Whether I'm gonna curse you out or
Take you back to my house
Take you back to my house
Flora cackles, loud and unfiltered, the sound bouncing off the bar’s stone walls and drawing a few startled glances from nearby tables. Let them stare. She doesn’t care. Gods, she hasn’t laughed like this in forever—not the careful, polished laughter she wears like armour, not the brittle breath of amusement she offers when everything’s going to hell—but this. This is real. It fizzes out of her like soda shaken too long, wild and irrepressible.
The mental image of Hadama surfacing from the sea with candy-apple red hair is enough to make her snort, half doubling over as she gasps, "You—stop—" between wheezing giggles. She swats weakly at Kaisel’s shoulder, the other hand clutching her side like it might keep her from splitting in half. "He would kill us. Like, actual murder. And then turn our corpses into tasteful underwater sculpture."
But the look in her eyes—bright and reckless—says she’s tempted. Gods, she wants to be tempted. Wants this, whatever this is, this giddy bubble of chaos and friendship and dumb inside jokes. And when Kaisel abruptly shifts into his pose—bicep flexed, lips pursed, jawline shamelessly highlighted—she nearly chokes on her own breath.
"Wow," she says, eyebrows arching as her gaze does a very un-subtle sweep from his arm to his face and back again. "And here I thought you were just the nice one." Her smirk curves sharp at one corner, but her tone is unmistakably appreciative. "Okay, that move earns you, like, one and a half relic points on its own," she adds, tilting her head thoughtfully like she’s genuinely reconsidering the rankings of their imaginary magical arsenal. a"But you’ll need at least three more over-the-top poses to catch up to my ring collection."
Her grin is sharp, flushed, a little breathless. But there’s something else layered beneath the mischief—something soft, almost wistful. This is what it feels like to be young. To joke without consequence, to plan pranks instead of diplomacy, to laugh until you cry and not worry that someone might see and use it against you. For once, no one's looking to her for answers, or strategy, or sacrifice.
Because for the past few years—gods, even longer—she's been a queen. The daughter of four demigods. The girlfriend of someone basically twice her age. Every room she walks into, she’s expected to be clever, poised, dazzling, and ready. There’s no room for stumbling. No room for being twenty-two.
But here, on this worn bench beside a boy who doesn't need her to be anything more than Flora—just Flora—she lets her shoulders drop. Just a little.
"Kaisel?" she murmurs, her voice quieter now, the laughter still clinging to her smile. "I think we might be unstoppable." There’s a flicker of something like awe in her expression, gazing at him not with the distant polish of a ruler or the half-veiled caution of a woman who’s been burned one too many times—but like a girl sitting in the glow of candlelight, plotting harmless chaos with her favourite co-conspirator.
"Alright, Flo-Crow and The Invisible Bicep of Doom," she says at last, extending her hand across the table with a theatrical flourish. Her rings sparkle in the dim light, each one a symbol of the burdens she carries, but right now? They just look like costume jewellery.
The mental image of Hadama surfacing from the sea with candy-apple red hair is enough to make her snort, half doubling over as she gasps, "You—stop—" between wheezing giggles. She swats weakly at Kaisel’s shoulder, the other hand clutching her side like it might keep her from splitting in half. "He would kill us. Like, actual murder. And then turn our corpses into tasteful underwater sculpture."
But the look in her eyes—bright and reckless—says she’s tempted. Gods, she wants to be tempted. Wants this, whatever this is, this giddy bubble of chaos and friendship and dumb inside jokes. And when Kaisel abruptly shifts into his pose—bicep flexed, lips pursed, jawline shamelessly highlighted—she nearly chokes on her own breath.
"Wow," she says, eyebrows arching as her gaze does a very un-subtle sweep from his arm to his face and back again. "And here I thought you were just the nice one." Her smirk curves sharp at one corner, but her tone is unmistakably appreciative. "Okay, that move earns you, like, one and a half relic points on its own," she adds, tilting her head thoughtfully like she’s genuinely reconsidering the rankings of their imaginary magical arsenal. a"But you’ll need at least three more over-the-top poses to catch up to my ring collection."
Her grin is sharp, flushed, a little breathless. But there’s something else layered beneath the mischief—something soft, almost wistful. This is what it feels like to be young. To joke without consequence, to plan pranks instead of diplomacy, to laugh until you cry and not worry that someone might see and use it against you. For once, no one's looking to her for answers, or strategy, or sacrifice.
Because for the past few years—gods, even longer—she's been a queen. The daughter of four demigods. The girlfriend of someone basically twice her age. Every room she walks into, she’s expected to be clever, poised, dazzling, and ready. There’s no room for stumbling. No room for being twenty-two.
But here, on this worn bench beside a boy who doesn't need her to be anything more than Flora—just Flora—she lets her shoulders drop. Just a little.
"Kaisel?" she murmurs, her voice quieter now, the laughter still clinging to her smile. "I think we might be unstoppable." There’s a flicker of something like awe in her expression, gazing at him not with the distant polish of a ruler or the half-veiled caution of a woman who’s been burned one too many times—but like a girl sitting in the glow of candlelight, plotting harmless chaos with her favourite co-conspirator.
"Alright, Flo-Crow and The Invisible Bicep of Doom," she says at last, extending her hand across the table with a theatrical flourish. Her rings sparkle in the dim light, each one a symbol of the burdens she carries, but right now? They just look like costume jewellery.
flora
I haven't decided yet
But I'm gonna get you back
But I'm gonna get you back
