flora
The moment Safrin appears, Flora's smile blooms wild and uncontainable, stretching until it feels like her entire body is grinning. Light pools in the little houseboat like someone’s peeled the sky open and poured it inside, and Flora’s chest swells until she thinks she might float away entirely. And gods, as Kaisel stands up straighter beside her—his shoulders square, his jaw set, every inch of him humming with reverence and awe—Flora feels something girlish flutter through her like wings caught in a storm, fragile and dizzy and impossibly bright. He looks so handsome, so serious, so hers. The pulse beneath her skin thrums like temple bells. Suddenly a touch self-conscious of her attire but unwilling to step away, she simply clutches his hand tighter and presses it to her chest like his touch is the only thing she needs to wear.
She tries to hold her breath, tries to be still and reverent and let the moment carry her, but gods, when Kai begins to speak, as the engagement ring glints on her shaking hand as he slides the orange hairtie onto her wrist, she forgets how to not laugh. It bubbles out of her in gasping little bursts, joy shimmering between her ribs like something carbonated and divine. Her smile warps the edges of her composure, makes her shoulders tremble with the effort of keeping her whole when she already feels like stardust scattered into a thousand little moments, every single one of them his.
Her fingers tremble so badly when he offers his wrist in return that she misses completely the first time, slipping the hairtie over three of his fingers before laughter softly and trying again. "Sorry," she breathes, giggling, eyes watery with laughter and tears. And then, as she draws the blue band over his wrist and watches it settle there, as familiar and miraculous as a sunrise, she lifts her gaze and everything slows, stretches, softens. "Kaisel," she says, his name a vow all its own, the weight of it wrapped in velvet. "I see exactly who you are, on your best days and worst, and there is no one else I want. No one else who could make me feel this safe, this happy, this loved." Her voice shakes, but it doesn’t falter. "I want the good days and the hard ones. All of our highest highs and lowest lows. I want the everything of you, and all that life has to offer, for forever and then some."
Light spills across their wrists, Safrin’s final gift settling into the bands with a warmth that lingers, but Flora hardly notices. Not when Kai is already pulling her in, not when his lips are already claiming hers, but it’s impossible to kiss him properly with how much she’s smiling. Their laughter tangles between them like gold thread, every press of his lips a promise stitched into her skin. She wraps her hands around his cheeks, cradling his face like it’s something sacred, something spun from salt and sky, and when their foreheads press together again, when he breathes that single word—wife—something inside of her detonates.
She leaps into his arms with a delighted shriek, arms flung around his neck and legs curling around his waist, laughter spilling out of her like sunlight breaking over the sea. Her mouth is everywhere—his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids, the corners of his lips—all fluttering kisses like petals caught in a gale. And when she finally pulls back, perched in his arms and breathing like she’s run all the way to the gods and back, she gazes down at him with aqua eyes that glow like moonlight on tidewater, overflowing with everything that's far too big to put into words.
"My husband," she whispers, the word cracking open beneath the weight of her happiness, her love, her everything.
She tries to hold her breath, tries to be still and reverent and let the moment carry her, but gods, when Kai begins to speak, as the engagement ring glints on her shaking hand as he slides the orange hairtie onto her wrist, she forgets how to not laugh. It bubbles out of her in gasping little bursts, joy shimmering between her ribs like something carbonated and divine. Her smile warps the edges of her composure, makes her shoulders tremble with the effort of keeping her whole when she already feels like stardust scattered into a thousand little moments, every single one of them his.
Her fingers tremble so badly when he offers his wrist in return that she misses completely the first time, slipping the hairtie over three of his fingers before laughter softly and trying again. "Sorry," she breathes, giggling, eyes watery with laughter and tears. And then, as she draws the blue band over his wrist and watches it settle there, as familiar and miraculous as a sunrise, she lifts her gaze and everything slows, stretches, softens. "Kaisel," she says, his name a vow all its own, the weight of it wrapped in velvet. "I see exactly who you are, on your best days and worst, and there is no one else I want. No one else who could make me feel this safe, this happy, this loved." Her voice shakes, but it doesn’t falter. "I want the good days and the hard ones. All of our highest highs and lowest lows. I want the everything of you, and all that life has to offer, for forever and then some."
Light spills across their wrists, Safrin’s final gift settling into the bands with a warmth that lingers, but Flora hardly notices. Not when Kai is already pulling her in, not when his lips are already claiming hers, but it’s impossible to kiss him properly with how much she’s smiling. Their laughter tangles between them like gold thread, every press of his lips a promise stitched into her skin. She wraps her hands around his cheeks, cradling his face like it’s something sacred, something spun from salt and sky, and when their foreheads press together again, when he breathes that single word—wife—something inside of her detonates.
She leaps into his arms with a delighted shriek, arms flung around his neck and legs curling around his waist, laughter spilling out of her like sunlight breaking over the sea. Her mouth is everywhere—his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids, the corners of his lips—all fluttering kisses like petals caught in a gale. And when she finally pulls back, perched in his arms and breathing like she’s run all the way to the gods and back, she gazes down at him with aqua eyes that glow like moonlight on tidewater, overflowing with everything that's far too big to put into words.
"My husband," she whispers, the word cracking open beneath the weight of her happiness, her love, her everything.
Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea
