flora
Flora watches as the larger ship barrels forward without apology, lacquered hull gleaming dark against the molten sky. Her fingers tighten instinctively around the railing until the wood presses hard into her palms, rings biting into skin as the distance between them shrinks from daring to reckless to something that would be catastrophic if either captain blinked, but Flora doesn't call out. Either he means to hit them or he doesn't, and her voice would not tilt that scale. So she stands where she is, shoulders squared, chin lifted, braid tugged sideways by the wind while the Maw yawns black and patient beneath them, and she lets him decide what kind of man he intends to be tonight.
Only when The Ark glides to a halt, close enough that she could spit and strike his hull, does the breath ease from her lungs in a quiet exhale she does not dramatize. Relief moves through her like the release of a held tide, subtle but undeniable, and she shifts her grip just enough to disguise how tightly she had been holding on.
He drops to his deck with that easy lightness he’s always worn like armour, linen shirt open to the heat, peppermint bark at his mouth as if this is nothing more than another evening and not something carved sharp between them. The dark smudges around his blue eyes stand out starkly in the last light, kohl cutting his gaze into something colder than the sunset deserves, and Flora meets it barefaced, no paint, no armour beyond the steady line of her posture and the flower woven into her hair. Her aqua eyes trace the black at his lids before returning to the centre of him, and she lifts her chin another fraction, voice carrying cleanly across the narrow stretch of air between their ships.
"Yours is bigger," she calls back, calm and even as the water below them seethes in molten silence, "and you’re the one who won’t want this overheard." She's watched him do this before, watched him stand against men who thought size or strength or numbers would carry them, seen how he never rushed and never raised his voice when he didn’t have to. He'd taught her more than he likely ever meant to, and she draws on it now, letting her shoulders settle, letting the tension in her jaw smooth into something measured instead of brittle.
The breeze catches the petals braided into her hair, the engagement ring flashing once in the dying light as her hand relaxes on the railing, and she holds his gaze without flinching, as if this is merely a negotiation and not a reckoning balanced precariously between two hulls suspended above a sleeping volcano.
"I'll need a way up, though."
Only when The Ark glides to a halt, close enough that she could spit and strike his hull, does the breath ease from her lungs in a quiet exhale she does not dramatize. Relief moves through her like the release of a held tide, subtle but undeniable, and she shifts her grip just enough to disguise how tightly she had been holding on.
He drops to his deck with that easy lightness he’s always worn like armour, linen shirt open to the heat, peppermint bark at his mouth as if this is nothing more than another evening and not something carved sharp between them. The dark smudges around his blue eyes stand out starkly in the last light, kohl cutting his gaze into something colder than the sunset deserves, and Flora meets it barefaced, no paint, no armour beyond the steady line of her posture and the flower woven into her hair. Her aqua eyes trace the black at his lids before returning to the centre of him, and she lifts her chin another fraction, voice carrying cleanly across the narrow stretch of air between their ships.
"Yours is bigger," she calls back, calm and even as the water below them seethes in molten silence, "and you’re the one who won’t want this overheard." She's watched him do this before, watched him stand against men who thought size or strength or numbers would carry them, seen how he never rushed and never raised his voice when he didn’t have to. He'd taught her more than he likely ever meant to, and she draws on it now, letting her shoulders settle, letting the tension in her jaw smooth into something measured instead of brittle.
The breeze catches the petals braided into her hair, the engagement ring flashing once in the dying light as her hand relaxes on the railing, and she holds his gaze without flinching, as if this is merely a negotiation and not a reckoning balanced precariously between two hulls suspended above a sleeping volcano.
"I'll need a way up, though."
you're under the feeling like teenagers in cars
it ain't robbing or stealing if the moment is ours
it ain't robbing or stealing if the moment is ours
