies an undignified little death beneath the thought of yellow snow art. She’s just reaching toward the heap of supplies when a pillow comes flying at her, and the dramatic "OOF" she gives as she catches it against her chest is far more theatrical than the impact deserves.

Her glare is fond and utterly unconvincing before she tosses the pillow into the tent after the others, then turns toward the truly absurd pile of things that had come from the backpack. Crouching, she starts sorting through the sprawl with only slightly more method than curiosity, shifting blankets and supplies aside while the glowstones cast soft, uneven light over her hands. "We brought the healing water for Ghilio somewhere, right?"

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Kaisel

The remark wipes all his certainty from his body as surely as it does the smile from his face. She snuck in a kiss while they'd been mid-wrestle, and he finds all he can do now is hold his hand to his cheek and keep it as long as he can. Affection swells suddenly into something bright and breathless, climbing completely over him and spilling across their connection relentlessly. It might always catch him by surprise, the effortless way she finds the parts of him beneath all the performance, enjoying that view as though that's the worthwhile watch.

He holds himself steady on the sight of her, though the soft blush of glowstone light across her and all the assurance curling from her lips into her cheeks is its own force to reckon with. He's grateful he's got forever to do so, although he doesn't expect that will be long enough to finish loving her. The faintest, happiest little sound deflates from him where he's tucked away her tenderness like a note he'll keep pressed to his chest. "Easy," he manages to get out, mostly the tumble of an exhale shaping a subtle smile. "Just add s'mores."

Helpless to the humor of it all, he chuckles, even if he ends up being the only one. Ducking behind the manspread of his grin, he glances back over at her. "Oh, so you're all for eating dirt, but you draw the line at rocks, huh?" He shakes his head as though disappointed in whatever this reveals about her character. "Here I thought you liked putting things in your mouth." Certainly seems to be the case for him.

With the tent mostly loaded to boast a plush floor, he stoops alongside her over their mountain of shit. "Uhhhh," he thinks for a moment before remembering as he hauls his backpack back into his hands. "Front pocket, for safekeeping. Almost too safe for my memory," he mutters as he unzips the smaller, lower pouch and withdraws the bottled water. It sloshes against the glass as he hands it over to her. "I still think we're gonna make plenty of noise tonight to help wake Ghilio up." A pause for phrasing as his smirk settles. "Always had sleepovers as a kid and that woke my parents up a ton." The midnight scolding lands a little different. "Plus, I haven't even taught you the best camp song yet."

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

The little sound that slips out of him makes Flora’s smile turn dangerously buoyant, the corners of her mouth lifting as though the whole expression is about to get away from her. Then he manages to make s’mores the answer, and the laugh startled out of her is breathless with joy. She rolls her eyes as if she really should have known better than to expect anything else, but the look she gives him afterward is so openly adoring that it lays the hostage negotiation to rest without a single formal concession. "Well, I guess it’s good we packed them, then." Her voice is bright with the grin still pulling at her lips, and if there’d been any real question about whether she intended to withhold them from him, it dies there in the damp, glowing dark between them.

Still, the dirt and rock comparison has her raising a brow, because really, if he’s going to try and make those equivalent, he deserves everything that comes next. "Eating dirt made me strong. Eating rocks just gave you an upset stomach, so you tell me which one of us is the idiot." As for what she does or doesn’t like putting in her mouth, Flora lets her gaze drip slowly from his face down to his hips before sliding back up again, all sweet scepticism and sugared danger. "Oh, are you suggesting I be more picky?"

She glances at him over one shoulder as he finds the front pocket, her smile softening into something grateful when he draws out the bottle of healing water. Taking it from him with a low hum of thanks, she turns it over in her hand, watching the liquid catch the glowstone light before his joke tugs at her attention again. It makes her smile, but the curve of it is quieter this time, caught on the sudden sharpness of how different their childhoods had been. His sleepovers had parents stomping down to affectionately scold him and his friends for being too loud. Hers had been the Greatwood, sleeping outside, listening for danger, learning to keep quiet enough that Ronin wouldn’t be reminded of her existence and burn part of the forest down for the inconvenience of her birth.

