I'm a cute huge yacht

we show off our different scarlet letters

There's nothing the queen would have liked more than to petulantly throw the shirt placed around her shoulders into the hot springs. "I thought you liked looking at me." She snaps in a low voice, her eyes still focused on her knees. It was just a kindness, she knew, but no part of her wanted it just now. She was hurt in more ways than one, and presently her shoulder was the least of her worries.

More bitter retorts like the one she'd already made rose to her tongue, but rather than snapping at him again Flora merely pressed her teeth together hard enough to have her jaw pulsing. Didn't do what? She wanted to know, making the mistake many did of assuming Asta likely partook fairly often in the Dusklight's offerings given he worked there. If nothing else she was fairly confident he and Danta were fucking—the banter between them certainly suggested a level of familiarity that normally came from mutual arousal—so just what was it he didn't do? Fuck women? Go on dates?

Looking up sharply—my partners never survived it—Flora blanked for a moment, her aqua stare growing wide as she tried to set aside her hostility in order to understand. "You would..." kill them? Only she can't say it; not because she'd be appalled, but because to get it wrong would sever things even more irrevocably than they already had been.

"I wasn't—" She interrupts, shaking her head. Leaning to rub her tears away on her shoulder, Flora mistakenly picked the injured one out of habit and had to choke back a cry of pain. Had Asta intentionally picked the clothes he had, in order to hide the new blossoms of red that Flora's blood painted across the fabric? "It isn't that simple." She mutters, not really in the mood to explain to someone who'd just cast her aside so quickly, that making others feel good was her kink. Was something she craved just as much as he did the trickle of blood.

Glancing at him, knowing there was nothing more really to be done between them and yet lingering for just a moment more, the queen let her own self-pity swamp her mind for just a moment before forcing her back to straighten so that she could stand. Unaided.

// smile like you mean it //

“I do, darling.” Astaroth insists, because he isn’t going to lie to her. Not that he wants to anyway, but that ring she’d mentioned before would only sell the point that he isn’t lying about it. But he can see how she grows more and more upset and he has little to offer except his honesty. Parts of it, not giving away the full truth of what he’d done back then. And while he works at the Dusklight, the only one he had fucked since awakening was Danta, despite the attempts to send multiple people to his door. Precisely because of this.

Clearing his throat as he hears her bite back the cry of pain from her shoulder, his red shirt darkening as blood bubbles against it, spreading into one of those white flowers. Frowning sharply he shakes his head, stumbling for words uncharacteristically for him. “I would bite them in the wrong places. They would bleed out.” He admits quietly, watching as she speaks again and stands unaided, his tail coils around his leg and he withdraws his hand back to his lap, peering up at her quietly.

“I do not want to hurt you.” He tries to push the point. It wasn’t that simple, he knows that. But he isn’t any ordinary simple man, either. He stands a moment later, his height back to its full amount as he works his jaw a brief moment, muscles feathering in it. “I’m sorry, Flora.”

Astaroth

// take a chance and you could seize it //

we show off our different scarlet letters

Well. At least that was the right thing to say.

Lifting her chin and sniffing somewhat, Flora realizes that they were as both blameless in all of this as they were innocent. They both could have said more, but going off of the information they had at the time, they'd done what they thought was best. And now here they were, with no one's tongue bitten off in a too-passionate kiss and with wounds that Torchline's fountain would heal with ease. Given all she now understood of the butcher, being able not to only to stop him but having him be able to stop as well was likely quite the step forward. So what did it feel like such a failure?

Why did she?

"Maybe your partners need little bite me here stickers to be put on before sex." She suggests. "Could even be foreplay to put them on." The smile that tugs at the corner of her lip feels like a betrayal, and quickly she bites it back as her breath lodges uncomfortably in her throat.

Not bothering to wrap his shirt any tighter around her body (there wasn't much point, and doing so would likely only bother her shoulder more), Flora lifts her chin in order to meet his gaze. "You can't have blood without pain." She says simply shrugging with her unmarked shoulder; he might not have wanted her to be in pain, but certainly he couldn't have what he did want without it.

"Me too." She agrees softly, her eyes drifting across the olive skin marred with faint streaks of red and pink before she meets his eyes. "Worst first date ever, huh?" It's meant to inject even the tiniest bit of levity into the situation, but the words only having her body tensing against new waves of rejection and defeat.

Swallowing before fresh tears could spill down her cheeks, Flora reached for the black patches of cloth that were her bikini, before moving to stuff them into her back. Another bottle of wine remained inside as well as some other goodies she'd planned to pull it later. Reaching for her compass, the queen turned and gestured vaguely at it. "I can go home instantly with this. I take it you can make your way back to the Grounds on your own?"

// smile like you mean it //

There is some levity to the situation when she makes her suggestion, and while it doesn’t help her mood that much, it does soothe some of the ice in his veins. “Perhaps.” He says softly, even if he doesn’t think it would work, knows himself well enough to not care half of the time. When she meets his gaze and offers her point, he concedes with a dip of his bearded chin.

“While true, there’s a fine line between enjoyment and not.” And she hadn’t been enjoying it, as far as he was concerned. She hadn’t enjoyed it so much that she’d spawned a tide jaguar between them. But the agreement is met either way, both apologetic in how it had turned out, and how he wished he could go back with her to Torchline to ensure the healing took place, wondering belatedly if the scars would remain in a juxtaposition of her perfect sculpted skin.

Head cocking slightly at the mention of the date, the sudden realization overcomes him and his cheeks darken a fraction as his eyes drop from hers, drifting over toward the still lit candles, the wine forgotten about, the bottles and ointment his body still shimmers with. Not wanting to seem like he hadn’t known (despite that being the fact entirely,) he snorts. “Not my worst, trust me.” He’d already explained his “worst” ones.

As for the compass, though, and her still wrapped up in his shirt, Astaroth nods and steps forward to her to offer his hand in a fleeting touch. “I can, yes. Please let me know when you are home and healed.” Healed and fine and he doesn’t have to worry about the blood still pouring from her shoulder, blooming rorschach patterns into his floral shirt.

Pulling away from her to allow her to vanish back to Torchline without him, Astaroth takes a moment to try and clean up the best he can, to extinguish the flames, to make his trek back up to catch the skyship that would take him back to the Grounds, feeling adrift the entirety of the time. At least his fyrhund shift made it easier to feel less exposed.

— FIN <3333

Astaroth

// take a chance and you could seize it //