marked me like a bloodstain
Stiffening, though whether in response to her mother's tone or simply because Flora had never liked being told what to do, the girl shakes her head, the motion quickly becoming less a method of communication and more a loop she found herself caught in, unable to break. She couldn't leave. Wouldn't.
Right?
Some small part of her, perhaps made all the more vulnerable and willing to entertain her mother's rash plan because of everything she'd recently gone through, softens. Not enough to agree perhaps, but enough for Flora to wrap her arms around the Valkyrie and drag her close once more. Beneath the scent of sweat and the exhaustion that has her mother's body feeling like a livewire rather than the soft and sensuous curves the Doubletake expects, she's still wonderfully familiar in a way that has Flora sagging wearily against her.
"Mom." Straightening slightly, the queen gives her head a slow shake. "Mom the Family will already know that I'm alive. They know everything." There was nowhere that she could hide from them, nothing she could keep hidden from them. "And..." Swallowing, Flora thinks of the way the world had grown so small as Pierce plunged the blade into her shoulder that final time; how his wicked laughter had been the last sound to reach her ears, long after Jack had taken his final breath. She thought of the way it had hurt to be cleaved back into her body, and how desperate she'd been to get back to Jack regardless of the consequences.
"I'm not going to run away, I'm not going to hide." Swallowing hard, a shivery breath forces itself past Flora's lips as her body tries to contain the sobs beginning to form in the back of her throat. "They don't get to do that to me."
Right?
Some small part of her, perhaps made all the more vulnerable and willing to entertain her mother's rash plan because of everything she'd recently gone through, softens. Not enough to agree perhaps, but enough for Flora to wrap her arms around the Valkyrie and drag her close once more. Beneath the scent of sweat and the exhaustion that has her mother's body feeling like a livewire rather than the soft and sensuous curves the Doubletake expects, she's still wonderfully familiar in a way that has Flora sagging wearily against her.
"Mom." Straightening slightly, the queen gives her head a slow shake. "Mom the Family will already know that I'm alive. They know everything." There was nowhere that she could hide from them, nothing she could keep hidden from them. "And..." Swallowing, Flora thinks of the way the world had grown so small as Pierce plunged the blade into her shoulder that final time; how his wicked laughter had been the last sound to reach her ears, long after Jack had taken his final breath. She thought of the way it had hurt to be cleaved back into her body, and how desperate she'd been to get back to Jack regardless of the consequences.
"I'm not going to run away, I'm not going to hide." Swallowing hard, a shivery breath forces itself past Flora's lips as her body tries to contain the sobs beginning to form in the back of her throat. "They don't get to do that to me."
