flannel cure

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

The points of ice catch Flora's attention, and even as she lifts her gaze inconspicuously away, a little smile is playing at her lips. And here I carry around daggers like some idiot, she thinks with a snort. Not that she'd trade her feathers for anything. It's people like you who are responsible for those stupid riddles about someone who hung themselves in a locked room with only a bit of water beneath their feet." She remarks before sauntering away for some refreshments.

"I'd be tempted to say it's never the ship's fault." Flora says before allowing a considerable swallow of gin to burn on her tongue before letting it slip down the back of her throat. "So how'd you..get into this?" Being a captain she means, as opposed to a murderous bastard or pirate smuggler. "Just woke up one day and thought, taking care of something that's going to constantly get beat up by the ocean sounds fun, might as well add a crew of assholes to have to manage at the same time, because why not."

JACK

"Right, right. Riddles," Jack drawls after Flora with a grin; there are undoubtedly quite a few people in Torchline who have found themselves on the wrong end of a blade of ice in their time, and not all of it is Jack's fault - he's hardly the only Abandoned there with water magic. Taking another considerable sip of whiskey, he relaxes enough to let the buzz of the other passengers' thoughts settle in his mind as it would back in Torchline, honed for any danger in range, but otherwise allowing it to fade to a low hum.

"I dunno, some of 'em are real bitches," Jack says of ships and their accountability, grinning out at the world shrinking away beyond. He doesn't expect her question, or her honest curiosity, the captain glancing sidelong at her and considering for a moment before he answers. 

"I'd been on the black market scene for a bit, posin' as a merchant," he explains. "Had started to be able to block people out long enough to get work done. The Ark had been a dead ship in Kaiholo for... fuck, years, maybe. No one wanted her, she was practically a wreck. Meant I got her cheap, could fix her up. Learned everythin' I needed to from other captains and crews, and just faked it until it was easy as breathin'." He shrugs. "I grew up in the Haulani's slums, so it's not like sailin' was ever really a foreign concept."

believer, believe it or not you'll know
when it ends and how it goes

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Though Flora is inclined to argue something along the lines of maybe you just didn't treat them right of some ships being bitches, she's fully aware as just such a woman herself, that women hardly needed a reason to be bitches. "Mmm." She hums noncommitally, rolling her wrist in order to send her gin whirling around her glass.

"A dead ship? That's a little dramatic." She chuckles under her breath before falling silent to listen to the rest of it. There's no one around them, not really, but Flora still doesn't take the chance of giving voice to some of her thoughts. And I guess being able to hear the thoughts of those you got to work for you, made it easy to get them in your pocket, huh?

So that's what it was? Just bullshit until it wasn't?

"But why sailing? I mean, you could have gotten yourself a wagon and a pony." The queen gives him an affectionate nudge, knowing just how much the captain loved horses before continuing. "Or just stuck to the Fingers like lots seem to do." Was it the market that drove Jack out onto the water? Or the sea itself?

JACK

"Hardly," Jack objects, scoffing around a sip of his drink. "She had no crew, her sails were torn to shit and she sat in the port rottin'. What else would you call it?" Still, semantics aside, The Ark's bones had been good - Jack had found that out for himself. And as for Flora's other thoughts, the captain offers her a sly smile for her trouble, tilting his glass to clink it against her own in a toast. Correct.

"Ain't that how it went for you as well?" he asks with a raise of his brows. Bullshit until it wasn't? "Don't get me wrong, I know your parents are your parents but I don't know if anyone raises a kid to be queen."

Offering her a glare for her trouble, as well as her nudge - a pony indeed - Jack peers out at the hazy horizon. There's no water out there and there won't be for a long time, given the journey they need to take down from The Climb to Torchline, but he can imagine it well enough. "It was freedom," he says softly, wrinkling his nose at the admission. "For an island kid with no prospects, seein' ships come in from all over... ain't the kind of itch you can scratch with a wagon." Besides, a Torcher from birth, there's salt in his veins that the world just can't wash out.

"Why? You want to learn?" He smirks.

believer, believe it or not you'll know
when it ends and how it goes

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

"They didn't raise me at all." Flora replies a touch flatly, before taking a healthy sip of her gin. "I dunno, I think I probably had an easier time of it than you did." She says with a small shrug, turning to peer over the side of the ship. The Climb was now a blurry patch of orange far below, and from such a height it was easy to dismiss just how vast the tunnels beneath the rocky mantel actually were. "I mean, once I was queen, I was queen. I could be better or worse, but I still was, you know? But being a captain..." Sucking at her lower lip Flora glances over her shoulder at Jack, aqua eyes slipping over him for a moment as she shrugs. "You can get on a ship and declare yourself a captain but that doesn't just make it sail."

Then again, maybe the same could be said about being queen and Flora was just giving Jack too much credit.

Sipping in a small breath, the air smelling of nothing which was strange enough in and of itself, Flora nods. "I can get that." Freedom. It was what saw her and Enzo abandoning the Greatwood at so young an age to make their way in the world without the help of their parents. "But you still stayed." She observes in a soft voice, looking over at the captain again. "You could have left and gone anywhere."

