flora
Flora only nods at that, because whether Sohalia had known by then or not feels like one of those details that belongs to Sohalia to explain, if she ever decides to. It isn't Flora’s laundry to shake out across the bar just because everything else has apparently been flung open and examined under magical lighting, and honestly, there has been quite enough of other people’s private moments on display for one afternoon. At Colt’s sigh about being driven by basic nature, though, Flora snickers despite herself, one hand lifting from her glass as her eyebrows rise in immediate and very real solidarity. "Oh gods, hard same," she says, because demigod or queen or whatever else, she is still unfortunately housed inside a body with opinions, cravings, and a truly embarrassing history of being hangry.
When Colt’s eyes flick toward the door, Flora feels the shape of the conversation shift a fraction too late. It is subtle, but then so is a tide turning until suddenly all the water is going the other way, and for all the ways she and Colt have seemed alike, Flora wonders if maybe this is one of the places they are not. Maybe Flora, having seen the memory and found the missing truth, is ready to sprint several emotional steps ahead because she wants the whole awful tangle to be over, while Colt is still standing among the sharper pieces, deciding which ones are safe enough to pick up. Or maybe Flora has simply misread the room again, which, given the theme of the afternoon, is not a thought she loves.
As Colt gently declines the offered ease of normal conversation, Flora rocks back onto one heel, the movement small but enough to pull her out of that casual lean against the bar. She nods along, lips parting once as if to say that the apology isn’t necessary, that Colt doesn’t need to keep making room for Flora’s feelings now that the truth has been dragged into the light. But then Colt is still speaking, and the words settle differently than Flora expects, more careful and self-aware than the argument at the party had left room for, and so she closes her mouth again. The glass sliding across the counter is a language Flora knows well enough by now, and the message of it comes through loud and clear.
Her disappointment is stupidly quick, a little flash of it beneath her ribs that she swallows down before it can show too plainly. She lets herself breathe in, then out, and offers Colt a smile that is smaller than her usual ones but no less deliberate for that. "Okay," Flora says, and if the word is careful, it is at least honest. "Well...I guess from my side, it’s all good." She lifts one shoulder slightly, her fingers curling around her highball glass without bringing it to her lips. "You didn’t do what I thought you did, so as far as I’m concerned, we’re fine."
Except now she can see that they aren’t, not for Colt, and the realization leaves Flora feeling abruptly less sure of where to put her hands, her eyes, the apology she has already given and the one she might still owe if only she knew the proper shape of it. Colt is allowed to still be upset at her of course, Flora had come at her in the middle of a party, sharp and certain and public enough to make the wound messy, and while she can explain why she had done it, the explanation doesn’t turn into an eraser just because the memory did.
So she draws in another breath, steadier this time, and lets the rest of what she wants to say come without trying to make it charming. "Thanks for coming to clear the air today," she adds, aqua eyes lifting back to Colt’s. "I don’t know that the truth would’ve ever come out if you hadn’t."
When Colt’s eyes flick toward the door, Flora feels the shape of the conversation shift a fraction too late. It is subtle, but then so is a tide turning until suddenly all the water is going the other way, and for all the ways she and Colt have seemed alike, Flora wonders if maybe this is one of the places they are not. Maybe Flora, having seen the memory and found the missing truth, is ready to sprint several emotional steps ahead because she wants the whole awful tangle to be over, while Colt is still standing among the sharper pieces, deciding which ones are safe enough to pick up. Or maybe Flora has simply misread the room again, which, given the theme of the afternoon, is not a thought she loves.
As Colt gently declines the offered ease of normal conversation, Flora rocks back onto one heel, the movement small but enough to pull her out of that casual lean against the bar. She nods along, lips parting once as if to say that the apology isn’t necessary, that Colt doesn’t need to keep making room for Flora’s feelings now that the truth has been dragged into the light. But then Colt is still speaking, and the words settle differently than Flora expects, more careful and self-aware than the argument at the party had left room for, and so she closes her mouth again. The glass sliding across the counter is a language Flora knows well enough by now, and the message of it comes through loud and clear.
Her disappointment is stupidly quick, a little flash of it beneath her ribs that she swallows down before it can show too plainly. She lets herself breathe in, then out, and offers Colt a smile that is smaller than her usual ones but no less deliberate for that. "Okay," Flora says, and if the word is careful, it is at least honest. "Well...I guess from my side, it’s all good." She lifts one shoulder slightly, her fingers curling around her highball glass without bringing it to her lips. "You didn’t do what I thought you did, so as far as I’m concerned, we’re fine."
Except now she can see that they aren’t, not for Colt, and the realization leaves Flora feeling abruptly less sure of where to put her hands, her eyes, the apology she has already given and the one she might still owe if only she knew the proper shape of it. Colt is allowed to still be upset at her of course, Flora had come at her in the middle of a party, sharp and certain and public enough to make the wound messy, and while she can explain why she had done it, the explanation doesn’t turn into an eraser just because the memory did.
So she draws in another breath, steadier this time, and lets the rest of what she wants to say come without trying to make it charming. "Thanks for coming to clear the air today," she adds, aqua eyes lifting back to Colt’s. "I don’t know that the truth would’ve ever come out if you hadn’t."
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I'm covered in you
And now I'm covered in you
