ditch the clowns, get the crown
Flora barely registers the cold splash of her drink as Kai yanks her back—it hits her corset, her stomach, her thighs, streaking leather with sticky amber, but none of it matters because Kaisel’s panic is radiating off him like he’s running a fever made of fear and madness.
The bonfire’s glow stutters strangely against the blood moon overhead, and every instinct in Flora screams something is wrong, something is worse than wrong, as Kai stumbles backward with her in tow. Someone must have spiked his drink, something must have happened to explain why he was being like this.
Behind them, Asta’s voice drops like an abyss sliding open under the bed. It crawls up her spine, makes her skin prickle, makes her muscles twitch with the urge to bolt—but she twists toward him anyway, because she refuses to leave this disaster without trying. "I’m so sorry, Asta—!" she calls, the words pitched high with guilt and desperation, her wide stare flitting from his skeletal grin to the spilled drink on his shirt to the scorched shadows licking the ground beneath his feet.
But then everything shifts at once: Danta is retreating, shaking, trying not to flee as Asta’s monstrous form collapses back toward something closer to a man, and while Flora would normally try and explain, the fact that Kai didn't immediately yield entirely at the word Rupert keeps her right where she is. Her breath is tight and thin as she spins back toward Kai, her cup dropping from her hand and clattering unnoticed into the mud. Her heart is racing too fast, pounding in her ears as she steps into his space and catches his face between both palms.
"Kai—hey, hey—look at me," she urges, her aqua eyes locking onto his with fierce, trembling focus. Rain patters into her lashes; the bonfire paints her skin gold and blood-red in equal measure; terror flickers through her but she refuses to let it turn into distance. Her thumbs sweep just under his eyes, guiding him down, trying to pull him out of whatever moon-drenched hysteria or spiked-drink delirium has its claws in him.
The bonfire’s glow stutters strangely against the blood moon overhead, and every instinct in Flora screams something is wrong, something is worse than wrong, as Kai stumbles backward with her in tow. Someone must have spiked his drink, something must have happened to explain why he was being like this.
Behind them, Asta’s voice drops like an abyss sliding open under the bed. It crawls up her spine, makes her skin prickle, makes her muscles twitch with the urge to bolt—but she twists toward him anyway, because she refuses to leave this disaster without trying. "I’m so sorry, Asta—!" she calls, the words pitched high with guilt and desperation, her wide stare flitting from his skeletal grin to the spilled drink on his shirt to the scorched shadows licking the ground beneath his feet.
But then everything shifts at once: Danta is retreating, shaking, trying not to flee as Asta’s monstrous form collapses back toward something closer to a man, and while Flora would normally try and explain, the fact that Kai didn't immediately yield entirely at the word Rupert keeps her right where she is. Her breath is tight and thin as she spins back toward Kai, her cup dropping from her hand and clattering unnoticed into the mud. Her heart is racing too fast, pounding in her ears as she steps into his space and catches his face between both palms.
"Kai—hey, hey—look at me," she urges, her aqua eyes locking onto his with fierce, trembling focus. Rain patters into her lashes; the bonfire paints her skin gold and blood-red in equal measure; terror flickers through her but she refuses to let it turn into distance. Her thumbs sweep just under his eyes, guiding him down, trying to pull him out of whatever moon-drenched hysteria or spiked-drink delirium has its claws in him.
Flora
baby i'm the one to beat