Well, just about.

Grinning, this time the queen nudges him with her hip as she downs the last of her gin. "I dunno, your crew listen to me pretty well already, I'd say I'm basically already an expert." Laughing, Flora crinkles her nose before nudging her lips toward Jack's ear. "Gonna out rank you soon."

JACK

"I ain't gonna disagree with you for once," Jack says with a humourless laugh, rolling his glass between his hands and utilising a touch of magic to chill the whiskey within it. "It's been so long since then it's second nature now. There was a time when I had a lot of sleepless nights, learnin' how not to sink a ship." It absolutely helped, being able to handpick a crew that knew what they were doing, as well as reading thoughts on the fly to make it sound like he knew what he was talking about. A few quick wins didn't hurt either; easy targets, easier gains.

Following her gaze to the smudge of orange that heralds The Climb, Jack nods at her observation. "I did," he agrees. "By that point, she was mine." Torchline, her sprawl of islands, the people who frequented her streets. "Suddenly she didn't seem so bad any more." That, and starting over again from scratch seemed a lot like failing to Jack.

Snorting at her remark and following suit by knocking back the rest of his rum, the captain turns his head ever so slightly to bring her lips even closer to his own. "Yeah? Go adjust course for the crew of this ship - make sure you give 'em all their orders, too," he says, nudging her.

believer, believe it or not you'll know
when it ends and how it goes

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

"Did you have water and air magic back then too?" Flora could imagine how those might have helped seal the captain's place as head of a ship, if only because he could rock her out of hard water or fill her sails when the wind died. If not, and he'd done it just using his telepathy (which, admittedly which a huge leg up), was all the more impressive.

Was she? Looking at Jack, the queen lets her head loll to the side, her expression playful despite the way her thoughts now felt like a cat happily kneading a thigh only for its claws to softly come through every now and then. Torchline was his, was it? Undoubtedly at one time she'd not even have batted an eye at such a statement. "And now?" The queen—queen, Jack—wonders softly.

"And why would I do that?" Flora whispers against the scruff on his cheek, neither reducing nor adding to the distance between them, but perhaps standing a touch taller. "We're going the right way." Clucking her touch, the queen gives her head a little shake. "A good captain gives orders, but a great one lets the crew do what needs to be done." Grinning, she raises her eyebrows, her eyes falling for a moment towards his lips before her gaze lifts. "Don't worry, you'll get there one day."

JACK

"No, they only developed in the past few years," Jack admits with an easy shake of his head. About the time when he started levelling the Outlanders began to flood Torchline, in fact. "There's another, too, but it needs a good storm for me to use it. I've still a ways to go with that one, I think." His lightning magic isn't something he's had a chance to use all too often, given that he can't yet create it himself. Soon, though, he's sure. Again with the levelling.

And now? Jack's smile is as catlike as Flora's thoughts, and he turns ever more towards her with a raise of a brow. "I am just as pleased to see her shores now after a journey as I was then, Your Highness," he quips, his voice dipping into a whisper at her title. "But I can also appreciate decent leadership when I see it." And like it or not, between Flora and Hadama, Torchline had become more than it had been in years under other leaders.

Ah, but then Flora goes and teases him about his vocation, and Jack leans in suddenly to capture her soft bottom lip between his teeth, nipping at it gently. "And what about when things go wrong? When the crew doesn't know what needs to be done?" he wonders, and above them - about 30ft above, conveniently enough - a sudden sharp gale begins to fight the sails, whipping out rope and causing the crew to shout a bit in alarm.

believer, believe it or not you'll know
when it ends and how it goes

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

"Oh?" A good storm? Maybe it was something like the magic Hadama had, or hell, something like the encantados had. "Guess I know what I'll be doing next time there's a storm." Bothering you, being the answer.

Having expected an answer like she's still mine, but maybe also a little bit yours, the Doubletake can't help but feel a little a lot smug to hear the captain say so. It was never far from her mind, especially in moments like this, how much she owed to Jack to get her where she was now.

The thing is Jack, Flora can play this game too, but only because you've taught her the rules. Inhaling sharply, the queen's eyes still fixed on the captain's, Flora tugs her lip free regardless of the pain, and casually looks toward the sails flapping abruptly. "Well in that case, a good captain would start barking orders and a great one would sort out the problem." So saying Flora pulls the captain toward her, her lips hungrily focused on his own. Having dulled down her thoughts for the majority of the ride in order to focus on their conversation—how talk of ice daggers had brought Flora's mind back to the hotsprings and the electricity of the captain's touch, how talk of taking care of the woman had caused some rather dark and inviting thoughts to bloom in her mind (would she watch, if he asked her?), and how being on a skyship with the captain reminded her of the date he'd take her on and the pod of starwhales they'd managed to tease out of the clouds—it was all too easy for Flora to trot them out now, bright and bold enough to hopefully distract the captain so he'd lose his hold on his air magic.

