your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
Flora reaches for a bottle at nearly the same moment Melita does, fingers closing around its salt-fogged neck before she straightens and tosses it onto the plastic sled dragging behind her through the sand. It lands among the others with a hollow clatter, jostling the collection Spice has been loosely contributing to whenever the little dragon happens to notice something shiny beneath the driftwood. Glancing toward Mel, Flora’s brows rise before her expression folds into a comical wince, one shoulder creeping toward her ear.
"Yeaaaah, you’ve gotta be... uh, tactful when you’re talking to her." The word comes carefully, like there are several sharper and considerably less diplomatic alternatives pressing against the back of Flora’s teeth. She lets them stay there, nudging the sled forward with her heel instead before Melita’s next piece of information catches properly. "The jungle?" she repeats, head tilting. Still, the fact that Melita has come to her first warms something beneath Flora’s ribs, and her expression softens into a quick, genuine smile. She nods, humming a quiet, thanks," under her breath before bending to retrieve another bottle from where it has settled crookedly in the sand.
The question about the DreamWalker stops her halfway upright. Flora remains there with one hand braced against her thigh, closing one eye as though cutting her available vision in half might somehow leave more room for remembering. "Uhhh, I remember Hadama saying something about it?" Her lips purse while she searches backward through years of conversations, rumours, and crises that had all seemed terribly important until the next one arrived. "This god thing they all killed in the jungle?"
Her brows lift as the memory finally finds her, dawning bright enough to pull her fully upright. "Oh! Actually, I totally have its antlers in my dining room." Flora gives a small shrug, as though keeping the remains of a dead jungle god beside the table is only marginally stranger than one of Mateo's vases of deadly flowers. "I bought them from the Merchant’s Guild and always meant to do something with them."
"Yeaaaah, you’ve gotta be... uh, tactful when you’re talking to her." The word comes carefully, like there are several sharper and considerably less diplomatic alternatives pressing against the back of Flora’s teeth. She lets them stay there, nudging the sled forward with her heel instead before Melita’s next piece of information catches properly. "The jungle?" she repeats, head tilting. Still, the fact that Melita has come to her first warms something beneath Flora’s ribs, and her expression softens into a quick, genuine smile. She nods, humming a quiet, thanks," under her breath before bending to retrieve another bottle from where it has settled crookedly in the sand.
The question about the DreamWalker stops her halfway upright. Flora remains there with one hand braced against her thigh, closing one eye as though cutting her available vision in half might somehow leave more room for remembering. "Uhhh, I remember Hadama saying something about it?" Her lips purse while she searches backward through years of conversations, rumours, and crises that had all seemed terribly important until the next one arrived. "This god thing they all killed in the jungle?"
Her brows lift as the memory finally finds her, dawning bright enough to pull her fully upright. "Oh! Actually, I totally have its antlers in my dining room." Flora gives a small shrug, as though keeping the remains of a dead jungle god beside the table is only marginally stranger than one of Mateo's vases of deadly flowers. "I bought them from the Merchant’s Guild and always meant to do something with them."
