flora
Her brows rise, the arch of them all amused challenge. "Early?" she echoes, the word crisp with disbelief. "So later it’s open season on threats, then?" There's a glint in her eye like she’s already plotting them, but his quick agreement earns a pleased hum low in her throat, one that borders on a purr as she stretches slightly, back arching, spine rippling. Of course he agrees—it is the comfiest bed in Caido, second only to the one back in her actual house.
Even so, his foot planted against her thigh sparks mischief, and the twitch in her fingers betrays just how badly she wants to retaliate. But she doesn’t; instead, as she watches him laugh and squirm and shield himself like she’s some monster conjured by his own teasing, something softer settles in behind her grin. It always catches her off guard, how easily the two of them fall back into rhythm. It’s like whatever time passed, whatever damage other people caused or they caused themselves, it never manages to touch this. Them. There’s something unreal about the way their world folds in around itself when they’re like this. Quiet and chaotic, tangled and uncomplicated. And when things aren’t matching perfectly, they’re still aligned enough to feel like maybe they never needed to.
Well..but maybe that wasn't quite right. A memory ghosts its way across her mind—the words harmless, the heat in the ring on her finger from her truth-telling ring, the silence that followed. And while some moments do deserved to be turned over and over, some moments don’t . Some just are, and maybe this one, in the hush of lilac and jasmine and low starlight, is one of those.
So Flora doesn’t tickle him, attack, or even gloat. She just plucks the pillow from his side with a deft flick and tosses it to the top of the bed before collapsing in a slow, boneless sprawl against him. Her arm drapes across his chest without hesitation as her leg hooks over his thigh like parts of her were just magnetically drawn to parts of him. Flora fits herself to Kaisel like she’s done it a hundred times in a hundred lifetimes, without fuss or fanfare or a pause to ask for permission.
"Ask Ludo all you want," she murmurs, her words warm against his collarbone, "but I’ve got a whole shelf of bottled curses from this underground market stall in The Fingers." She stretches just enough to press her cheek against his chest, a grin pulling sleepily at her lips. "Two of them are definitely legit, so.." Her lashes lower as she looks up at him, smirking.
Her voice melts slightly with the weight of the day, but it doesn’t hide the fondness that lingers in the space between her words. She noses gently toward a cabinet half-tucked into the wall, and murmurs, "There’s water in there if you get thirsty." Another yawn pushes into her throat and she smothers it against his shoulder, breathing in the salt and heat from his skin, and the faintest trace of whatever soap he'd used that morning, before the entire day went to hell.
Even so, his foot planted against her thigh sparks mischief, and the twitch in her fingers betrays just how badly she wants to retaliate. But she doesn’t; instead, as she watches him laugh and squirm and shield himself like she’s some monster conjured by his own teasing, something softer settles in behind her grin. It always catches her off guard, how easily the two of them fall back into rhythm. It’s like whatever time passed, whatever damage other people caused or they caused themselves, it never manages to touch this. Them. There’s something unreal about the way their world folds in around itself when they’re like this. Quiet and chaotic, tangled and uncomplicated. And when things aren’t matching perfectly, they’re still aligned enough to feel like maybe they never needed to.
Well..but maybe that wasn't quite right. A memory ghosts its way across her mind—the words harmless, the heat in the ring on her finger from her truth-telling ring, the silence that followed. And while some moments do deserved to be turned over and over, some moments don’t . Some just are, and maybe this one, in the hush of lilac and jasmine and low starlight, is one of those.
So Flora doesn’t tickle him, attack, or even gloat. She just plucks the pillow from his side with a deft flick and tosses it to the top of the bed before collapsing in a slow, boneless sprawl against him. Her arm drapes across his chest without hesitation as her leg hooks over his thigh like parts of her were just magnetically drawn to parts of him. Flora fits herself to Kaisel like she’s done it a hundred times in a hundred lifetimes, without fuss or fanfare or a pause to ask for permission.
"Ask Ludo all you want," she murmurs, her words warm against his collarbone, "but I’ve got a whole shelf of bottled curses from this underground market stall in The Fingers." She stretches just enough to press her cheek against his chest, a grin pulling sleepily at her lips. "Two of them are definitely legit, so.." Her lashes lower as she looks up at him, smirking.
Her voice melts slightly with the weight of the day, but it doesn’t hide the fondness that lingers in the space between her words. She noses gently toward a cabinet half-tucked into the wall, and murmurs, "There’s water in there if you get thirsty." Another yawn pushes into her throat and she smothers it against his shoulder, breathing in the salt and heat from his skin, and the faintest trace of whatever soap he'd used that morning, before the entire day went to hell.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
And now I'm covered in you
