is this the end of all the endings?
The Sugartide sways as far into the Oerwoud’s jungle as it dares before the trees swallow her whole. Even with her sails tied and her hull resting against the canopy, the air is so thick with mist and heat that it feels like stepping into a heartbeat; alive and unrelenting. Flora braces herself against the rail, curls sticking to her temples, before she grabs hold of the rope ladder and climbs down.
Her boots sink almost instantly, the glossy leather darkening with muck. They reach nearly to her knees; a rare concession to practicality, given the jungle’s appetite for skin and shoes alike. The rest of her outfit is light and breathable, cropped and rolled and tied in all the right places; still, the humidity clings like a jealous lover. Gold glints faintly at her wrists and throat, dulled by the haze.
"Gods, I forgot how wet this place gets," she calls back toward Kaisel, her voice almost lost beneath the hum of insects. "We used to get the weirdest memory mud in the Greatwood. It’d crawl into your shoes, your hair, your lunch." She steps over a mass of vines that shift lazily underfoot, testing her weight like something alive.
Spice flits just ahead, her white scales reflecting green as the dragon lets out an indignant chirp at a squelching noise nearby. A glob of mud, almost friendly in its persistence, wobbles toward them with what might be enthusiasm. Flora laughs under her breath, squatting to poke at it with a stick. "Back then, Enzo and Mateo and I used to build monsters out of memory snow. Whole armies of them. When the thaw came, we’d watch to see whose creatures survived the longest once they turned to this stuff." She lifts her stick and flicks a bit of mud off it, grinning at the memory. "Does Stormbreak get much memory mud?"
Her boots sink almost instantly, the glossy leather darkening with muck. They reach nearly to her knees; a rare concession to practicality, given the jungle’s appetite for skin and shoes alike. The rest of her outfit is light and breathable, cropped and rolled and tied in all the right places; still, the humidity clings like a jealous lover. Gold glints faintly at her wrists and throat, dulled by the haze.
"Gods, I forgot how wet this place gets," she calls back toward Kaisel, her voice almost lost beneath the hum of insects. "We used to get the weirdest memory mud in the Greatwood. It’d crawl into your shoes, your hair, your lunch." She steps over a mass of vines that shift lazily underfoot, testing her weight like something alive.
Spice flits just ahead, her white scales reflecting green as the dragon lets out an indignant chirp at a squelching noise nearby. A glob of mud, almost friendly in its persistence, wobbles toward them with what might be enthusiasm. Flora laughs under her breath, squatting to poke at it with a stick. "Back then, Enzo and Mateo and I used to build monsters out of memory snow. Whole armies of them. When the thaw came, we’d watch to see whose creatures survived the longest once they turned to this stuff." She lifts her stick and flicks a bit of mud off it, grinning at the memory. "Does Stormbreak get much memory mud?"
my broken bones are mending
