Flora
The little sound that slips out of him makes Flora’s smile turn dangerously buoyant, the corners of her mouth lifting as though the whole expression is about to get away from her. Then he manages to make s’mores the answer, and the laugh startled out of her is breathless with joy. She rolls her eyes as if she really should have known better than to expect anything else, but the look she gives him afterward is so openly adoring that it lays the hostage negotiation to rest without a single formal concession. "Well, I guess it’s good we packed them, then." Her voice is bright with the grin still pulling at her lips, and if there’d been any real question about whether she intended to withhold them from him, it dies there in the damp, glowing dark between them.
Still, the dirt and rock comparison has her raising a brow, because really, if he’s going to try and make those equivalent, he deserves everything that comes next. "Eating dirt made me strong. Eating rocks just gave you an upset stomach, so you tell me which one of us is the idiot." As for what she does or doesn’t like putting in her mouth, Flora lets her gaze drip slowly from his face down to his hips before sliding back up again, all sweet scepticism and sugared danger. "Oh, are you suggesting I be more picky?"
She glances at him over one shoulder as he finds the front pocket, her smile softening into something grateful when he draws out the bottle of healing water. Taking it from him with a low hum of thanks, she turns it over in her hand, watching the liquid catch the glowstone light before his joke tugs at her attention again. It makes her smile, but the curve of it is quieter this time, caught on the sudden sharpness of how different their childhoods had been. His sleepovers had parents stomping down to affectionately scold him and his friends for being too loud. Hers had been the Greatwood, sleeping outside, listening for danger, learning to keep quiet enough that Ronin wouldn’t be reminded of her existence and burn part of the forest down for the inconvenience of her birth.
Swallowing the thought before it can become too heavy, Flora reaches for something easier instead, eyebrows bouncing as she tips her head toward him. "The best one?" She carries the bottle to the nearest thick root and sprinkles some of the water around its base, then moves to the next, letting the offering soak into the damp earth with a care that sits beneath all her teasing. "How do you know it’s the best? I know a few, and they were taught to me by a witch, so I feel like I’ve got a shot."
Still, the dirt and rock comparison has her raising a brow, because really, if he’s going to try and make those equivalent, he deserves everything that comes next. "Eating dirt made me strong. Eating rocks just gave you an upset stomach, so you tell me which one of us is the idiot." As for what she does or doesn’t like putting in her mouth, Flora lets her gaze drip slowly from his face down to his hips before sliding back up again, all sweet scepticism and sugared danger. "Oh, are you suggesting I be more picky?"
She glances at him over one shoulder as he finds the front pocket, her smile softening into something grateful when he draws out the bottle of healing water. Taking it from him with a low hum of thanks, she turns it over in her hand, watching the liquid catch the glowstone light before his joke tugs at her attention again. It makes her smile, but the curve of it is quieter this time, caught on the sudden sharpness of how different their childhoods had been. His sleepovers had parents stomping down to affectionately scold him and his friends for being too loud. Hers had been the Greatwood, sleeping outside, listening for danger, learning to keep quiet enough that Ronin wouldn’t be reminded of her existence and burn part of the forest down for the inconvenience of her birth.
Swallowing the thought before it can become too heavy, Flora reaches for something easier instead, eyebrows bouncing as she tips her head toward him. "The best one?" She carries the bottle to the nearest thick root and sprinkles some of the water around its base, then moves to the next, letting the offering soak into the damp earth with a care that sits beneath all her teasing. "How do you know it’s the best? I know a few, and they were taught to me by a witch, so I feel like I’ve got a shot."
Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep
Code stolen from Queen Sky
