ditch the clowns, get the crown
Flora and Kaisel depart the Sugartide to head toward the festival, her curls pinned up in a messy gold-dusted knot that gleams with every flare of firelight. The leather corset Kai had helped tie her into hugs her ribs with the kind of confident certainty she’s been craving all season, black and glossy and laced tight enough that every breath feels like a tight hug. Matching leather pants cling sleek and artful to her hips, boots cutting through the mud like she intends to charm it into behaving.
She keeps herself tucked against Kaisel’s side from the moment their feet hit the flooded walkways, her arm looped through his with an unthinking, possessive ease born from love rather than fear. The rain spatters warm against her shoulders, caught on the small shield of his body as they weave past flood-shiny tents and roaring laughter and the kaleidoscope flares of fireworks fizzing overhead. Everything is noise and colour and heat, and Flora feels a slow, rising hum of delight for it.
She’s still grinning up at him when a distant voice cuts through the din; someone yelling enthusiastically about an orgy that may or may not be public, organised, planned, unplanned, or possibly already underway. Her fingers immediately flutter against Kai’s side in the soft, quick language between couples, her nails tracing along the seam of his shirt before she rises onto her toes and leans in close enough for her breath to warm the shell of his ear. "If anything tonight feels uncomfortable," she murmurs, smooth and intentional, her tone dipped low so it belongs only to him despite the riot of sound around them, "all you have to do is give me a look, or mention Rupert, and we’ll go. Okay?"
Her aqua eyes lift to his, reflecting the wild, flickering gem-bright colours of the Everlasting Bonfire as if the fire has decided to live inside her for the night; they’re soft and alert and threaded through with a fierce kind of devotion she doesn’t bother to hide anymore. She holds him with that gaze, steady and knowing, refusing to let him fall into the same kind of corner he’d been pushed into the last time Ancients and alcohol had mixed around them.
She keeps herself tucked against Kaisel’s side from the moment their feet hit the flooded walkways, her arm looped through his with an unthinking, possessive ease born from love rather than fear. The rain spatters warm against her shoulders, caught on the small shield of his body as they weave past flood-shiny tents and roaring laughter and the kaleidoscope flares of fireworks fizzing overhead. Everything is noise and colour and heat, and Flora feels a slow, rising hum of delight for it.
She’s still grinning up at him when a distant voice cuts through the din; someone yelling enthusiastically about an orgy that may or may not be public, organised, planned, unplanned, or possibly already underway. Her fingers immediately flutter against Kai’s side in the soft, quick language between couples, her nails tracing along the seam of his shirt before she rises onto her toes and leans in close enough for her breath to warm the shell of his ear. "If anything tonight feels uncomfortable," she murmurs, smooth and intentional, her tone dipped low so it belongs only to him despite the riot of sound around them, "all you have to do is give me a look, or mention Rupert, and we’ll go. Okay?"
Her aqua eyes lift to his, reflecting the wild, flickering gem-bright colours of the Everlasting Bonfire as if the fire has decided to live inside her for the night; they’re soft and alert and threaded through with a fierce kind of devotion she doesn’t bother to hide anymore. She holds him with that gaze, steady and knowing, refusing to let him fall into the same kind of corner he’d been pushed into the last time Ancients and alcohol had mixed around them.
Flora
baby i'm the one to beat
