i'll rig the game for you

Flora

Flora melts into the second hug without hesitation. She buries her face briefly against Mateo’s shoulder, letting the comfort of him—jasmine, peppermint, the steadfast hum of family—soak into the bruised places she’s been holding too tightly. At his offer to sabotage Jack, though, Flora huffs out a half-laugh, shaking her head. "Nahh," she murmurs, a hand running through her curls to push them back from her flushed cheeks. "I don’t want to fight with him anymore. I’m tired." Her fingers tap absently against the rail. "If I really wanted to hurt him, I could’ve burned him to the ground with everything I know, but.." The words are soft, matter-of-fact, without heat—but even saying them aloud leaves a bitter taste on her tongue. "Sending poisonous plants would probably just blow up in my face anyway," she adds, flashing Mateo a tired, crooked grin. "He always was better at winning the ugly fights."

As for Sohalia and Koa, the Doubletake bounces her brows in confirmation. "Yeah it super sucks, actually," she says quietly, though she squeezes his hand before letting go and straightening, brushing invisible dust from her knee with a theatrical little flourish. "But whatever, I didn’t come up here to crash and burn all over again. I came to figure out how not to crash at all." Her grin sharpens into something fiercer, stitched together with stubborn hope and sheer will.

'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did

Code stolen from Queen Sky