flora
Flora probably should think about it longer than she does.
The thought comes bright and absurdly sensible, the kind of thing that might have sounded excellent from someone else’s mouth, preferably while they were holding a glass of something cold and pretending this was the sort of decision a person could weigh neatly on either side of a scale. A lifetime of fealty, Safrin says, and Flora hears every edge of it; the vow, the obligation, the way devotion can become a leash if it’s held by the wrong hand or tightened at the wrong moment. She thinks of Ronin, of Sunjata, of the way being chosen had not saved them from heartbreak, from losing themselves in pieces, from being remade around someone else’s glory until love and duty and worship all started wearing the same face. She thinks, too, of men like Deimos, who had declined the lofty offer and still somehow seemed to have everything he wanted, with his mountains and his magic and his terrifying competence, as if some people could simply look at divinity holding out a crown and decide they already had enough.
Must be nice.
Not that Flora thinks she’s more ambitious than Deimos, necessarily, because honestly, trying to out-ambition a man who looks like he was carved from a siege weapon, but her ambition has never been the sort that can be satisfied by six-pack abs and a punch capable of sending almost anyone into an early grave. Flora doesn’t want to be the strongest person in the room in that blunt, brutal way, doesn’t want power that announces itself by cracking stone or making people flinch before she’s even opened her mouth. She wants secrets dragged into the light by their pretty little ankles. She wants lies pinned beneath glass. She wants every whispered betrayal, every shady little half-truth, every darling bit of social theatre that people think they can hide behind, to remember that Torchline has a queen with excellent taste and very sharp teeth.
She wants the sort of power only a god can give.
Maybe she always has, in some glittering, shameful, seashell-hidden corner of herself, tucked away beneath all those perfectly valid opinions about demigods and consequence and how none of this ever seems to come free. Maybe she has spent half her life watching power ruin people and the other half wondering what she could do if it came to her hand cleanly, beautifully, deliberately, offered not because she was someone’s afterthought or collateral damage or miracle baby, but because Safrin is standing in front of her with stars in her hair and everything on her tongue.
And if everything is being offered, who the fuck is Flora to say no?
"Yes," she breathes immediately, the answer slipping out. She nods once, then again, her aqua eyes fixed on Safrin’s face as her pulse scatters through her like startled birds over the shoreline, bright and frantic and alive. "Yes."
The thought comes bright and absurdly sensible, the kind of thing that might have sounded excellent from someone else’s mouth, preferably while they were holding a glass of something cold and pretending this was the sort of decision a person could weigh neatly on either side of a scale. A lifetime of fealty, Safrin says, and Flora hears every edge of it; the vow, the obligation, the way devotion can become a leash if it’s held by the wrong hand or tightened at the wrong moment. She thinks of Ronin, of Sunjata, of the way being chosen had not saved them from heartbreak, from losing themselves in pieces, from being remade around someone else’s glory until love and duty and worship all started wearing the same face. She thinks, too, of men like Deimos, who had declined the lofty offer and still somehow seemed to have everything he wanted, with his mountains and his magic and his terrifying competence, as if some people could simply look at divinity holding out a crown and decide they already had enough.
Must be nice.
Not that Flora thinks she’s more ambitious than Deimos, necessarily, because honestly, trying to out-ambition a man who looks like he was carved from a siege weapon, but her ambition has never been the sort that can be satisfied by six-pack abs and a punch capable of sending almost anyone into an early grave. Flora doesn’t want to be the strongest person in the room in that blunt, brutal way, doesn’t want power that announces itself by cracking stone or making people flinch before she’s even opened her mouth. She wants secrets dragged into the light by their pretty little ankles. She wants lies pinned beneath glass. She wants every whispered betrayal, every shady little half-truth, every darling bit of social theatre that people think they can hide behind, to remember that Torchline has a queen with excellent taste and very sharp teeth.
She wants the sort of power only a god can give.
Maybe she always has, in some glittering, shameful, seashell-hidden corner of herself, tucked away beneath all those perfectly valid opinions about demigods and consequence and how none of this ever seems to come free. Maybe she has spent half her life watching power ruin people and the other half wondering what she could do if it came to her hand cleanly, beautifully, deliberately, offered not because she was someone’s afterthought or collateral damage or miracle baby, but because Safrin is standing in front of her with stars in her hair and everything on her tongue.
And if everything is being offered, who the fuck is Flora to say no?
"Yes," she breathes immediately, the answer slipping out. She nods once, then again, her aqua eyes fixed on Safrin’s face as her pulse scatters through her like startled birds over the shoreline, bright and frantic and alive. "Yes."
stay here honey I don't wanna share
