these memories follow me around

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

No part of Flora was looking forward to the conversation that was to come with Koa, and so in an attempt to ignore the churning in her stomach, she'd opted to agonize over what to wear: she wanted to look good, but not too good, to put in the effort because of course Koa deserved it but without making it seem as though the words she'd inevitably have to say—I'm in love with someone else—affected her so little that she had the headspace and time to look good. Deciding on a simple white top and some highwaisted shorts (much as a sundress would have been cooler, Flora wasn't sure either of them would welcome the memories it inspired), Flora had pulled her hair back in a ponytail and opted for only a bit of mascara that she was quite sure at some point she'd end up crying off.

Entering the Celestine, Flora wandered a little way in, avoiding the path which would take her toward the bridge overlooking the portion of the grounds dedicated to the Greatwood. With utterly no idea what she was going to say to Koa when he arrived, though she should have spent her time planning out her words, instead, she stood in front of one of the enclosures, pressing her forehead against the cool bars.

KOA

Had to use a gif from that scene, eh?

Blissfully ignorant and still high on the success of their last date, Koa shows up less buttoned-up than last time but nonetheless dapper, in dark wash jeans and a linen shirt adorned with a subtle dragon motif. It takes him a few minutes to find Flora - he has to ask some of the keepers for directions, not having spotted her near the entrance. But the Doubletake is hard to miss, and soon enough Koa spots her ahead, lustrous and wonderful and as unmistakable as a cool breeze on a summer day.

"Flora!" Koa calls out brightly, walking toward the Queen. He's clutching a bouquet of sunflowers, the other hand raised in a ready wave. The smile on his face is naïve and guileless; there's no single thought in his poor little head save for excitement at seeing what he assumes to be his girlfriend, eagerness to sweep her into an embrace and soak in her sweet and sunny scent.

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

uhm, obviously I did

As her name hits the air Flora presses her eyes closed, the knots in her stomach now so tight she's sure they'll never come undone. No, please—she thinks desperately, praying that some nearby spirit might take pity on her and freeze time, allowing her to escape, or at least to undo. Nothing happens of course, and as the queen turns, the sight of Koa's too-bright smile and fist full of sunflowers has the cracks in her heart widening with a cavernous yawning that makes her want to double over in pain. Gasping, one hand going to her throat as if to unclench the invisible hands making it impossible for her to breathe, her head begins to shake against the words she knows she must say, but gods, not yet. Not yet.

Running to him, the Doubletake flings her arms around the dragoon's neck, her body carelessly crashing into his as she clutches him tightly enough to squeeze the air out of her own lungs. "Don't say anything yet—" She gasps against his neck, tears already trickling down her cheeks as the muscles of her stomach convulse against the way her body screams at her for air.

Gods, it's so selfish of her, but she knows that this will be the last time that they're ever like this and even though it's probably wrong to want it, she wants to remember. To cement everything Koa ever was to her and will never have the chance to be, in her mind.

KOA

Later, when Koa thinks about this day, there will be two parts of it: before and after. The before is beautiful, a moment of youthful hope and potential too near and too painful for him to touch. It belongs in a snowglobe, to be preserved and admired and taken out on special occasions as a charming, nostalgic, remember when? Remember when we thought the future was ours? Remember when we laughed and talked of homes with laughing children and picket fences?

Remember when the sun was shining, and my hands were full of flowers, and my dreams were full of you?

There's a middle, of course. Nothing is ever black and white; there's always a little grey. After the before and before the after exists the in between: a stage of limbo where all eventualities are equally possible and equally unknown. It's into this limbo that Koa is now flung, his expression falling and his heart racing as Flora closes the difference between them, tears upon her face. "Wha--?" he starts, the word cut off as she crashes against him, her arms thrown round his neck.

"Flora?" He reaches for her, holds her close, fierce and protective and desperately afraid. This is as far from how he imagined the day going as is possible, and so he does what he does in a crisis: shores up, quiets down, forces in the calm. Makes himself be strong for Flora, as the world around them fades into the background and her tears soak into his shirt. Keeping his voice as steady as possible, the Dragoon murmurs against her hair. "Hey- hey. It's okay. I'm here. I've got you."

He cannot know how untrue those words are. After has yet to come.

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Among the most magical of the enclosures, you find the Qilin, its form both ethereal and majestic. The creature's single, spiraled horn gleams with an inner light, and its scales shimmer in a kaleidoscope of colors. The Qilin moves with a grace that seems to bend the very fabric of reality, and its eyes hold a wisdom that spans eons. As you watch, the Qilin seems to acknowledge your presence with a nod, and a sense of profound peace and good fortune washes over you. The air around the enclosure feels charged with ancient, benevolent magic.

