Flora
The skyships hover like oversized ornaments, all shine and swagger, dangling just above the white-sand shore as if they can’t decide whether to settle or soar. The Sugartide’s hull gleams in the winter sun, its outriggers creaking softly with the salt-wind, while the Firecracker bobs beside her like a stubborn spark refusing to go out.
Boots skidding on salt-dusted planks, Flora squints across the gap between the two vessels, a scrap of cloth into one hand, the other shielding her eyes from the glare bouncing off the surf. The heat clings despite the season, damp and humming, Deepfrost in name only, though the faint bite of the breeze still prickles along the skin where her shirt’s been knotted too high. Somewhere below, Spice makes an irritable chirrup from the sand where she’s coiled herself into a dragon-sized sulk over not being allowed in the hold.
"I was worried, you know," she says, casual like it costs her nothing, eyes tracking the tangle of ropes and pulleys looping across the Firecracker’s undercarriage where Melita had been replacing them. "When Jack up and left—" and gods, how the name still tastes like brine and glass on her tongue, "—I thought maybe you would too."
Her voice tilts on that maybe, more breeze than bite, like if she throws it light enough it won’t land hard.
She glances over then, golden curls twisted back with sea-glass pins, cheek smudged with dust, and offers the Honeybee a smile that crooks like it’s been bent a few too many times but refuses to break. "I’m really glad you didn’t."
Boots skidding on salt-dusted planks, Flora squints across the gap between the two vessels, a scrap of cloth into one hand, the other shielding her eyes from the glare bouncing off the surf. The heat clings despite the season, damp and humming, Deepfrost in name only, though the faint bite of the breeze still prickles along the skin where her shirt’s been knotted too high. Somewhere below, Spice makes an irritable chirrup from the sand where she’s coiled herself into a dragon-sized sulk over not being allowed in the hold.
"I was worried, you know," she says, casual like it costs her nothing, eyes tracking the tangle of ropes and pulleys looping across the Firecracker’s undercarriage where Melita had been replacing them. "When Jack up and left—" and gods, how the name still tastes like brine and glass on her tongue, "—I thought maybe you would too."
Her voice tilts on that maybe, more breeze than bite, like if she throws it light enough it won’t land hard.
She glances over then, golden curls twisted back with sea-glass pins, cheek smudged with dust, and offers the Honeybee a smile that crooks like it’s been bent a few too many times but refuses to break. "I’m really glad you didn’t."
I trace the evidence, make it make some sense
why the wound is still bleedin'
why the wound is still bleedin'
Code stolen from Queen Sky
