the sign said satisfaction guaranteed

candlewax & polaroids on the hardwood floor

Flora lets out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding, the sound slipping away into the thin air and lost to the rush of wind scraping down the mountainside. The rest of what he says—about plans and leadership and cocktail places—hardly even registers. It all has the cadence of an it’s not you, it’s me, the sort of gentle justification meant to soften a blow that was always going to land the same way no matter how prettily it was dressed. She’d always assumed he would go back eventually, though some stubborn sliver of her had hoped otherwise. Not necessarily because Torchline had won him over, but for the way it felt having them all together again, even if their parents still sucked.

"Yeah, I thought so," she hums under her breath, shaping it into something light as she forces a smile over her shoulder at him before turning her gaze forward again. The rocks ahead break into sharper relief as Spice trills, wings flashing in the sunlight before she banks hard to the left, a sound so clear and certain that it could only mean she’s found the shrine.

"Guess my next trick will be those teleporting wardrobes, huh?"