---

You’ve encountered a Qilin. This counts as a rare creature encounter for the purposes of levelling, but does not count as a Random Event for levelling or MP. There will be no further admin/re intervention.

Qilin (Rare): A mythical, one-horned creature meant to symbolize the arrival or passing of an imminent ruler, luck, protection, pr success, and are revered as generally good omens. They are a rare sight - one would have to be privileged to ever come across one. Seeing one in the desert likely signals a hallucination though, rather than the real thing.

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

This wasn't how any of it was supposed to go. It was supposed to be Koa, it always had. From the moment they'd met as kids—the dragoon having then just been her older brother's friend—when Flora had been more pest than paramour, the fates had begun to weave their story with golden thread that pulled the pair inevitably back together time and time again, stitching a rich tapestry of memories between them until such time that they got the timing right. It had been such a near thing too, with love almost always on Flora's tongue when she was in Koa's presence. But what she could have let strengthen their relationship she'd instead let taint it, holding the mistakes of youth and simple miscommunication against the dragoon and thus adding one brick too many to the wall around her heart that Koa had laboriously dismantled.

It should have been you..

"No," She sobs against his chest, her tears already soaking through the soft linen of his shirt. No it wasn't alright; no he didn't have her; no nothing was ever going to be be the same again. Knowing that allowing him to continue to hold her as she cried against him, mourning the death of something he wasn't even aware of was wildly selfish, she couldn't bring herself to straighten. Couldn't bring herself to look into his copper gaze and know that she'd never again make him smile, never again hold his hand while looking out across the sea. "I'm so sorry," the words rattle out of her, broken and musical as her body heaves with sobs. Gods she should let him go but she can't. She just can't.

KOA

There is something terribly wrong. Koa knows that, but nothing else. He's too caught up in Flora's distress to leave room for suspicion, his focus wholly on the Doubletake, the distress that she's in. Has something happened? An attack? A death? "What's wrong? Is it your family?" he asks, still stuck in the limbo of ignorance, convinced so wholly that the crisis is coming from without. He wishes he knew how to help her, could hold her tight enough to still the racking, heaving sobs. He feels so inadequate.

And then there's those three words.

Koa stiffens against her, a sudden rush of savage suspicions starting to claw into his mind. But no, no, he shoves it aside, swallows it like a fool in denial, head already shaking away those fears. "No, hey, no--" No, don't say the thing he fears is coming. No, don't let it end like this.

Gently tugging back from her, Koa reaches for Flora's chin, tilting her tear-marked face up toward his. There's concern in the copper gaze that searches hers, searching for answers in a cloudy blue sea. But he keeps his composure, trying to muster a reassuring smile that can't reach his gaze. "Tell me what happened," he murmurs gently, thumb brushing a tear from her cheek. "We'll figure it out. It'll be okay." Whatever it is, just let me fix it.

You don't have to break my heart.

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

"Koa—" Flora whimpers breathlessly, and as he tilts her chin up toward him, for a painful and shimmering moment she thinks that he's going to kiss her, and she'd going to let him; she's going to let him because he's good and perfect and he doesn't deserve any of what's coming to him.

But he doesn't, because of course he doesn't realize that the time for last kisses is very likely behind them, and in that moment Flora thinks the pain of never seeing him smile at her the way she's grown so used to might genuinely split her in two. Shaking, she places her hand against his, her fingers cold and numb against his warm skin, feeling traitorous and vile as she shakes her head softly, not deserving even an ounce of his understanding or kindness.

"I didn't mean to—really I...I thought..." I thought it would be you. It was just sex with Jack, right up until it wasn't. Aware, if only distantly, just how disparate her sentences had become and how little information she was actually conveying, despite the way her body wanted to fold in on itself Flora forced her eyes to meet his.

"I...can't.." Koa was exactly what she'd always wanted: boyishly handsome, eyerollingly heroic, romantic and silly, hot as fuck, kind and thoughtful. He'd grown up, he'd put in the effort, he'd tried for her, and..."..be with you." ..she'd fallen in love with someone else.

KOA

"No---"

Later, in the after, Koa will hate himself for this. He'll hate the way his heart clenches and stutters, the loathsome cracking of his voice. Fury will fill him as he reflects on how he placed his pride aside, swallowing down his sense of worth to beg - beg - her to change her mind. But in this moment all he can think about are the words I can't said over and over, reverberating like thunder through his thoughts.

Reflected in the glass of another memory, another girl, another heartbreak.

