Flora
there's no time to waste on loving badly
Flora lets out a soft, airy little laugh as if Colt has just said something mildly amusing instead of something meant to cut, the sound light and sugared and entirely at odds with the way her aqua eyes have gone cool and glassy, all warmth stripped clean away beneath the sparkle. She tips her head just slightly, lashes lowering in something that might almost pass for sympathy if it weren’t so carefully placed. "Well," she says, voice smooth as poured honey as if to match Colt's eyes, "just because you don’t have anything good worth offering doesn’t mean you didn’t try to offer it all the same."She doesn’t shift when Colt presses back, doesn’t rise to the bait the way someone less certain of their footing might, instead leaning more comfortably into Mateo’s side as if this is nothing more than a mildly inconvenient conversation happening at the wrong time, her smile holding steady even as the edges of it sharpen. "No," Flora corrects gently, shaking her head as though she’s the one clearing up a misunderstanding rather than escalating anything, "your mistake was either being stupid enough to think it wouldn’t matter to me, or too cowardly to tell me to my face that you care more about filling up slots in the desert than you do about the people you call friends." She lifts one shoulder in a careless shrug, the sequins along her dress catching the light in a scatter of brightness that feels almost mocking in the moment. "Either way..." Her gaze drifts over Colt with a slow, assessing tilt of her head, lips curving just slightly. "Not the best start for a brand new leader." Less so, given that the rancher had now pissed off 50% of Caido's leaders, a stat formerly only held by Maea.
The suggestion that her anger is misplaced earns something closer to genuine laughter, though it still carries that same edge, Flora glancing briefly over her shoulder toward Sohalia before looking back again, entirely unbothered. "Why would I be mad at her?" she asks, as if the notion is genuinely confusing. "Like you said, she’s free to make her own choices, her choice being that she told me she definitely didn’t want to go to the desert, btw." Her brows lift faintly, something almost playful flickering there before it cools again. "The difference is, at least she told me to my face. Unlike you."
At another time she might have leaned into Mateo ’s interruption, teased him, laughed it off by saying how he absolutely was poachable, let the moment dissolve into something easier and softer, but now there’s a tightness coiled beneath her skin that won’t let her quite get there, even as she stays tucked comfortably at his side. And when Astaroth appears, looming and dark and deliberate, Flora’s chin tips up toward him for just a heartbeat, something like appreciation flashing bright and quick in her eyes before she looks back to Colt, her expression smoothing once more into that same polished, effortless calm.
"Actually," she says lightly, as if this is all very reasonable and not a dismissal wrapped in silk, "Colt was just leaving." Her gaze flicks toward Asta as she adds, almost absently, "Maybe you can make sure she gets out alright," by which of course she means the bitch is no longer welcome here, before returning to the rancher with a smile that is all teeth and charm and finality.
Code stolen from Queen Sky
