i could be the reason you can't sleep at night
Flora beams before she can even think to make herself look modest about it, pride lighting across her face as easily as sun over water. "Yeah," she says, the word bright and simple, and then her grin turns a little more pointed, a little more hers. "Safrin."
For all that she’s well aware of how many complicated feelings that name can drag behind it for other people, there’s no hesitation in her voice. No apology, either. Flora has spent too much of her life being the daughter of demigods, the almost-queen, the almost-enough version of herself, to pretend that being chosen hasn’t settled somewhere deep beneath her skin like starlight finding a tidepool. Still, the shape of it isn’t exactly what she’d expected, and as her fingers tighten briefly around the edge of the clipboard, her smile tilts with the faintest edge of self-deprecation. "Apparently this is all part of it, where you feel weaker for a bit, so..."
The fact that Deimos has time has her expression sharpening at once, all that soft admission swept neatly behind something brighter and more dangerous. "Perfect." The clipboard goes into the sand with a decisive thunk, stabbed upright like the world’s least threatening battle standard, and Flora bends to slip out of her shoes, leaving them abandoned near it before darting back several paces across the beach.
Barefoot, with the sand giving just enough beneath her heels to make every movement feel like a negotiation, she turns back toward him and shakes out her hands as though she’s about to do something far more elegant than invite one of the most dangerous men she knows to attack her for practice. "I doubt I’m anywhere near fast enough to dodge your attacks," she admits, wrinkling her nose as if this is an inconvenience rather than a fairly serious concern, "but..." Her shoulders rise in a loose shrug, and her grin comes back quick and wicked. "It isn’t like we’re lacking healing water."
There’s a flutter in her stomach that isn’t quite fear, though it wears a few of the same colours. Anticipation, mostly. The sudden, electric awareness of her own body, of her weight on the balls of her feet, of the open beach around her and the glittering slice of sea beyond. Flora bounces her eyebrows at him in clear invitation, because if she gives herself another moment to think about it she might decide this is incredibly stupid, and unfortunately she’s already made the face that says she’s committed. "Go on, then." She shifts lightly to one side, eyes bright and fixed on him, ready to move the instant she has something to run from.
For all that she’s well aware of how many complicated feelings that name can drag behind it for other people, there’s no hesitation in her voice. No apology, either. Flora has spent too much of her life being the daughter of demigods, the almost-queen, the almost-enough version of herself, to pretend that being chosen hasn’t settled somewhere deep beneath her skin like starlight finding a tidepool. Still, the shape of it isn’t exactly what she’d expected, and as her fingers tighten briefly around the edge of the clipboard, her smile tilts with the faintest edge of self-deprecation. "Apparently this is all part of it, where you feel weaker for a bit, so..."
The fact that Deimos has time has her expression sharpening at once, all that soft admission swept neatly behind something brighter and more dangerous. "Perfect." The clipboard goes into the sand with a decisive thunk, stabbed upright like the world’s least threatening battle standard, and Flora bends to slip out of her shoes, leaving them abandoned near it before darting back several paces across the beach.
Barefoot, with the sand giving just enough beneath her heels to make every movement feel like a negotiation, she turns back toward him and shakes out her hands as though she’s about to do something far more elegant than invite one of the most dangerous men she knows to attack her for practice. "I doubt I’m anywhere near fast enough to dodge your attacks," she admits, wrinkling her nose as if this is an inconvenience rather than a fairly serious concern, "but..." Her shoulders rise in a loose shrug, and her grin comes back quick and wicked. "It isn’t like we’re lacking healing water."
There’s a flutter in her stomach that isn’t quite fear, though it wears a few of the same colours. Anticipation, mostly. The sudden, electric awareness of her own body, of her weight on the balls of her feet, of the open beach around her and the glittering slice of sea beyond. Flora bounces her eyebrows at him in clear invitation, because if she gives herself another moment to think about it she might decide this is incredibly stupid, and unfortunately she’s already made the face that says she’s committed. "Go on, then." She shifts lightly to one side, eyes bright and fixed on him, ready to move the instant she has something to run from.
