flora
The Sugartide lands with a shiver and a sigh. Her hull kisses the frost-laced rock of the Crag with surprising grace, gliding in slow above the brittle blue water until the keel scrapes just enough to let Flora know they’ve made contact. A heartbeat later, the little skyship’s weight settles—uneven, maybe, but no longer in motion. The winds moan in protest as Flora slackens the line to the sails, letting them droop like tired wings, no longer desperate to catch the sky. The storm still rumbles out at sea, but here, on this strange jut of mageglass-veined stone, the world feels momentarily still.
A breathless exhale escapes her as she braces both palms on the wheel and grins at the helm like they’ve just pulled off a magic trick instead of a controlled crash. "Atta girl," she murmurs, patting the polished wood before pushing herself upright.
Then—because curiosity always wins—Flora pops her head out from behind the wheel, curls whipping in the residual wind as she peers down the length of the deck toward the stern. Where is he? What’s he doing? And more importantly: how bad is it?
The queen doesn’t need her truth ring to sense that Jack’s likely riding the edge of exasperation, that knife-blade tension between fuck’s sake and fine, I’ll fix it. Her eyes rake over him as if assessing storm damage: coat still on, hands still working, no swearing audible from this distance—a good sign? Maybe? But then again, this is Jack. The man has at least five different types of pissed-off, and the most dangerous one comes without raised voices.
So she just squints at him from behind the rigging, one brow lifted in silent question: One to ten? How much am I gonna owe you for this?
A breathless exhale escapes her as she braces both palms on the wheel and grins at the helm like they’ve just pulled off a magic trick instead of a controlled crash. "Atta girl," she murmurs, patting the polished wood before pushing herself upright.
Then—because curiosity always wins—Flora pops her head out from behind the wheel, curls whipping in the residual wind as she peers down the length of the deck toward the stern. Where is he? What’s he doing? And more importantly: how bad is it?
The queen doesn’t need her truth ring to sense that Jack’s likely riding the edge of exasperation, that knife-blade tension between fuck’s sake and fine, I’ll fix it. Her eyes rake over him as if assessing storm damage: coat still on, hands still working, no swearing audible from this distance—a good sign? Maybe? But then again, this is Jack. The man has at least five different types of pissed-off, and the most dangerous one comes without raised voices.
So she just squints at him from behind the rigging, one brow lifted in silent question: One to ten? How much am I gonna owe you for this?
what doesn't kill me makes
me want you more
me want you more
