is this the end of all the endings?
Flora can’t help but laugh, the sound rising light and bright against the plush quiet of the bedroom, her joy softened at the edges by something achey and tender. It’s ridiculous, the way he says it—how emphatically he declares he’d rather run with her than eat mud, how he scoffs at the spirits juicing fruit like it’s a low bar rather than a little utterly selfless—but there’s something too real beneath the silliness, too genuine in his tone and timing for her to be anything but completely undone by it. He’s already wowed her, already given her more than she ever expected, and yet somehow it’s these throwaway comments that hit just as hard, because her standards had never been set by grand gestures. They’d been shaped by years of being the second choice, the afterthought, the ‘maybe if there’s time.’ Of course calling spirits would have been enough. Of course she’s thrilled by it. She’d never gotten to expect more until him.
The mention of Mateo’s name has her pausing mid-grin, aqua eyes flicking toward Kaisel in surprise, not because her brother had anything to do with flowers (that part feels like the most natural truth in the world), but because Kai had gone out of his way to include him at all. "Really?" she breathes, looking at him like he might have just rewritten the entire definition of thoughtfulness. The charm glints beneath her fingers and for a moment she can only marvel, fingertips grazing over the little flower with something reverent, like it’s sacred just for being chosen with care.
And then she opens the purse, and the wind rushes up to meet her. But it isn't just a gust; it’s a promise flung open on invisible wings, warm and wild and impossibly freeing as it catches her curls and sends them lifting like leaves in a storm. When he reminds her that he told her he’d steal the wind, her chest tugs sharply, because he had said that, once upon a time, and she hadn’t thought it anything more than a beautiful line. But he had; he’d remembered, and then done it, had gone and made a gift of the sky just because she’d once wanted it. And more than that, more than the wind or the charm or even the bag, it strikes her that he’s solved something in her she never told him needed fixing. Because she still remembers being stranded on the Sugartide, helpless and furious, and now, because of him, that will never happen again.
By the time he flops onto the bed, smug and glowing, Flora doesn’t even hesitate. She might not want to upset his burrito treatment of her, but regardless flings a leg over him until she’s straddling his waist with a breathless kind of urgency. Her hands cup his face, fingers curling with desperate, delighted affection, and she starts kissing him with no sense of decorum, fluttering little kisses across his cheeks, his nose, the corners of his smile, rapid and giddy and full of everything she can’t say fast enough. "You are the kindest," she mumbles against his skin between kisses, "and the sweetest," another kiss to his jaw, "and the best," this one pressed right between his brows, "and I am going to marry you so good." Her grin is radiant and ridiculous, her heart so full it could burst, and there is nothing in her world that isn't golden and perfect and entirely his fault.
The mention of Mateo’s name has her pausing mid-grin, aqua eyes flicking toward Kaisel in surprise, not because her brother had anything to do with flowers (that part feels like the most natural truth in the world), but because Kai had gone out of his way to include him at all. "Really?" she breathes, looking at him like he might have just rewritten the entire definition of thoughtfulness. The charm glints beneath her fingers and for a moment she can only marvel, fingertips grazing over the little flower with something reverent, like it’s sacred just for being chosen with care.
And then she opens the purse, and the wind rushes up to meet her. But it isn't just a gust; it’s a promise flung open on invisible wings, warm and wild and impossibly freeing as it catches her curls and sends them lifting like leaves in a storm. When he reminds her that he told her he’d steal the wind, her chest tugs sharply, because he had said that, once upon a time, and she hadn’t thought it anything more than a beautiful line. But he had; he’d remembered, and then done it, had gone and made a gift of the sky just because she’d once wanted it. And more than that, more than the wind or the charm or even the bag, it strikes her that he’s solved something in her she never told him needed fixing. Because she still remembers being stranded on the Sugartide, helpless and furious, and now, because of him, that will never happen again.
By the time he flops onto the bed, smug and glowing, Flora doesn’t even hesitate. She might not want to upset his burrito treatment of her, but regardless flings a leg over him until she’s straddling his waist with a breathless kind of urgency. Her hands cup his face, fingers curling with desperate, delighted affection, and she starts kissing him with no sense of decorum, fluttering little kisses across his cheeks, his nose, the corners of his smile, rapid and giddy and full of everything she can’t say fast enough. "You are the kindest," she mumbles against his skin between kisses, "and the sweetest," another kiss to his jaw, "and the best," this one pressed right between his brows, "and I am going to marry you so good." Her grin is radiant and ridiculous, her heart so full it could burst, and there is nothing in her world that isn't golden and perfect and entirely his fault.
my broken bones are mending
