marked me like a bloodstain
Flora moves through Haulani like she belongs to it, like the heat rises to meet her rather than press her down, black bikini top tied snug at her back and cutoff shorts slung low on her hips, gold catching and flashing at her throat and wrists and fingers whenever the sun finds her. Her curls are piled high and loose in a way that suggests effort while insisting there was none, and Spice glides in lazy loops at her shoulder, the small white dragon exhaling a thin ribbon of frost across Flora’s collarbone whenever the warmth grows too bold.
Flora posts Liam almost immediately, if only because Torchline does not dress men like that unless they are lost or new or both, and Liam is neither, and yet there he is moving through the street in forest-y layers that cling to him like regret. He stands out in the way tall trees do and Flora cannot help the small, delighted snort that escapes her as she angles toward him. She quickens her pace, sandalled feet whispering over stone, hips swaying with theatrical exaggeration because she is not above being dramatic when handed the opportunity, and she jogs up alongside him with a grin already blooming, teeth bright, aqua eyes wicked. "Liam, if you faint in this heat I am not carrying you—" The words falter, not because she has forgotten the punchline, but because she is close enough now to see him properly.
The laughter drains from her mouth as if someone has pulled a stopper from it. The darkened crescents beneath his eyes are not shadow cast by the sun but something deeper, something that clings to him in the way damp clings to fabric, and there is a hollowness there that does not belong to a man merely overheated. It is in his gaze, in the way it does not quite rest on anything even as he moves, as though he is listening for something behind the noise of the street.
She steps closer, close enough that her arm almost brushes his, and the teasing tilt of her head gentles into something steadier, searching. Spice settles briefly at her shoulder, frost curling faintly in the air between them before dissipating. "Hey," she says again, but it lands differently this time, quieter, the brightness tempered rather than extinguished. "Are you okay?"
Flora posts Liam almost immediately, if only because Torchline does not dress men like that unless they are lost or new or both, and Liam is neither, and yet there he is moving through the street in forest-y layers that cling to him like regret. He stands out in the way tall trees do and Flora cannot help the small, delighted snort that escapes her as she angles toward him. She quickens her pace, sandalled feet whispering over stone, hips swaying with theatrical exaggeration because she is not above being dramatic when handed the opportunity, and she jogs up alongside him with a grin already blooming, teeth bright, aqua eyes wicked. "Liam, if you faint in this heat I am not carrying you—" The words falter, not because she has forgotten the punchline, but because she is close enough now to see him properly.
The laughter drains from her mouth as if someone has pulled a stopper from it. The darkened crescents beneath his eyes are not shadow cast by the sun but something deeper, something that clings to him in the way damp clings to fabric, and there is a hollowness there that does not belong to a man merely overheated. It is in his gaze, in the way it does not quite rest on anything even as he moves, as though he is listening for something behind the noise of the street.
She steps closer, close enough that her arm almost brushes his, and the teasing tilt of her head gentles into something steadier, searching. Spice settles briefly at her shoulder, frost curling faintly in the air between them before dissipating. "Hey," she says again, but it lands differently this time, quieter, the brightness tempered rather than extinguished. "Are you okay?"
