flora
It’s late; properly, mercifully late. The kind of hour when even the moon seems to whisper and the ocean hums low lullabies to itself. From the docks, it might look like a trick of the lamplight, the way a drink suspended in the air above the Sugar Tide’s bow is rising and falling every so often in a slow, contemplative rhythm. It dips, tilts, vanishes, then lifts again, as though the stars themselves had decided to toast the sea.
Flora is intentionally invisible; wrapped in a gauzy blanket that shifts and rustles with the breeze, she lounges in the soft sprawl of cushions she’s laid out on the deck, knees drawn up, one arm draped over them while the other lifts her glass. The drink inside glows faintly—some pink thing with gin, citrus and too much sugar—and catches the moonlight with every lazy turn of her wrist.
Spice is curled nearby, the little dragon’s snowy tail looped around herself as she watches the waves below with idle interest, her soft huff sending curls of cool breath drifting up toward Flora’s bare shins.
Behind them, the lower deck is quiet, except for the occasional snore and sigh of Bassian passed out cold in her bed. Too many sweets, too much enthusiasm for board games, and entirely too little stamina for Flora’s chosen nightcap. But that’s fine, so long as one of them is awake, the queen feels safe enough.
Flora is intentionally invisible; wrapped in a gauzy blanket that shifts and rustles with the breeze, she lounges in the soft sprawl of cushions she’s laid out on the deck, knees drawn up, one arm draped over them while the other lifts her glass. The drink inside glows faintly—some pink thing with gin, citrus and too much sugar—and catches the moonlight with every lazy turn of her wrist.
Spice is curled nearby, the little dragon’s snowy tail looped around herself as she watches the waves below with idle interest, her soft huff sending curls of cool breath drifting up toward Flora’s bare shins.
Behind them, the lower deck is quiet, except for the occasional snore and sigh of Bassian passed out cold in her bed. Too many sweets, too much enthusiasm for board games, and entirely too little stamina for Flora’s chosen nightcap. But that’s fine, so long as one of them is awake, the queen feels safe enough.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
And now I'm covered in you
