bottom line, we made it out the first time still in love and half alive
The Ark hums low in agreement, her head tipping slightly as she lets his words settle, turning them over the way she might test the pull of a current before deciding whether to follow it or cut across. "Last time she made quite a show of it of being perfectly fine. Like everything was exactly where she wanted it. Like she was holding it all together without even trying." Her mouth twists faintly, not quite a smile, not quite disapproval, but something that knows better. She tilts her head the other way, maroon hair spilling over her shoulder in a soft cascade as her tongue clicks once against her teeth, a small, dismissive sound. "If she’d learned as much from you as she bragged she did," she adds, glancing up at him sidelong, "she’d know how easy it is to see through that sort of thing."
The grin that follows is slow and wicked, something darker threading through it as the thought takes hold and settles. "Maybe she isn’t so happy," she muses, the idea rolling easily through her, coating her thoughts in something almost oily and indulgent. For what Flora had done, for how she’d left things happiness shouldn't sit easily on her, not in the Ark’s mind. But the thought doesn’t linger as the sea comes into view.
The shoreline glows faintly at first, then brighter as they draw closer, the waves lapping in soft, luminous pulses that flicker and bloom with every movement. It pulls at her instantly, the vastness of it opening up inside her, the earlier edge in her thoughts smoothing out into something wide and endless. She exhales, long and satisfied, her body shifting subtly toward it, her stride lengthening as though she’s already half drawn in. "I want to go in," she says, the words less a suggestion than a quiet certainty, her gaze fixed on the glowing water as it beckons. She'd understand if Jack didn't, but just as he'd found comfort in his old haunts, so too did the Ark.
The grin that follows is slow and wicked, something darker threading through it as the thought takes hold and settles. "Maybe she isn’t so happy," she muses, the idea rolling easily through her, coating her thoughts in something almost oily and indulgent. For what Flora had done, for how she’d left things happiness shouldn't sit easily on her, not in the Ark’s mind. But the thought doesn’t linger as the sea comes into view.
The shoreline glows faintly at first, then brighter as they draw closer, the waves lapping in soft, luminous pulses that flicker and bloom with every movement. It pulls at her instantly, the vastness of it opening up inside her, the earlier edge in her thoughts smoothing out into something wide and endless. She exhales, long and satisfied, her body shifting subtly toward it, her stride lengthening as though she’s already half drawn in. "I want to go in," she says, the words less a suggestion than a quiet certainty, her gaze fixed on the glowing water as it beckons. She'd understand if Jack didn't, but just as he'd found comfort in his old haunts, so too did the Ark.
we didn't die, but no guarantees this time, but fuck it lets do it again
Siren's Wake | After she leaves a space, traces of her presence linger briefly: a faint scent of salt, the sound of distant water, a restless feeling in the chest. People rarely notice it consciously.
