marked me like a bloodstain
Flora leans forward slightly, letting the water cradle her ribs, the hollow of her spine, the tightness that clings to the ragged scars beneath. Her voice, when it comes, is low and unvarnished. "I felt her claws around my ribs," she murmurs, her gaze trained on the curling eddies where her fingers break the surface. "Not like a swipe. She wrapped her hands in me and started to pull." The memory curls into her lungs like smoke, acrid and lingering. "She told my dads that she was going to kill me in front of them." A shudder rolls through her, too instinctive to hide, and she sinks lower into the tub like the water might offer her a second skin. Her shoulders hunch as she shrugs, one hand drifting to idly skim her ankle beneath the surface. "I don’t know if the salves help. Some days it feels like they're doing something. Some days I think it’s all just a thing people keep doing so they feel like they're helping."
As Kai settles against the tub, Flora casts a glance over her shoulder, her eyes catching his a touch warily. With a small sigh, she shifts, careful not to slosh the water too high as she moves to sit in front of him, her back curving slightly, her knees drawn tight to her chest. She gathers her hair in one hand, twisting it up and off her neck, revealing the full damage left behind. It is a brutal constellation etched into delicate skin. Dahlia’s claws had scored deep, angry welts from her shoulder blades down to the small of her back, some jagged and wide, others tight as ropes down her spine. Against her ribs, almost perfect mirror images of each other, four perfect punctures where Dahlia’s talons had sunk in to anchor her grip. Among it all, the faint star-shaped scar at her shoulder—where Pierce had killed her—now looks almost decorative, a pale echo of something far simpler.
At his question, she exhales, not quite a laugh but something close—a scoff, soft and bitter as sea-brine. Her chin settles atop her knees, gaze hazy with memory. "I’d have told Enzo we should go to the Refuge instead," she says without hesitation, the answer too well-worn to need polishing. "We had no business being anywhere near a warzone, not when we were still trying to figure out how to live on our own. I thought...I mean, I guess I didn't think. No one ever expects to actually die, you know?" At least back then, she hadn't.
The silence that follows is filled only by the quiet drip of the tap and the faint breath of steam. "If he hadn’t died—" Her voice catches. She swallows. "I wouldn’t have spiralled. I probably wouldn't have reconnected with Koa..I only let him back in because I felt so empty without Enzo. I wouldn't have needed something to do with my life, so I probably wouldn't have taken over the Hanged Man when Raza died, and would probably never have thought about being queen, which probably means no Jack, either." She'd roped him in to help her get elected when she'd been snubbed twice, and when their scheming began in earnest, so had everything else.
Her fingers trace slow patterns over the water’s surface, distant and reverent. "But for Enzo? I’d give it all up. Everything. The crown, the bar, the people, the power—every good thing that came after. I’d give it all up just to bring him back." The words hang in the steam like prayer smoke, soft and aching and impossibly honest.
"I will get him back, though,"1400 posts to go. "whatever it takes."
As Kai settles against the tub, Flora casts a glance over her shoulder, her eyes catching his a touch warily. With a small sigh, she shifts, careful not to slosh the water too high as she moves to sit in front of him, her back curving slightly, her knees drawn tight to her chest. She gathers her hair in one hand, twisting it up and off her neck, revealing the full damage left behind. It is a brutal constellation etched into delicate skin. Dahlia’s claws had scored deep, angry welts from her shoulder blades down to the small of her back, some jagged and wide, others tight as ropes down her spine. Against her ribs, almost perfect mirror images of each other, four perfect punctures where Dahlia’s talons had sunk in to anchor her grip. Among it all, the faint star-shaped scar at her shoulder—where Pierce had killed her—now looks almost decorative, a pale echo of something far simpler.
At his question, she exhales, not quite a laugh but something close—a scoff, soft and bitter as sea-brine. Her chin settles atop her knees, gaze hazy with memory. "I’d have told Enzo we should go to the Refuge instead," she says without hesitation, the answer too well-worn to need polishing. "We had no business being anywhere near a warzone, not when we were still trying to figure out how to live on our own. I thought...I mean, I guess I didn't think. No one ever expects to actually die, you know?" At least back then, she hadn't.
The silence that follows is filled only by the quiet drip of the tap and the faint breath of steam. "If he hadn’t died—" Her voice catches. She swallows. "I wouldn’t have spiralled. I probably wouldn't have reconnected with Koa..I only let him back in because I felt so empty without Enzo. I wouldn't have needed something to do with my life, so I probably wouldn't have taken over the Hanged Man when Raza died, and would probably never have thought about being queen, which probably means no Jack, either." She'd roped him in to help her get elected when she'd been snubbed twice, and when their scheming began in earnest, so had everything else.
Her fingers trace slow patterns over the water’s surface, distant and reverent. "But for Enzo? I’d give it all up. Everything. The crown, the bar, the people, the power—every good thing that came after. I’d give it all up just to bring him back." The words hang in the steam like prayer smoke, soft and aching and impossibly honest.
"I will get him back, though,"
