flora
Flora sinks into the corner of one of the plush couches in the living room, one leg tucked beneath her and the other stretched out along the cushions, a tray balanced precariously on her lap as she adds the final indignities to the hat. The pasta strainer is already ridiculous enough, but the purple pipe cleaners need adjusting so they splay just right, curling outward like cheerful little antennae, and the googly eyes keep slipping, demanding patience she does not currently possess. She presses one back into place with her thumb, a little harder than necessary, jaw set.
Upstairs, water runs through the house, the steady rush of water from the shower Kai is taking, freshly back from Stormbreak, covered in grime that needs to be washed away but ready to lay his cards out on the table all the same. The house hums around her, content, nosy, a faint clatter somewhere in the distance as if even the spirits are settling in to watch.
Flora exhales through her nose, slow and controlled, and threads another pipe cleaner through the strainer’s holes. She is still angry. Properly angry. The kind that sits hot behind her ribs, sharp with betrayal rather than volume, because she had trusted Kai with something delicate, something not hers to ruin, and he had been careless with it in a way that makes her teeth ache. Danta’s startled face flashes unhelpfully through her mind, followed by Asta’s inevitable murderous fury, and Flora pinches the bridge of her nose before she can spiral too far down that road.
She lifts the hat, turning it this way and that, assessing her work. The Flying Spaghetti Monster stares back at her with vacant enthusiasm, absurd and earnest all at once. Her mouth twitches despite herself, and she scowls at it, but gods, it's going to be all the more impossible to stay angry at Kai with him wearing this, which she supposes is the point.
Upstairs, water runs through the house, the steady rush of water from the shower Kai is taking, freshly back from Stormbreak, covered in grime that needs to be washed away but ready to lay his cards out on the table all the same. The house hums around her, content, nosy, a faint clatter somewhere in the distance as if even the spirits are settling in to watch.
Flora exhales through her nose, slow and controlled, and threads another pipe cleaner through the strainer’s holes. She is still angry. Properly angry. The kind that sits hot behind her ribs, sharp with betrayal rather than volume, because she had trusted Kai with something delicate, something not hers to ruin, and he had been careless with it in a way that makes her teeth ache. Danta’s startled face flashes unhelpfully through her mind, followed by Asta’s inevitable murderous fury, and Flora pinches the bridge of her nose before she can spiral too far down that road.
She lifts the hat, turning it this way and that, assessing her work. The Flying Spaghetti Monster stares back at her with vacant enthusiasm, absurd and earnest all at once. Her mouth twitches despite herself, and she scowls at it, but gods, it's going to be all the more impossible to stay angry at Kai with him wearing this, which she supposes is the point.
you don't know that you're living til' you're carrying scars
you're either falling in love or falling apart
you're either falling in love or falling apart
