flora
Even as Remi’s magic threads warmth back into her veins, Flora’s not sure she can feel it.
The pain had been too bright. The fear, too loud. And now everything in her is scattered, like broken glass across a sunlit floor. Her pulse trips unevenly, like her heart is trying to decide whether it should keep going or not. Some part of her still expects Dahlia’s claws, still feels the phantom burn of them deep in her side, as if that pain has been etched directly into her bones.
And yet—
There are arms around her. Real ones. Safe ones.
Remi’s voice presses into her like a balm, wrapping around the ragged edges of her mind, and though her body trembles with the aftermath, her head turns weakly against his chest. She can feel the beat of his heart there, anchoring her.
She breathes in once. Tries again. Then manages to mumble, voice nearly lost to the sticky rasp of blood in her throat:
“…was supposed to meet…my ghost…”
Her ghost friend. A tea date. Something innocent and sweet and so far removed from blood-soaked cobblestones and the gaping jaws of death. Something that suddenly seems more important than anything else.
But the effort of saying even that much is too much. Her lashes flutter once, twice, and then close completely, her body slumping in Remi’s hold as unconsciousness takes her at last.
The pain had been too bright. The fear, too loud. And now everything in her is scattered, like broken glass across a sunlit floor. Her pulse trips unevenly, like her heart is trying to decide whether it should keep going or not. Some part of her still expects Dahlia’s claws, still feels the phantom burn of them deep in her side, as if that pain has been etched directly into her bones.
And yet—
There are arms around her. Real ones. Safe ones.
Remi’s voice presses into her like a balm, wrapping around the ragged edges of her mind, and though her body trembles with the aftermath, her head turns weakly against his chest. She can feel the beat of his heart there, anchoring her.
She breathes in once. Tries again. Then manages to mumble, voice nearly lost to the sticky rasp of blood in her throat:
“…was supposed to meet…my ghost…”
Her ghost friend. A tea date. Something innocent and sweet and so far removed from blood-soaked cobblestones and the gaping jaws of death. Something that suddenly seems more important than anything else.
But the effort of saying even that much is too much. Her lashes flutter once, twice, and then close completely, her body slumping in Remi’s hold as unconsciousness takes her at last.
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
And now I'm covered in you
