// Ring around the rosie - Pocket full of posie //
"Ah, see? Fits you perfectly," he says to the lump of Flora smuggled very obviously beneath his shirt, a ghost of a laugh biting in on the words for the fact she accepted the preposterous offer. She always does.
He can't quite bring himself to fully celebrate the humor though, not when tears are still storming over the sea of her eyes and soaking every part of her in salt. His grip just circles back around the lime green slope of her, holding at least one thing steady while the rest comes undone. He doesn't want her to stop, not if it's what she needs—sometimes there's no way to move past it except to let it spill over. "And I love you," he says low and sure, just to ensure she knows, out loud and repeated, that it's true. Doubt has a cruel way of sneaking back in, even when it seems like it's been defeated; it persists and it multiplies, and she has plenty enough that he'll not let that be one of them.
It's an odd pattern of thought, to go from that to Jack. Maybe less so for Flora, given both dwell around the word and idea of love for her, but the name hits Kaisel like a lightning bolt, sudden and unwelcome, not even sure when the clouds had rolled in. At this point Kaisel is convinced Jack is half phantom and means to haunt him until the end of his days, so beyond the sudden arrival of his presence here between them, one that does absolutely create a bitter expression on Kaisel's face, the captain's name feels nearly inevitable. Maybe he should stop counting how many conversations they have where he's brought up, seems it'd be easier to keep score of all the ones he evades.
Still, stitched into Flora's shadow or not, Kaisel doesn't intend to let Jack break her heart even further than he already has. "Come now," Kaisel objects with a snort. "I don't think Jack being here was an integral support structure to Torchline." Whatever the captain's hand in all the trade, there haven't been riots in the streets or buildings collapsing in the absence of the Ark. If there has, is it really because of Jack, or because people respond real well to change? A new normal would rise up, in time, and arguably should. He'd hate to see this region tied to a man like that. "I also think I deserve a little credit for that one," he says, an attempt to be more lighthearted, to keep her from finding some way to keep yanking herself apart needlessly.
He can't quite bring himself to fully celebrate the humor though, not when tears are still storming over the sea of her eyes and soaking every part of her in salt. His grip just circles back around the lime green slope of her, holding at least one thing steady while the rest comes undone. He doesn't want her to stop, not if it's what she needs—sometimes there's no way to move past it except to let it spill over. "And I love you," he says low and sure, just to ensure she knows, out loud and repeated, that it's true. Doubt has a cruel way of sneaking back in, even when it seems like it's been defeated; it persists and it multiplies, and she has plenty enough that he'll not let that be one of them.
It's an odd pattern of thought, to go from that to Jack. Maybe less so for Flora, given both dwell around the word and idea of love for her, but the name hits Kaisel like a lightning bolt, sudden and unwelcome, not even sure when the clouds had rolled in. At this point Kaisel is convinced Jack is half phantom and means to haunt him until the end of his days, so beyond the sudden arrival of his presence here between them, one that does absolutely create a bitter expression on Kaisel's face, the captain's name feels nearly inevitable. Maybe he should stop counting how many conversations they have where he's brought up, seems it'd be easier to keep score of all the ones he evades.
Still, stitched into Flora's shadow or not, Kaisel doesn't intend to let Jack break her heart even further than he already has. "Come now," Kaisel objects with a snort. "I don't think Jack being here was an integral support structure to Torchline." Whatever the captain's hand in all the trade, there haven't been riots in the streets or buildings collapsing in the absence of the Ark. If there has, is it really because of Jack, or because people respond real well to change? A new normal would rise up, in time, and arguably should. He'd hate to see this region tied to a man like that. "I also think I deserve a little credit for that one," he says, an attempt to be more lighthearted, to keep her from finding some way to keep yanking herself apart needlessly.
Kaisel
// I'ma fucking blow all the ashes down //
Wearing a watery blue, faded and stretched-out sparkling hair tie on his left wrist
