flora
Flora's lips part, sharp and ready, the protest already blooming at the back of her throat, but she swallows it, jaw tensing as her breath pulls in instead. Kaisel wouldn’t want to hear how it really started between she and the captain. Not about the endless seasons she and Jack spent circling each other like weather systems, the danger he kept her out of and the trouble he introduced her to. Instead, her mouth presses closed, her teeth tight behind the shape of silence.
But when he rushes to clarify—not to hold onto power—something flickers colder across her face. "Oh," she breathes, low and bitter. "But maybe for other things?" The words fall like snow on glass, too soft for how much they cut. Her hand is still in his, her body still pressed into the tangle of his, but her heart curls in on itself, a cold coil of shame and insult tightening in her stomach. Once she'd warned Kaisel away from looking at her like she was a dream, and now she has to wonder just what he replaced that image of her with instead.
Her fingers twitch in his, a barely-there spasm like a thread pulled too tight as he mentions the bruises. Not because of the word alone, but because of everything it implies. It drags her straight back to that last night with Jack, how all it had taken was a genuine moment of intimacy and affection between them to bring everything crashing down, and then some. But worse than the memory is the understanding that’s dawning now, slow and sharp in her chest: Kaisel didn’t just think she’d whored herself out to keep Torchline afloat, he thought those bruises were unwanted. That she’d let someone mark her without consent. That she’d stayed in something like that.
And all of a sudden, it’s hard to breathe. Her eyes lift to his, stunned and hollow. "So you think I whore myself out for Torchline," she says quietly, "and that I stayed in an abusive relationship?" It isn’t quite a question, but it’s not an accusation either. Just a wound she didn’t see coming, raw and shining in the low light.
But when he rushes to clarify—not to hold onto power—something flickers colder across her face. "Oh," she breathes, low and bitter. "But maybe for other things?" The words fall like snow on glass, too soft for how much they cut. Her hand is still in his, her body still pressed into the tangle of his, but her heart curls in on itself, a cold coil of shame and insult tightening in her stomach. Once she'd warned Kaisel away from looking at her like she was a dream, and now she has to wonder just what he replaced that image of her with instead.
Her fingers twitch in his, a barely-there spasm like a thread pulled too tight as he mentions the bruises. Not because of the word alone, but because of everything it implies. It drags her straight back to that last night with Jack, how all it had taken was a genuine moment of intimacy and affection between them to bring everything crashing down, and then some. But worse than the memory is the understanding that’s dawning now, slow and sharp in her chest: Kaisel didn’t just think she’d whored herself out to keep Torchline afloat, he thought those bruises were unwanted. That she’d let someone mark her without consent. That she’d stayed in something like that.
And all of a sudden, it’s hard to breathe. Her eyes lift to his, stunned and hollow. "So you think I whore myself out for Torchline," she says quietly, "and that I stayed in an abusive relationship?" It isn’t quite a question, but it’s not an accusation either. Just a wound she didn’t see coming, raw and shining in the low light.
lust's a liar, a short lived fire
it isn't what you and I are at all
it isn't what you and I are at all
