you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody
For all that Flora has spent her life learning how to parse danger, decipher nuance, slip past the barbs of others with charm or venom or something in between—there’s simply no way to prepare for this. For the jagged kindness of Jack’s voice as he finishes the thought she can’t quite bring herself to say aloud. For the way he straightens, folding himself back into that careless, cocky shape the world expects of him, while something beneath it all still bleeds for her.
Questionable shit could mean any number of things for Jack Barclay, and gods help her, she doesn’t ask. Doesn’t press. Not because she doesn’t want to know—she will want to know, when the hours stretch long and cruel and there’s nothing but the tide and the ache and the what-ifs to keep her company. She’ll imagine it then, over and over again, and every version of it will hollow her out a little more. But not now. Not when her heart is already split wide open, waterlogged with sorrow.
Instead, as he mentions Torchline and its judgement, Flora huffs something that might have tried to be a laugh, except it’s more salt than sound. She nods anyway, wordlessly agreeing not to turn their grief into gossip, even if every look at the sea from now on might still taste like him.
And when he says he’ll see her later, something sharp and bright and stupidly hopeful spears her through the ribs. She swipes at her cheeks, the gesture trembling, remembering the gentler version of it moments ago when his fingers had done it for her. She nods stiffly, then again, and again—until it carries the same rhythm as a heart breaking and trying, despite everything, to keep beating. Of course he’d see her again. On the beaches. In a dream. In every fucking star if it came to that.
As Jack turns and leaves, finding the seam in her soul and slipping through it like it’s nothing at all, Flora presses her teeth together so hard her jaw trembles. She forces herself to count—sixty seconds, slow and deliberate, one for every imagined step away from her until the net of his magic released her mind.
For one final, stupid time, the Queen of Torchline wraps herself in gold and splendour, casting her thoughts outward like a net of diamonds spun from her tears, gilded and rich and unmistakably hers. It is a farewell soaked in beauty, in love, in the softest agony a girl can bear without shattering.
And then, once she’s sure—once she’s sure he’s gone—Flora breaks.
She collapses onto the bed in a ruin of sobs that claw their way out of her chest like something feral, her breath hitching too violently to muffle. The guards outside hesitate, uncertain, until one of them finally murmurs for someone to get her mother, and Hotaru comes with magic, if not with words, to try and gather up whatever pieces remain.
~FIN
Questionable shit could mean any number of things for Jack Barclay, and gods help her, she doesn’t ask. Doesn’t press. Not because she doesn’t want to know—she will want to know, when the hours stretch long and cruel and there’s nothing but the tide and the ache and the what-ifs to keep her company. She’ll imagine it then, over and over again, and every version of it will hollow her out a little more. But not now. Not when her heart is already split wide open, waterlogged with sorrow.
Instead, as he mentions Torchline and its judgement, Flora huffs something that might have tried to be a laugh, except it’s more salt than sound. She nods anyway, wordlessly agreeing not to turn their grief into gossip, even if every look at the sea from now on might still taste like him.
And when he says he’ll see her later, something sharp and bright and stupidly hopeful spears her through the ribs. She swipes at her cheeks, the gesture trembling, remembering the gentler version of it moments ago when his fingers had done it for her. She nods stiffly, then again, and again—until it carries the same rhythm as a heart breaking and trying, despite everything, to keep beating. Of course he’d see her again. On the beaches. In a dream. In every fucking star if it came to that.
As Jack turns and leaves, finding the seam in her soul and slipping through it like it’s nothing at all, Flora presses her teeth together so hard her jaw trembles. She forces herself to count—sixty seconds, slow and deliberate, one for every imagined step away from her until the net of his magic released her mind.
For one final, stupid time, the Queen of Torchline wraps herself in gold and splendour, casting her thoughts outward like a net of diamonds spun from her tears, gilded and rich and unmistakably hers. It is a farewell soaked in beauty, in love, in the softest agony a girl can bear without shattering.
And then, once she’s sure—once she’s sure he’s gone—Flora breaks.
She collapses onto the bed in a ruin of sobs that claw their way out of her chest like something feral, her breath hitching too violently to muffle. The guards outside hesitate, uncertain, until one of them finally murmurs for someone to get her mother, and Hotaru comes with magic, if not with words, to try and gather up whatever pieces remain.
~FIN
