flora
Flora's fingers keep wandering, even as Kai's breathing starts to slow. They dance lazy circles along the slope of his collarbone, meander down to trace the notch at his sternum, skim over the faint ridges of the muscles he's been building since having signed up to be a dragoon. She isn’t thinking about what she’s doing, not really. Just following the impulse to map out every inch of him her fingertips can claim, coaxing up goosebumps like wishes from dandelion fluff.
She shifts when something beneath her stirs, more out of instinct than intent—her thigh sliding across him for smoother purchase before curling tighter like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The kind of closeness you only get when you stop thinking about whether you’re allowed to have it, or when you're just too tired to care. "Mmhmm," she hums softly in response, as if they’ve made a plan—like this nap had been scheduled on some future agenda and she’s simply confirming attendance. Her voice has that syrupy drawl that sleep brings, slow and warm and full of sugar. "Exactly what I had in mind."
But then his hand twitches, and it startles something inside her, and her heart hiccups like she’s missed a step on invisible stairs. Her whole body jolts, just a breath, before she settles again, adjusting into the spaces his sleep-slack arms can no longer hold. There’s nothing dramatic about it, but there’s a faint sharpness in the way she exhales as her heart continues hammering on against his chest.
Flora laughs quietly at the mention of floaty pants; the kind of laugh that puffs more air than sound. "You handle snacks," she whispers, "I’ll do outfits." Her forehead nudges a little higher until the bridge of her nose is tucked beneath his jaw. "And I do not smell like pancakes," she mumbles into his skin, indignant but only half-awake. "I smell like..."
She could slip under with him now. Let herself get pulled into that safe dark quiet where nothing matters. "..right now I smell like you."
As Kai's arms soften, hers anchor. The Sugar Tide creaks softly with the water, and she moves with it only enough to let herself press in closer. Her leg tightens around him as her arm winds across his chest, causing her entire body to curve over half of him like a shield or a blanket: half-draped, half-wrapped, as if sleep might try to steal him away and she’s not having it. Not now; not when everything else is falling apart. Because with the fall of Stormbreak and Koa's note about sending the Dragoons east, Flora has every reason to think that these moments with Kai might become a thing of the past as distance and responsibility eat up the afternoons they'd thoughtlessly spent with one another like there were a hundred more to come.
So when sleep calls for her, she doesn’t answer, not right away. Not while the future looks like sea foam and smoke, and while Kai feels warm and real beneath her fingertips in a way that nothing else has felt like lately.
She shifts when something beneath her stirs, more out of instinct than intent—her thigh sliding across him for smoother purchase before curling tighter like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The kind of closeness you only get when you stop thinking about whether you’re allowed to have it, or when you're just too tired to care. "Mmhmm," she hums softly in response, as if they’ve made a plan—like this nap had been scheduled on some future agenda and she’s simply confirming attendance. Her voice has that syrupy drawl that sleep brings, slow and warm and full of sugar. "Exactly what I had in mind."
But then his hand twitches, and it startles something inside her, and her heart hiccups like she’s missed a step on invisible stairs. Her whole body jolts, just a breath, before she settles again, adjusting into the spaces his sleep-slack arms can no longer hold. There’s nothing dramatic about it, but there’s a faint sharpness in the way she exhales as her heart continues hammering on against his chest.
Flora laughs quietly at the mention of floaty pants; the kind of laugh that puffs more air than sound. "You handle snacks," she whispers, "I’ll do outfits." Her forehead nudges a little higher until the bridge of her nose is tucked beneath his jaw. "And I do not smell like pancakes," she mumbles into his skin, indignant but only half-awake. "I smell like..."
She could slip under with him now. Let herself get pulled into that safe dark quiet where nothing matters. "..right now I smell like you."
As Kai's arms soften, hers anchor. The Sugar Tide creaks softly with the water, and she moves with it only enough to let herself press in closer. Her leg tightens around him as her arm winds across his chest, causing her entire body to curve over half of him like a shield or a blanket: half-draped, half-wrapped, as if sleep might try to steal him away and she’s not having it. Not now; not when everything else is falling apart. Because with the fall of Stormbreak and Koa's note about sending the Dragoons east, Flora has every reason to think that these moments with Kai might become a thing of the past as distance and responsibility eat up the afternoons they'd thoughtlessly spent with one another like there were a hundred more to come.
So when sleep calls for her, she doesn’t answer, not right away. Not while the future looks like sea foam and smoke, and while Kai feels warm and real beneath her fingertips in a way that nothing else has felt like lately.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
And now I'm covered in you