JACK

"Oh, boy," Jack drawls sarcastically, though the smirk playing across his lips and the amusement in his eyes makes his expression warmer now than it ever has been. Perhaps he wouldn't even consider it bothering him too much at this point, and perhaps that in itself would drive Flora to lose interest in him. And while once upon a time, the captain would have relished such a welcome reprieve from the Doubletake's antics, now he might resent losing them, just a little bit.

Tilting his head at her response - he had taught her the rules, indeed, but even Jack couldn't have anticipated Flora being such a natural - even as he senses, in the back of his mind, what she's about to do, of course he's heedless but to allow it. Clasping her closer against him, to the rest of the crew and passengers it will seem like another typical makeout session between a couple too focused on themselves to care about the world around them, but the sails do fall and calm, so... who knows, maybe they are good luck.

"How fortuitous that there's a great captain on board," he purrs as he parts from her lips. Somewhere deep in the recesses of Jack's core, a mocking little voice might be saying something like don't make me fall in love with you, Flora, but it's far too distant for him to notice or care.

believer, believe it or not you'll know
when it ends and how it goes

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Widening her eyes teasingly, that it's starting to grow dark doesn't diminish the candle-flicker of warmth that has the icy-blue of Jack's gaze melting to something decidedly more temperate and gods but it's unfair how all he has to do is smile at her to have her heart in her throat.

Moaning softly against his lips, Flora cover's Jack's cheek with her palm before her fingers slip into his hair, tugging slightly just in case the whirlwind of her thoughts hadn't been enough. As he parts from her, the sails above them suspiciously still, Flora can only grin girlishly. Raising one of her eyebrows, Flora brushes her nose sweetly against Jack's as if choosing being cute as her prize for besting him. "I know, right?" She whispers in response as her hand falls from his hair to his shoulder, her fingers clutching the material as several different thoughts begin to build in the back of her mind at once. All of them are in various shades of red, some darker and some entirely saccharine, but before she can let them grow edges and boundaries, Flora's gaze suddenly hardens as her mind loses its cherry glow.

"Look," The couple is on the move, moving below deck, the woman tugging the man along behind her as he glances nervously over his shoulder.

JACK

Scrunching his nose as if he might ward off the affection Flora claims as her victory, Jack is happy to leave all the sails as dead in the air as any ship on a becalmed sea, so long as he can keep drinking in her rose-hued thoughts. Indeed, his hands have already begun to wander to places not entirely considered appropriate for their standing on deck in public, his lips drifting towards her neck, only for a shard of clear-cut focus to have him pausing to listen, to watch through Flora's eyes.

"You think you can skip down there and distract the guy enough to separate 'em?" he asks, his breath warm against her skin. "He's nervous - he's not the one in charge here." Apparently Jack's assumption of the woman being the real problem of the duo is correct, and he only needs her accomplice distracted for a few minutes so he can deal with the woman herself.

believer, believe it or not you'll know
when it ends and how it goes

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Lifting an eyebrow, though Flora's lips only flinch toward a smile, Jack will feel a bright confidence stirring her emotions as she quickly formulates a plan that'll likely have him rolling his eyes. It'll work though, just you wait and see.

Not necessarily wanting to part from the captain but not waisting time in doing it either, Flora glances at her empty gin glass before walking toward the pair. As she goes her steps begin to grow looser, her hips swaying, her gait uneven. By the time she reaches the door which leads below deck, Flora looks as if she's certainly had one too many cocktails. Whether or not Jack is within range of the queen's thoughts, he'll likely still be able to hear a bright flurry of laughter followed by the shattering of a glass. "ohhh, oh noooo." Flora cries in a too-bright voice, her thoughts wickedly sharp and rife with amusement.

Having feigned stumbling down the stairs if only so that she could latch onto the male thief, the queen makes it impossible for him not to try and proper her up as she mewls about how she's never like this and that the altitude must have made her cocktail go straight to her head, and would he please help her find somewhere to sit?

JACK

Much as Jack does want to roll his eyes about it, Flora is right, and he knows it'll work even before she peels herself away from him. Patting her on the ass as she goes as if having sent her on her way to fill up her drink, he's absently rolling his empty whiskey glass between his fingers just as a tell-tale tinkle hits the air. Turning as if surprised, Jack is already on his way across the deck as though he's going to check on his GiRLfRiEnD, though by now Flora is already latching herself onto the male thief, allowing the captain to bustle through the crowd and slip away below deck.

While the man (obviously, she's Flora looking like Flora and the queen of Torchline) helps the Doubletake back on deck and somewhere to sit, Jack becomes the woman's shadow. What happens next is swift, quiet, and spills minimal blood. There isn't even anyone watching too closely as a limp shape is tossed through one of the hatches, along the side of the ship; everyone is far too preoccupied with drinking and stargazing on deck.

Returning less than fifteen minutes later, Jack rolls his shoulders and tugs his shirt collar up a fraction to hide the still bloody scratches against his neck, as if the woman had put up a fight.

believer, believe it or not you'll know
when it ends and how it goes