flora
The storm is a living thing tonight; spitting against the glass, roaring down the halls like it means to take the whole house with it. Flora sits cross-legged on the floor of the room she'd reserved just for Jack, wrapped in a blanket that smells like sea salt and rum, watching the storm smear itself across the window like a thing trying to claw its way inside. The ships in bottles on the shelves rattle softly. The box with the swing is tucked neatly beneath the old desk she'd positioned just so with a fake purchase order for a waterbed sitting on top. Nothing moves.
Except the doorknob.
It turns with a slow click, barely audible beneath the wind, but Flora's heart stutters anyway. The house is haunted—blessed, technically—but she's never quite sure which of the spirits have a sense of humour and which just like to haunt for the drama. And maybe it’s just that. Maybe one of them is teasing her, knowing she’s awake, knowing this is his room and that she’s been curled up in it all night like she doesn’t know where else to go when it's raining the way it is.
But she’s already crying. Quietly, the way one does when guilt and longing and too much memory have filled every corner of the mind and left nowhere else for the ache to go. Jack is on her mind, but then, he always is when the storms come in like this, and as she rises slowly to her feet, padding toward the door, something inside her is foolish enough to hope.
The garden in her mind is trembling, dark, petals clinging to their stems under a violet downpour. She reaches for the knob just as it turns under her fingers, the cold brass twisting toward her, and her breath catches. The door opens.
And—
"Niki?" The word escapes her like she’s surfacing from underwater. The storm moans down the hall behind him, but all she sees is the necromancer in his pyjamas, blinking blearily in the dark, barefoot and vaguely dishevelled and...here. Her voice, when it comes again, is hoarse with everything she just felt and can’t quite stuff back down. "What are you doing here?"
Except the doorknob.
It turns with a slow click, barely audible beneath the wind, but Flora's heart stutters anyway. The house is haunted—blessed, technically—but she's never quite sure which of the spirits have a sense of humour and which just like to haunt for the drama. And maybe it’s just that. Maybe one of them is teasing her, knowing she’s awake, knowing this is his room and that she’s been curled up in it all night like she doesn’t know where else to go when it's raining the way it is.
But she’s already crying. Quietly, the way one does when guilt and longing and too much memory have filled every corner of the mind and left nowhere else for the ache to go. Jack is on her mind, but then, he always is when the storms come in like this, and as she rises slowly to her feet, padding toward the door, something inside her is foolish enough to hope.
The garden in her mind is trembling, dark, petals clinging to their stems under a violet downpour. She reaches for the knob just as it turns under her fingers, the cold brass twisting toward her, and her breath catches. The door opens.
And—
"Niki?" The word escapes her like she’s surfacing from underwater. The storm moans down the hall behind him, but all she sees is the necromancer in his pyjamas, blinking blearily in the dark, barefoot and vaguely dishevelled and...here. Her voice, when it comes again, is hoarse with everything she just felt and can’t quite stuff back down. "What are you doing here?"
you're under the feeling like teenagers in cars
it ain't robbing or stealing if the moment is ours
it ain't robbing or stealing if the moment is ours
