and all that we intend is scrawled in sand
Flora's brow lifts—slow, deliberate, unimpressed—and for a moment she simply watches Koa, letting the silence stretch between them like a curtain slowly descending. She doesn't dignify the accusation with a response, doesn’t waste breath defending something that doesn’t belong to him. Jack’s actions, Torchline’s justice, her own territory—none of it requires Koa’s approval, and certainly not his interpretation of the word attempted. If Jack had wanted Kaisel dead, there wouldn’t have been anything left to debate other than how small a box was required for his cousin's ashes.
But what cuts deeper than his words is the way his expression hardens in their aftermath, layer by layer until he’s someone she doesn’t quite recognise. And maybe that’s the truth she hadn’t let herself name until now; that this version of Koa, all sharp lines and military polish, isn’t someone she knows anymore. She’s spent seasons turning him over in her mind, shaping memories into maybes, daydreaming about what could have beens, casting the past in warmer light. But the man in front of her isn’t made of maybes; he’s made of distance. Of duty and scar tissue. Of something colder than the boy she once adored.
Her fingers tighten subtly as his close around hers even with fear rising like seawater in her throat. Her voice lowers, barely more than breath between them as she keeps her eyes steady on his. "If I tell you to channel, we’re going to call Ludo," she says softly. "But I think I can get us out. Just...think happy tree thoughts." With slow steps backward, she begins to guide him, her free hand lifting to brush against the rough edge of a nearby tree’s bark, fingers gliding along the grain with a reverence born of childhood secrets and whispered promises. "Just keep walking toward me," she breathes, still watching his face, still willing him to focus only on her and not give in to the creature still reaching out for him.
Beneath her skin, her heartbeat gallops. Her cheeks are flushed with fear and effort, though her expression remains composed as her fingertips press into the wood, coaxing the Wildwood like an old friend who might still care enough to listen. She doesn’t speak the prayer aloud, but the wish is there in every breath—that the forest still remembers her, still wants to protect the girl who once played barefoot beneath its leaves and trusted it with her whole heart.
The hardest part of it all is trying to hold Koa's gaze, not because it hurts, but because it doesn’t belong to her anymore. Once, he’d looked at her like she was his whole world, and she’d been a breath away from letting him be hers too. Now there’s too much distance layered between the moments that mattered and the ones they’re in. And yet, even now, with all the tension knotting between them, his hand feels achingly familiar and his gaze unfairly intimate with how hard her heart was pounding as she prayed for the trees to save them.
But what cuts deeper than his words is the way his expression hardens in their aftermath, layer by layer until he’s someone she doesn’t quite recognise. And maybe that’s the truth she hadn’t let herself name until now; that this version of Koa, all sharp lines and military polish, isn’t someone she knows anymore. She’s spent seasons turning him over in her mind, shaping memories into maybes, daydreaming about what could have beens, casting the past in warmer light. But the man in front of her isn’t made of maybes; he’s made of distance. Of duty and scar tissue. Of something colder than the boy she once adored.
Her fingers tighten subtly as his close around hers even with fear rising like seawater in her throat. Her voice lowers, barely more than breath between them as she keeps her eyes steady on his. "If I tell you to channel, we’re going to call Ludo," she says softly. "But I think I can get us out. Just...think happy tree thoughts." With slow steps backward, she begins to guide him, her free hand lifting to brush against the rough edge of a nearby tree’s bark, fingers gliding along the grain with a reverence born of childhood secrets and whispered promises. "Just keep walking toward me," she breathes, still watching his face, still willing him to focus only on her and not give in to the creature still reaching out for him.
Beneath her skin, her heartbeat gallops. Her cheeks are flushed with fear and effort, though her expression remains composed as her fingertips press into the wood, coaxing the Wildwood like an old friend who might still care enough to listen. She doesn’t speak the prayer aloud, but the wish is there in every breath—that the forest still remembers her, still wants to protect the girl who once played barefoot beneath its leaves and trusted it with her whole heart.
The hardest part of it all is trying to hold Koa's gaze, not because it hurts, but because it doesn’t belong to her anymore. Once, he’d looked at her like she was his whole world, and she’d been a breath away from letting him be hers too. Now there’s too much distance layered between the moments that mattered and the ones they’re in. And yet, even now, with all the tension knotting between them, his hand feels achingly familiar and his gaze unfairly intimate with how hard her heart was pounding as she prayed for the trees to save them.