Swallowing the thought before it can become too heavy, Flora reaches for something easier instead, eyebrows bouncing as she tips her head toward him. "The best one?" She carries the bottle to the nearest thick root and sprinkles some of the water around its base, then moves to the next, letting the offering soak into the damp earth with a care that sits beneath all her teasing. "How do you know it’s the best? I know a few, and they were taught to me by a witch, so I feel like I’ve got a shot."

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Kaisel

With one concern well and truly laid to rest, and what a relief it is, the latest dilemma shoulders in. His tongue leaves the roof of his mouth with a click, one hand fluffing up the hair at the base of his neck. "Wooooaaaaw. Here I thought you were open to experimentation, but seems you just don't have the stones for it." A scrunch pulls his lips to one side, deeply disappointed at how poorly he'd judged her, apparently.

His features slowly ease beneath the roll of her stare, the scrutiny shifting. He stands a little taller, unintentionally drawing himself up for proper measure, not wanting to be unjustly scored. "No!" He answers with all the hurry of pressing a quick action sequence on nightmare mode, reflexes called to service. "No," he manages again, without the button mashing. "Just so used to how well you handle hard things, I'm making sure I understand the shape of your...palate." His eyebrows lift over the slow crawl of amusement, not bothering to his how balatantly terrible it all has become by now.

As they both busy with the supplies, he keeps low to organize their food while she rises to sprinkle the healing about like a drastic variation of an exorcism. Engrossed in the disarray of everything remaining, he doesn't fully pick up the small shift that moves through her, especially not with the escape of it masterfully clamped down. He glances up after the tail of it brushes through the bond, but all he can see is her at intentional work, the haughtiness returning with all the symptoms of her usual happiness. His gaze lingers just a touch longer than it should though, because while quiet might be a concerning thing, Flora has always been most at risk of shining hardest when she is internally dimming. It is just the way of flowers, to bloom their best before dropping each and every petal.

Satisfied, his attention shifts back to their supplies and he stacks them up in his arms, shifting them into a corner of the tent while leaning into it on his knees, elbowing pillows into place. "That sounds like a spell, not a song. You do know the difference, right?" He doesn't look back at her, just crawls further into their pop-up abode to smooth out the bottom and settle the pillows, boots left out and toes pressing into the ground as if anchoring him against the gravity of sinking into the allure of the plush comfort. "Well go on then, let's hear it!"

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora meets Kaisel's gaze over the absurd ruins of the conversation they’ve built together, entirely aware of how ludicrous it has become and not remotely interested in being the one to retreat first. If anything, the worse it gets, the more committed she feels to seeing exactly how far he’ll follow her into it. Her brow lifts, and when she speaks, her voice drops low enough to make the question feel much less innocent than the shape of the words. "Oh, so you’d prefer I had stones like you?"

With that left for him to do whatever damage he likes with, Flora finishes sprinkling the last of the healing water around the roots nearby, watching it disappear into the damp earth before turning back toward the tent. Finding Kaisel already tucked into the beginnings of comfort has her rolling her eyes, because of course he has managed to turn tent setup into lounging within seconds of there being enough pillows to justify it. Rather than join him, she makes a pointed little show of staying outside, collecting the glowstones nearest her and arranging them into a ring where the campfire can go.

"Do you?" The question is aimed at his back while she nudges one of the stones into place with the side of her boot, the glow catching along the rubber and flashing softly over the damp ground. Songs and spells aren’t nearly so separate as he seems to think, especially not when witches are involved, but Flora lets him have the shape of his challenge for now. If he wants a camping song, she can absolutely provide one. 

"Okay then, but you have to sing along too." Glancing toward him, she grins as she crouches to straighten another stone in the ring. "The words are super easy. You’ll get it." She clears her throat with a touch more ceremony than the moment requires, shoulders settling back as though she’s about to offer something grand and ancient instead of a song that’s mostly designed to roll around in her head for days after. Her voice, when it starts, is steady enough to carry a tune, though it isn’t sweetness that fills the campsite so much as sheer, infectious delight.

"Ho, ro, the rattlin’ bog, the bog down in the valley-o," she begins, and there’s already laughter curling at the edges of the words by the time she gets to the next line."“Rare bog, the rattlin’ bog, the bog down in the valley-o." 

