with each love i cut loose i was never the same
There’s a flicker, small but unmistakable, and Flora catches it the way she catches everything. The mention of Sunjata's heart—or lack of it—doesn’t sit neatly in the easy, flippant space she’d carved out for this conversation, and for a moment she feels it tug, feels the shape of something more complicated pressing up against the edges of what had been light. Her teeth find the inside of her lip, a quiet, absent pressure as she considers it, as she considers Niki, and the way that detail lands heavier than it should if this were only about sex and nothing else.
She could follow it, press just a little harder, see what spills out if she leans into the conversation, but she doesn’t. Not today. Not when the edges of it brush too close to things she’d rather not turn over, not with the lingering echo of her mother’s heartbreak sitting somewhere inconvenient in her chest. Instead, she lets the moment slide, smooth as silk, trading it for something easier.
Flora's mouth curves, sharp and playful again, and she leans forward just enough to re-enter Niki's space. "Well, if you did," she says lightly, of his virginity being on a pedestal, "you wouldn’t be able to reach it." She braces immediately after, shoulders lifting just slightly as if anticipating a retaliatory smack from the necromancer, her grin widening in open invitation for it. It dissolves just as quickly into a laugh, easy and warm, as she straightens again and gestures vaguely toward the table, toward the evidence of his earlier catastrophe that she had absolutely nothing to do with. "Well, since you’ve obviously finished your coffee—" her gaze flicks meaningfully to the spill, her brows lifting in quiet emphasis, "—wanna help me train? You can hit me with your cane."
She could follow it, press just a little harder, see what spills out if she leans into the conversation, but she doesn’t. Not today. Not when the edges of it brush too close to things she’d rather not turn over, not with the lingering echo of her mother’s heartbreak sitting somewhere inconvenient in her chest. Instead, she lets the moment slide, smooth as silk, trading it for something easier.
Flora's mouth curves, sharp and playful again, and she leans forward just enough to re-enter Niki's space. "Well, if you did," she says lightly, of his virginity being on a pedestal, "you wouldn’t be able to reach it." She braces immediately after, shoulders lifting just slightly as if anticipating a retaliatory smack from the necromancer, her grin widening in open invitation for it. It dissolves just as quickly into a laugh, easy and warm, as she straightens again and gestures vaguely toward the table, toward the evidence of his earlier catastrophe that she had absolutely nothing to do with. "Well, since you’ve obviously finished your coffee—" her gaze flicks meaningfully to the spill, her brows lifting in quiet emphasis, "—wanna help me train? You can hit me with your cane."
