JACK
"Not many people do," Jack says with an easy shrug, his gaze back on the ocean as the light starts to turn from rich amber to the moody blue of night. Torchline has been the paradise that Hadama and Flora created for so long now that any hardship that existed in the decades before healing fountains and monsoon shields have started fade to little more than memory; only those who still carry losses from across those years are likely to remember it.
Wanting to bristle at her train of thought for how close it cuts to the bone, Jack has no idea where Flora gets the audacity to so easily create meaning behind his decisions, but if he thinks about it too much, he'll realise it's because it's already too late. She already knows him better than anyone else on the islands, already loves him despite every new and ugly truth that keeps crawling out from beneath rock and seaweed, and the pull of it is becoming inexorable with every day that passes.
"Don't you dare pity me," he mutters nonetheless, lifting his glass to shoot back the rest of the rum in it. "I'm not tellin' you any of this for pity."
And that might have been it - the end to his little history lesson tied up in the trickle of her fingers down his back - only Flora has to go and mention raising the dead. Barking out a humourless laugh, Jack shoots her an incredulous look over his shoulder. "You reckon some gentle woman who used to sing on the docks would want to know that this is what I became?" he asks with a disbelieving shake of his head. "Or that even if I wanted to, I'm gonna go grovel to Remi about it?"
You know, Remi? The guy who caused this little emotional throwback in the first place?
Wanting to bristle at her train of thought for how close it cuts to the bone, Jack has no idea where Flora gets the audacity to so easily create meaning behind his decisions, but if he thinks about it too much, he'll realise it's because it's already too late. She already knows him better than anyone else on the islands, already loves him despite every new and ugly truth that keeps crawling out from beneath rock and seaweed, and the pull of it is becoming inexorable with every day that passes.
"Don't you dare pity me," he mutters nonetheless, lifting his glass to shoot back the rest of the rum in it. "I'm not tellin' you any of this for pity."
And that might have been it - the end to his little history lesson tied up in the trickle of her fingers down his back - only Flora has to go and mention raising the dead. Barking out a humourless laugh, Jack shoots her an incredulous look over his shoulder. "You reckon some gentle woman who used to sing on the docks would want to know that this is what I became?" he asks with a disbelieving shake of his head. "Or that even if I wanted to, I'm gonna go grovel to Remi about it?"
You know, Remi? The guy who caused this little emotional throwback in the first place?
when I look at something, I see it for what it could be
when I look at something, I see how it ends
when I look at something, I see how it ends
Code stolen from Queen Sky
- Secret Telepath
- Functionally Immortal (Forever 35)
- Two small star tattoos beneath his left eye
- Click for The Ark!
