slow down, you're doing fine
Flora looks up at Asta with an immediate, sun-bright warmth that always answers his praise, her smile blooming wide and adoring enough to soften every angle of her face. "What are you questing for?" she asks, curious and delighted, then blinks quickly, hands lifting from the bubbles in a tiny flutter. "You don’t have to tell me if it’s something personal," she adds, the words tumbling out with genuine care rather than retreat, remembering about the crow-charm he wore on his wrist and how long it had taken for him to tell her about its meaning.
His tail brushes her legs beneath the water and goosebumps chase upward in a soft, shimmering trail, not from cold but from the gentle, unexpected intimacy of it. Instead of pulling back, she relaxes even more fully against him, curling into the solid expanse of his side. It’s comforting in a way that feels rare and entirely welcome, leaving her feeling small against him, and safe, and held without having to earn it.
When he looks down at her and then away, she studies the shift of his expression: the line of his jaw tightening under old memories, the faint furrow between his brows, the lingering ache he tries so hard not to burden anyone with. She slides her head against his chest, nestling in quietly, letting the rhythm of his heartbeat under the heated water soothe both of them. Her nod is gentle, understanding humming through her like a low tide, knowing what he means about it not being Danta's fault.
Then he looks at her again—really looks—and as he clarifies that it's different with her, the laugh that tumbles out of her is warm and surprised and threaded with something fondly incredulous. "It's different with you too," she agrees easily, "and with Danta." It still astonishes her sometimes, how the paths of their lives tangled together in the ways they did, how comfortable the knot feels now that the tension has eased.
She draws in a breath, the confession pulling itself up from somewhere deeper. "On one hand, I understand," she says, her fingers drifting idly through the swirling bubbles again. "Sex can just be sex. It doesn’t have to mean anything." She sighs, the admission soft but weighted. "But near the end with Jack..it was just sex, right up until suddenly it wasn’t." Her cheeks warm with the flush of guilt and memory as she glances up at the butcher, almost shyly. "And that was all it took. One tiny shift. One moment where it stopped being meaningless, and it blew everything up."
She swallows, shaking her head faintly. "I can’t imagine how it would feel if that happened with Kai and someone else. And maybe it makes me selfish, but the thought of taking that chance? It terrifies me." Her chin tips upward, aqua eyes lifting to meet his with a mixture of admiration and ache. "I wish I could be as trusting as you are."
His tail brushes her legs beneath the water and goosebumps chase upward in a soft, shimmering trail, not from cold but from the gentle, unexpected intimacy of it. Instead of pulling back, she relaxes even more fully against him, curling into the solid expanse of his side. It’s comforting in a way that feels rare and entirely welcome, leaving her feeling small against him, and safe, and held without having to earn it.
When he looks down at her and then away, she studies the shift of his expression: the line of his jaw tightening under old memories, the faint furrow between his brows, the lingering ache he tries so hard not to burden anyone with. She slides her head against his chest, nestling in quietly, letting the rhythm of his heartbeat under the heated water soothe both of them. Her nod is gentle, understanding humming through her like a low tide, knowing what he means about it not being Danta's fault.
Then he looks at her again—really looks—and as he clarifies that it's different with her, the laugh that tumbles out of her is warm and surprised and threaded with something fondly incredulous. "It's different with you too," she agrees easily, "and with Danta." It still astonishes her sometimes, how the paths of their lives tangled together in the ways they did, how comfortable the knot feels now that the tension has eased.
She draws in a breath, the confession pulling itself up from somewhere deeper. "On one hand, I understand," she says, her fingers drifting idly through the swirling bubbles again. "Sex can just be sex. It doesn’t have to mean anything." She sighs, the admission soft but weighted. "But near the end with Jack..it was just sex, right up until suddenly it wasn’t." Her cheeks warm with the flush of guilt and memory as she glances up at the butcher, almost shyly. "And that was all it took. One tiny shift. One moment where it stopped being meaningless, and it blew everything up."
She swallows, shaking her head faintly. "I can’t imagine how it would feel if that happened with Kai and someone else. And maybe it makes me selfish, but the thought of taking that chance? It terrifies me." Her chin tips upward, aqua eyes lifting to meet his with a mixture of admiration and ache. "I wish I could be as trusting as you are."
Flora
you can't be everything you wanna be before your time
