I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings
The impact rips through the Sugartide with a violence that Flora feels straight through her bones; the groan of splintering wood sounding so intimate and wrong that it makes her chest seize as if something vital has been struck. The ship is more than timber and sail to her, more than a vessel carved out of fear and survival and stubborn will, and for a heartbeat the sensation of her being hurt feels indistinguishable from the Sugaryide herself being torn open beneath her hands.
That panic barely has time to crest before it is eclipsed by something sharper and far more urgent, and she shouts Kaisel’s name into the chaos, the sound ripped from her throat raw and loud, before the spin takes hold and the deck lurches beneath her feet hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. Her teeth clamp down around the scream that wants to tear free as she clings to the wheel, arms burning with the effort of holding herself upright while the world turns in a dizzying, aurora-streaked blur.
Then the sails lose their breath. She feels it instantly, the way the Sugartide’s wild, uncontrolled rotation stutters and slows as if someone has reached up and physically grabbed the sky, the momentum bleeding out of the spin in a merciful, stomach-lurching deceleration that leaves her shaking and breathless but upright. Relief crashes through her so fast it nearly makes her lightheaded, and she hauls herself higher against the wheel, heart pounding as she cranes her neck to search the deck through the fading blur of motion.
"Kai!" she yells, voice tight with panic and effort as she spots him sprawled and then moving, blessedly moving. "I’m okay, I’m okay—are you okay?" The words tumble out all at once, breathless and desperate, as she forces herself to steady her footing and edges away from the helm, every muscle still humming with adrenaline. She swallows hard, eyes flicking instinctively back toward the sky where the calves had been moments ago, fear and awe tangling together in her chest. "Can you see them?" she calls, trying to keep her voice level as she takes another careful step forward. "Are they coming back?"
That panic barely has time to crest before it is eclipsed by something sharper and far more urgent, and she shouts Kaisel’s name into the chaos, the sound ripped from her throat raw and loud, before the spin takes hold and the deck lurches beneath her feet hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. Her teeth clamp down around the scream that wants to tear free as she clings to the wheel, arms burning with the effort of holding herself upright while the world turns in a dizzying, aurora-streaked blur.
Then the sails lose their breath. She feels it instantly, the way the Sugartide’s wild, uncontrolled rotation stutters and slows as if someone has reached up and physically grabbed the sky, the momentum bleeding out of the spin in a merciful, stomach-lurching deceleration that leaves her shaking and breathless but upright. Relief crashes through her so fast it nearly makes her lightheaded, and she hauls herself higher against the wheel, heart pounding as she cranes her neck to search the deck through the fading blur of motion.
"Kai!" she yells, voice tight with panic and effort as she spots him sprawled and then moving, blessedly moving. "I’m okay, I’m okay—are you okay?" The words tumble out all at once, breathless and desperate, as she forces herself to steady her footing and edges away from the helm, every muscle still humming with adrenaline. She swallows hard, eyes flicking instinctively back toward the sky where the calves had been moments ago, fear and awe tangling together in her chest. "Can you see them?" she calls, trying to keep her voice level as she takes another careful step forward. "Are they coming back?"
and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this
