and all that we intend is scrawled in sand
"My left or—" she starts, the question barely leaving her lips before Koa’s head tips in that almost imperceptible way of his. Her mouth closes with a quiet breath, something tremulous caught behind her ribs as she adjusts without needing further explanation. Of course he’d already known what she was about to ask. Of course she’d followed without thinking.
She steps where he guides, spine bowing low beneath a branch that skims the crown of her head, its leaf-laced fingers catching briefly in her curls. Flora winces as they tug, sharp and needling like the past, but she doesn’t stop—not when the forest seems to shift for her beneath her breath, and not when the scrape of claws feels close enough to skim Koa’s back.
She stumbles over a patch of moss-draped root, lungs hitching as she catches herself with a tighter grip on his hand, the soft of her palm pressed quick and firm against his.
It shouldn't be this easy, moving like this, breathing like this. All those years of trying to untangle him from her chest, of pretending that just because they were bad at timing they were also bad at everything. And yet... here they are. Not even a glance traded, and she knows how he moves, knows how to match his rhythm, how to adjust without needing to be asked. It feels like falling into step with a song she didn’t know she remembered.
"We’re almost through," Flora whispers, though it sounds more like a promise than a report, her voice quiet and steady in the strange hush of the Wildwood. And if gaze keeps flicking over his shoulder again, it’s not only because of the thing still behind them. It’s because it’s easier to face a monster than it is to look too long at what they used to be. "Then it'll be over."
She steps where he guides, spine bowing low beneath a branch that skims the crown of her head, its leaf-laced fingers catching briefly in her curls. Flora winces as they tug, sharp and needling like the past, but she doesn’t stop—not when the forest seems to shift for her beneath her breath, and not when the scrape of claws feels close enough to skim Koa’s back.
She stumbles over a patch of moss-draped root, lungs hitching as she catches herself with a tighter grip on his hand, the soft of her palm pressed quick and firm against his.
It shouldn't be this easy, moving like this, breathing like this. All those years of trying to untangle him from her chest, of pretending that just because they were bad at timing they were also bad at everything. And yet... here they are. Not even a glance traded, and she knows how he moves, knows how to match his rhythm, how to adjust without needing to be asked. It feels like falling into step with a song she didn’t know she remembered.
"We’re almost through," Flora whispers, though it sounds more like a promise than a report, her voice quiet and steady in the strange hush of the Wildwood. And if gaze keeps flicking over his shoulder again, it’s not only because of the thing still behind them. It’s because it’s easier to face a monster than it is to look too long at what they used to be. "Then it'll be over."
