marked me like a bloodstain
Flora nods, slow and thoughtful, her gaze slipping to the faint lines in the floorboards as though they might offer a way to map through all this. "Sometimes what a girl says she wants and what she actually needs...aren’t the same thing," she murmurs, the words not judgmental, just worn with knowing, because, well, look around. "Just because Caly asked doesn’t mean she was ready to hear it. Not like that. Not in front of everyone."
She exhales through her nose, the sigh catching faintly against the rawness in her throat. It's so Kaisel to have been honest like that. Kai, who wears his loyalty like armour and tosses his heart around like he’s never been taught to guard it properly. Someone asked him for something, so he gave it—consequences be damned—and now he’s here, aching over the aftermath like it surprises him every time.
When he snaps, sharp and certain, it jolts her—eyes lifting fast to meet his, startled not by the refusal but by the sudden force of it. For a moment, she just stares into his copper eyes, finding it immediately too easy to let herself drift in them that she has to look away. Kaisel's opened a door Flora is undoubtedly sure he didn't mean to, and gods the temptation isn’t there, blooming like a bruise beneath her ribs, to step through it and ask what, exactly, it meant to him. To hear him say it. To hear him tell her in no uncertain terms. But she won’t. Can’t.
So instead, she shrugs, slow and deliberate, as if the movement might help shift something loose. "I absolutely can assign blame,”" she says, voice light but not flippant. "Especially if it smooths things out with you two." Her fingers twist in the fabric pooled in her lap, a nervous flutter quickly smoothed over. "I was the one who asked you to stay. I could have stayed on the other side of the bed, but I didn't. If I hadn't kissed you.." Her shoulders roll slightly as heat bleeds from across the bridge of her nose high onto her cheekbones before disappearing into her curls. "Then none of it would’ve happened."
She exhales through her nose, the sigh catching faintly against the rawness in her throat. It's so Kaisel to have been honest like that. Kai, who wears his loyalty like armour and tosses his heart around like he’s never been taught to guard it properly. Someone asked him for something, so he gave it—consequences be damned—and now he’s here, aching over the aftermath like it surprises him every time.
When he snaps, sharp and certain, it jolts her—eyes lifting fast to meet his, startled not by the refusal but by the sudden force of it. For a moment, she just stares into his copper eyes, finding it immediately too easy to let herself drift in them that she has to look away. Kaisel's opened a door Flora is undoubtedly sure he didn't mean to, and gods the temptation isn’t there, blooming like a bruise beneath her ribs, to step through it and ask what, exactly, it meant to him. To hear him say it. To hear him tell her in no uncertain terms. But she won’t. Can’t.
So instead, she shrugs, slow and deliberate, as if the movement might help shift something loose. "I absolutely can assign blame,”" she says, voice light but not flippant. "Especially if it smooths things out with you two." Her fingers twist in the fabric pooled in her lap, a nervous flutter quickly smoothed over. "I was the one who asked you to stay. I could have stayed on the other side of the bed, but I didn't. If I hadn't kissed you.." Her shoulders roll slightly as heat bleeds from across the bridge of her nose high onto her cheekbones before disappearing into her curls. "Then none of it would’ve happened."
