I'm like a titan that's risin'
He doesn't know what to do with her words and the meaning threading through them. Had he really read it wrong, this whole time? "At first maybe, but then you pulled away, and stayed there." His voice crumples at the end, hollowing out around disbelief. If she hadn't meant it that way, then why? He would have razed everything for her then, she kept splashing the torch though.
His gaze narrows slightly, an attempt to put this all into focus, the edges still blurry. "Wha—you asked!" His hands gesture in front of him with the exasperation of it. After turning away deliberately from him, she'd purposefully drawn Caly out like a wall. He hadn't seen it then, but he's thought back on a lot of things lately and that much has become clear now. "Fuck's sake Flora, you told me to bring her to the House of Midnight to use the magic rooms." He shakes his head, holding back a fool's laugh at the absurdity of it now. He should have known then what was happening.
Flint creeps in on the edges of the stare he keeps on her. "You can't be serious." It's nearly a whisper, but it cuts in sharp enough to rise above something so quiet. "Flora, what's between us matters the most to me, that's why I've been trying to fix it!" He might fully lose it if he's accused of not caring about her when it's been the core of every fucked decision he's ever made, each one biting him in the ass lately.
The reality of it is as plain as Flora puts it though, and he grimaces at that truth. "It's a work in progress," he mutters, the way an artist would over being critiqued on a painting they haven't deemed complete. "She was too drunk at the masquerade to tell me anything," he huffs, "that's the last time I talked to her. I'm not gonna stop the quest though, I think it'll help, that's the whole point." He's become less sure of it, but he'll could use whatever help he can get.
For a moment he just lets some quiet stretch inbetween them. On the tail end of her accusations, he can't help but trace the places of her he once considered familiar, but now can barely recognize. Those are her sea-tossed eyes, they must be, but these ones don't glimmer with barely contained mischief. The lips seem the same as the ones he remembers tasting, even though there's nothing clever tucked behind them now, no invitation to their shape. He'd committed her shape to memory time and time again, but not this version, not the one that feels like he's breaking her with every word and anger and sweaters are all that can hold her now. Every attempt to do the right thing had soured, so perhaps, perhaps it's time to yield and do the one thing he's certain is wrong—admitting he can't be her friend. "Because I couldn't have you." It's said softly, the way surrenders usually are when the fighting has gone on too long.
Caly is someone he could maybe learn to love, but Flora is someone he already does, in all the ways he's let himself and in countless ways he's tried not to.
A long, low sigh slips free when it turns to the letter. "I apologized to her, told her I missed her, that I wanted to try again and where to meet me so we could talk about it." He tilts his head faintly, unapologetic with his honesty. He'd gone for Caly completely, in the hopes that he could make it work, that he could find someone to love fully and not just in the quiet before falling asleep. It didn't work though, loving two people. What everyone kept trying to tell him, what he kept insisting hadn't been the case. "She didn't wanna come second though, and I couldn't guarantee I'd put her first. So, it's done." Friendship, again.
"Like I told you in our letters, you're the only person I've told that I love them." Unless she wants to get real technical, then also his parents and probably Koa and Noe but he'll vehemently deny that because, like siblings, you're only supposed to tell your cousins how awful they are while secretly adoring them entirely.
His gaze narrows slightly, an attempt to put this all into focus, the edges still blurry. "Wha—you asked!" His hands gesture in front of him with the exasperation of it. After turning away deliberately from him, she'd purposefully drawn Caly out like a wall. He hadn't seen it then, but he's thought back on a lot of things lately and that much has become clear now. "Fuck's sake Flora, you told me to bring her to the House of Midnight to use the magic rooms." He shakes his head, holding back a fool's laugh at the absurdity of it now. He should have known then what was happening.
Flint creeps in on the edges of the stare he keeps on her. "You can't be serious." It's nearly a whisper, but it cuts in sharp enough to rise above something so quiet. "Flora, what's between us matters the most to me, that's why I've been trying to fix it!" He might fully lose it if he's accused of not caring about her when it's been the core of every fucked decision he's ever made, each one biting him in the ass lately.
The reality of it is as plain as Flora puts it though, and he grimaces at that truth. "It's a work in progress," he mutters, the way an artist would over being critiqued on a painting they haven't deemed complete. "She was too drunk at the masquerade to tell me anything," he huffs, "that's the last time I talked to her. I'm not gonna stop the quest though, I think it'll help, that's the whole point." He's become less sure of it, but he'll could use whatever help he can get.
For a moment he just lets some quiet stretch inbetween them. On the tail end of her accusations, he can't help but trace the places of her he once considered familiar, but now can barely recognize. Those are her sea-tossed eyes, they must be, but these ones don't glimmer with barely contained mischief. The lips seem the same as the ones he remembers tasting, even though there's nothing clever tucked behind them now, no invitation to their shape. He'd committed her shape to memory time and time again, but not this version, not the one that feels like he's breaking her with every word and anger and sweaters are all that can hold her now. Every attempt to do the right thing had soured, so perhaps, perhaps it's time to yield and do the one thing he's certain is wrong—admitting he can't be her friend. "Because I couldn't have you." It's said softly, the way surrenders usually are when the fighting has gone on too long.
Caly is someone he could maybe learn to love, but Flora is someone he already does, in all the ways he's let himself and in countless ways he's tried not to.
A long, low sigh slips free when it turns to the letter. "I apologized to her, told her I missed her, that I wanted to try again and where to meet me so we could talk about it." He tilts his head faintly, unapologetic with his honesty. He'd gone for Caly completely, in the hopes that he could make it work, that he could find someone to love fully and not just in the quiet before falling asleep. It didn't work though, loving two people. What everyone kept trying to tell him, what he kept insisting hadn't been the case. "She didn't wanna come second though, and I couldn't guarantee I'd put her first. So, it's done." Friendship, again.
"Like I told you in our letters, you're the only person I've told that I love them." Unless she wants to get real technical, then also his parents and probably Koa and Noe but he'll vehemently deny that because, like siblings, you're only supposed to tell your cousins how awful they are while secretly adoring them entirely.
Kaisel
Show you the harder the battle, the harder I fight
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
