your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
"No, Jack," Flora says, her voice smooth as seaglass. "Your disappearing act didn’t make my heart grow fonder." Her chin lifts, eyes flicking over his face like she’s trying to see what’s still left beneath that windblown hair and smugness. "Plenty of things grew," she adds, quieter now. Bitterness. Hurt. A very inconvenient habit of crying in the bath. "But fondness?" She lets out a humourless laugh, too sharp to be mistaken for anything else. "No, not so much."
"A lot of time," he’d said. For someone like him, that could mean decades. Centuries. Forever, if it suited him. She doesn’t need to say it aloud; they both know how his immortality has skewed his perception of things. Did he really think she’d wait around endlessly? That she’d sit pretty by the sea like some sunburned Persephone, hoping the King of Ghosts would return to spit ice at her feet again and call it love?
"What I chose was not to sit around like some sad little sandcastle, waiting for the tide to come back in, because there was no one around to tell me otherwise." The merchant is practically vibrating behind them now, pretending to admire a bolt of cloth while clearly eavesdropping. "Good luck with your boat," Flora snaps petulantly before turning toward the man with the horse and giving her head a toss. "Come on, let's take this back to the docks."
"A lot of time," he’d said. For someone like him, that could mean decades. Centuries. Forever, if it suited him. She doesn’t need to say it aloud; they both know how his immortality has skewed his perception of things. Did he really think she’d wait around endlessly? That she’d sit pretty by the sea like some sunburned Persephone, hoping the King of Ghosts would return to spit ice at her feet again and call it love?
"What I chose was not to sit around like some sad little sandcastle, waiting for the tide to come back in, because there was no one around to tell me otherwise." The merchant is practically vibrating behind them now, pretending to admire a bolt of cloth while clearly eavesdropping. "Good luck with your boat," Flora snaps petulantly before turning toward the man with the horse and giving her head a toss. "Come on, let's take this back to the docks."
