you look like my next mistake
Flora's breath shudders, her heartbeat pounding in her ears as Jack's words crash over her like a rogue wave; okay, so maybe he'd been right about how much worse she'd made it all in her head, but gods, she didn't know how to stop herself. "That is you saying I don’t have a say! What say am I supposed to have when you tell me that you expect me not to stop you?" Her voice breaks. "If I told you I was going to walk into Stormbreak and let Dahlia infect me, would you really just let me do it?" Would he just stand there and watch her destroy herself, the same way he was asking her to watch him throw himself back into the fire?
At 22 it's far too easy to be swept up in her own anger, such that even as Jack's words temporarily succeed in softening her edges, just as quickly her mind breathes new life over the hot coals. "Oh is that so? When you decided to tell me about you, and it was basically keep your secret or have you threaten to kill yourself if it got out?" It hadn't felt like he'd trusted her back then, more than it did a careful manipulation of her feelings.
"If I hadn’t bent, there would never have been a this. That’s how things fit together, Jack. Her voice is quieter now, but no less intense, no less sharp. "Straight boards don’t hold together on their own. They either have to be shaped until they fit or nailed into place."Insert being nailed joke here
In the silence that settles as she waits for his answer, Flora feels like glass on the verge of shattering, such that as Jack says those three little words, unbidden and in the midst of a fight, the queen can barely help the broken little sound that slips from her lips. She runs to him, closing the space between them in a blink, crashing against his chest like a ship desperate for shore, clutching at him like she’s afraid he’ll disappear. Her fingers slide beneath his coat, trembling, her body shaking with sobs she doesn’t even try to swallow back. I don't want to leave you, she thinks helplessly. Not ever.
At 22 it's far too easy to be swept up in her own anger, such that even as Jack's words temporarily succeed in softening her edges, just as quickly her mind breathes new life over the hot coals. "Oh is that so? When you decided to tell me about you, and it was basically keep your secret or have you threaten to kill yourself if it got out?" It hadn't felt like he'd trusted her back then, more than it did a careful manipulation of her feelings.
"If I hadn’t bent, there would never have been a this. That’s how things fit together, Jack. Her voice is quieter now, but no less intense, no less sharp. "Straight boards don’t hold together on their own. They either have to be shaped until they fit or nailed into place."
In the silence that settles as she waits for his answer, Flora feels like glass on the verge of shattering, such that as Jack says those three little words, unbidden and in the midst of a fight, the queen can barely help the broken little sound that slips from her lips. She runs to him, closing the space between them in a blink, crashing against his chest like a ship desperate for shore, clutching at him like she’s afraid he’ll disappear. Her fingers slide beneath his coat, trembling, her body shaking with sobs she doesn’t even try to swallow back. I don't want to leave you, she thinks helplessly. Not ever.
