i could be the reason you can't sleep at night
The Glade is in full bloom, radiant with the scents and sounds of Flowerbirth. The trees sway gently above in a slow, contented rhythm, their canopies catching the sunlight and filtering it into golden-green beams that dapple the wildflower-covered ground. Bees buzz lazily between blossoms, and the crystalline trickle of the nearby stream plays its part in the symphony of spring. It's the kind of place that should feel peaceful—should offer solace—but Flora is anything but at ease.
She sits near the edge of the water, grass tickling at her toes where her sandals have been abandoned beside a mossy rock. Her legs are folded, dress pooled haphazardly around her like a dropped napkin, curls swept up but already beginning to escape, just as restless as the mind beneath them. In one hand, she twirls a single daisy plucked from the meadow, petals already showing signs of having been fidgeted with far too much.
Flora hadn’t known what she expected when she wrote to Sohalia, only that she had to write. That not knowing where they stood had left something raw and gnawing inside her chest, especially now that Jack—
Well. She presses her lips into a firm line, breathing in sharply through her nose.
She’d ruined so many things lately, and she could handle the fallout from almost all of it. Except Soh. That fracture, she knew, would break her in ways she wouldn’t be able to joke or charm her way out of. So she waits, perched like a creature made entirely of nerves and hope, head turning at every rustle of wind through branches, at the flutter of bird wings or the crunch of footfall through grass.
She sits near the edge of the water, grass tickling at her toes where her sandals have been abandoned beside a mossy rock. Her legs are folded, dress pooled haphazardly around her like a dropped napkin, curls swept up but already beginning to escape, just as restless as the mind beneath them. In one hand, she twirls a single daisy plucked from the meadow, petals already showing signs of having been fidgeted with far too much.
Flora hadn’t known what she expected when she wrote to Sohalia, only that she had to write. That not knowing where they stood had left something raw and gnawing inside her chest, especially now that Jack—
Well. She presses her lips into a firm line, breathing in sharply through her nose.
She’d ruined so many things lately, and she could handle the fallout from almost all of it. Except Soh. That fracture, she knew, would break her in ways she wouldn’t be able to joke or charm her way out of. So she waits, perched like a creature made entirely of nerves and hope, head turning at every rustle of wind through branches, at the flutter of bird wings or the crunch of footfall through grass.