The first verse is easy enough, and she gives him a bright, expectant look as she carries them through it, but then the song starts stacking itself higher and higher in the way all the best ridiculous songs do. There’s a tree in the bog, and a branch on the tree, and a limb on the branch, and each new piece has to drag every earlier piece along behind it like a growing train of nonsense. Flora’s laughter keeps breaking through the words, but she doesn’t stop. If anything, she speeds up, grinning as she forces the rhythm faster and faster.

---

Flora sings the Rattlin' Bog!

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Kaisel

For a moment, he considers assuring her that he's witnessed her stones on more than one occasion; it does not serve him at this time to flatter her or further obscure the image of her balls though. Instead, he attempts a shrug, as if that motion alone could rescue him from the madness. "I'm juuuust sayin'," comes the long, drawn out sound of someone who feels the point rapidly running away. "When your nipples pebble up, you never seem to question the merits of putting those in my mouth."

Sly in the most ridiculous way imaginable, he laughs under his breath as he finishes fluffing their floor. Rolling over onto his back and propping himself up on his elbows, he has to awkwardly duck his head to get a good view of her. Still entirely skeptical of what he's about to hear, he nonetheless calls out an agreement. "Only if this won't end up hexing me!" As good of a thumbs up to following along as he can give to someone who seems unwilling to simply say no, it's not a spell!

Scooching out of the tent and back to his feet, Kaisel starts to collect small bits of wood from the surrounding area. Thin sticks and sheared off sections of bark or dried, old leaves and vines is mostly what is offered up here, but he takes anything that doesn't seem too wet as Flora descends into a rhythm that sounds promising, although the words he steadily chases after her with cause his brows to lift up in mounting concern. Bogs, of course, being known witch habitat.

Her laughter pulls him through any lingering doubt, and before long, he's dumped off his fire-starting supplies as the rising urgency and absurdity of it all pulls him into the full breadth of the song like a current he had no hope of resisting. It's less lyrics he manages than an absolute tumble of sounds and breath, sometimes mangling the word badly enough as the verse races away that he's content just to have a similar sound to it as he chases behind her rush. It all strikes a boundless giddiness inside him that encourages an answering dance alongside the coalescing tempo, grabbing her at the end to drag her into the senseless motion and finally breaking apart with a laugh that hurts his side.

"What was that," he demands around a humored head shake, grin too wide to contain as the fit of it all subsides gradually on an exhale. "Alright," he admits with on raised hand and a head bowed in mild deference. "I admit that was pretty good." Although he's still half inclined to check if he's just sprouted a tail.

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora wrinkles her nose the instant he starts talking about her nipples pebbling up, her whole expression folding into exaggerated disgust as though he has just introduced the worst possible texture into an already deranged conversation. Worse than girth, honestly. "Ewwwwuh." The sound drags out of her dramatically, one hand lifting as if to physically ward the words away. "You’ve been reading too many of Mateo’s smut books."

The song saves her from whatever further crimes against imagery he might commit, and once Kaisel starts chasing after the words, Flora’s laughter only brightens. It slips between the lyrics and around them, turning the whole thing less into a performance than a shared disaster neither of them has any interest in surviving gracefully. Every time he mangles a line or catches up by pure sound rather than sense, she nearly loses the song completely, only to drag it back by force and make it even faster out of spite.

By the time he reaches for her, the campsite is all glowstone shine, half-gathered firewood, and nonsense ricocheting through the Undergrove. Flora lets herself be pulled into his absurd little dance without even trying to resist, throwing herself against him with her arms tangling around his shoulders. She’s laughing too hard to make the last of the words behave, her voice breaking around them until the song collapses entirely beneath the weight of their breathless, ridiculous joy.

When it finally ends, she releases him only enough to look up at him, still grinning so hard her cheeks ache. "That is called the Rattlin’ Bog." She gives the title the dignity of a formal introduction despite the way her laughter keeps threatening to ruin it. A few curls have escaped her ponytail during all of it, and Flora uses her fingers to push them back from her face, still flushed with amusement as she looks at him. Her eyes brighten with the same expectant challenge she’d turned on him for campsite selection, as if all of this is part of the same very official test. "Okay," she says, smile sharpening. "You’re up, hot shot."

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky