your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
Flora laughs, the sound carried light on the cold Observatory air, her breath fogging faintly before vanishing into the rafters. "When I was little," she says, smile tugging at one corner of her mouth, "I only ever saw them when I wasn’t looking. Nights my nonna dragged me up here to study constellations, those are always when we'd see them, never when we came looking." Her hands shift in her pockets, shoulders lifting in a small shrug.
She glances over her shoulder, catching Lysandra in her periphery, the way her pale hair catches the light and echoes with something almost mythic. "Maybe," Flora agrees, under her breath. The word is airy and uncertain and quietly honest, a thread pulled loose that she lets drift rather than tug. Her gaze lifts again as the orca takes shape, and for a heartbeat something shifts behind her ribs, not because of the illusion itself, but because of the memory it stirs. "Once," she says softly, eyes following the whale’s slow arc, "someone took me up in a ship, high up in the clouds. We flew so high, for so long, that we found a whole pod." The memory arrives in colours and cold wind and heartache; starlight caught in someone else’s hair, the hum of the wind, her hands clenched on the railing of the Ark with Jack's arms bracketing her.
She inhales, but the air doesn’t stay. It thins, brittle in her chest. "That was the last time I saw them," she finishes, shaking her head like she can scatter the ache. The smile that follows is gentler now, quieter. She doesn’t look at the whale directly anymore; it’s easier not to, because when she does the illusion flickers, the strings show. But when it’s just on the edge of her vision, it gleams the way real things do, the way hope sometimes does, impossible and just close enough to believe in.
Her attention returns to the woman who summoned it, warmth softening the edges of her voice. "You know who I am," Flora says, tilting her head, curls bouncing loose from their knot. "But I don’t know who you are." The admission is easy, almost apologetic, like an overdue curtsy or a forgotten name at a party she never meant to crash.
She glances over her shoulder, catching Lysandra in her periphery, the way her pale hair catches the light and echoes with something almost mythic. "Maybe," Flora agrees, under her breath. The word is airy and uncertain and quietly honest, a thread pulled loose that she lets drift rather than tug. Her gaze lifts again as the orca takes shape, and for a heartbeat something shifts behind her ribs, not because of the illusion itself, but because of the memory it stirs. "Once," she says softly, eyes following the whale’s slow arc, "someone took me up in a ship, high up in the clouds. We flew so high, for so long, that we found a whole pod." The memory arrives in colours and cold wind and heartache; starlight caught in someone else’s hair, the hum of the wind, her hands clenched on the railing of the Ark with Jack's arms bracketing her.
She inhales, but the air doesn’t stay. It thins, brittle in her chest. "That was the last time I saw them," she finishes, shaking her head like she can scatter the ache. The smile that follows is gentler now, quieter. She doesn’t look at the whale directly anymore; it’s easier not to, because when she does the illusion flickers, the strings show. But when it’s just on the edge of her vision, it gleams the way real things do, the way hope sometimes does, impossible and just close enough to believe in.
Her attention returns to the woman who summoned it, warmth softening the edges of her voice. "You know who I am," Flora says, tilting her head, curls bouncing loose from their knot. "But I don’t know who you are." The admission is easy, almost apologetic, like an overdue curtsy or a forgotten name at a party she never meant to crash.