"Flora, please, you don't mean that--" His head's still shaking, the smile of denial a mocking grimace on his handsome face. "Just give me a chance. Whatever it is, we can fix it." Her face is burning beneath his hand, hot enough, he thinks, to scald the skin, but he cannot pull away. Why does love have to hurt like this? Why must everything be so hard? 

There's one more mistake to add to the after. Three more words to seal his fate. He hasn't said them to her yet, too worried about breaking something fresh and new and good. But now he cannot choke them back; they spring into his mouth unbidden, a final desperate plea. "Please, Flora. I love you."

It's the first time he's told a girl he loves her, and it's already too late.

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

Please, Flora. I love you. The words hit her like a physical weight and had one of her arms not still been looped around Koa's neck there was every reason to think Flora would have collapsed down at the dragoon's feet. Shaking compulsively, the queen tries to hold her breath against the sob lodged in the back of her throat, but as her stomach spasms for air, it's all she can do to tuck her chin down so as not to spray Koa's face with tears, snot, and spit as her body forces her to breathe.

"No," Flora sobs, her knees still threatening to buckle. She'd have rather him hit her, to pull away from her suddenly enough that she'd slump down onto the cobblestones and scrape her knees. She'd have rather him scream in her face that he hated her—anything, anything but those words...Those words she'd been dying to say to him summer after summer but hadn't, because it would have been too soon, too young, and she'd been too scared to admit to something that big and real. Only...in the span of a few weeks, she'd gone and done just that, confessing her love to a man who didn't feel the same. "Koa you can't, you don't.."

Hiccuping in a breath, her face now splotched and shiny with tears, Flora fought for breath, for some way to make Koa understand, for some way to make it hurt less. "You didn't do anything wrong," she croaked, every word making her feel cold and numb. "You were perfect," She adds desperately.

KOA

And just like that, it's done.

He's played his card. He's told her he loves her. And still, it isn't enough. Like a slashed balloon Koa deflates, all the brimming hope and fear and coursing energy and need and love draining away to leave behind a hollow, empty pain. The thing that Flora clings to is no longer a man; he is a statue of coldest marble and hottest steel, a foreign body removed from the world. Dimly he's aware of her arm around him, of the red in her face and her hiccupped breath. Flora's travels as through through water, muffled and distant and terribly cold.

You were perfect--

"But someone else was better."

It all slots into place then, a picture of what has happened suddenly, viciously clear. It's the same fucking story, the same slap in the face. 'That's all it is,' she'd promised him. 'Just one of those things.' He can feel the simmering hurt and rage, the shame and fury coiling at his core. At some point Koa has dropped his hands, the sunflowers now dangling stupidly by his side. He isn't looking down at Flora, can't look at her, his copper eyes glinting with hurt and tears that are certain to spill out should he see her face.

He wonders absently whether his teeth will shatter, should he tighten his jaw any more.

He was an idiot to think this could have ended differently, Koa knows that now. She's a Queen and he is nothing, not even worth the mud on her boots. "Please leave, Flora." It's spoken with a terrible, chilling calm, as gently as if he were asking her to pass a cup of tea. But underneath something dangerous sits, the ghostly strains of a threat (a plea?) thrumming beneath a placid façade.

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

Flora can feel the change in Koa as clearly as she can see it. He hardens imperceptibly, drawing in and away from her seemingly without moving, and yet where once she'd have adamantly declared that for all of his sculpted muscles and impressive physique that Koa could never be hard, now he felt like a statue pressed against her; hardly moving, barely breathing, threatening to crack. The only upside to this was that the sudden departure of the emotional man she'd come to know so well had shocked the sobs briefly out of her system, leaving her teary-eyed and runny-nosed, but at least able to form full sentences without heaving.

"No," Flora interrupts with a desperate shake of her head, even as his hands fall to his sides and he seems to withdraw from her all the more. No it wasn't that Jack was better, Jack just was, and her feelings just were. Shivering, the queen takes an unsteady step backward, the heel of her shoe catching on the pavement and nearly sending her sprawling.

"Koa I want to explain. Please. I want you to at least understand because it isn't your fault." If she could make him understand that, at least, then at least she could leave knowing that for however much pain she had caused him, at least she hadn't let him walk off with more than his fair share of it.

KOA

No? No? Koa's eyes gleam in the afternoon light, though whether with rage or tears is entirely unclear, even to the boy. He wants to cry and he wants to laugh and he wants to scream and he wants to shake her, to grab her shoulders and pull her in for a kiss, to rewind the last five minutes of his life and return to ignorant bliss.

He does none of these things, of course, because to do one is to do them all, to let the harrowing rush of emotion overtake any remaining ability to play at being calm. So Koa continues to stare a Flora, his hands balled into white-knuckle fists, his jaw feathering, his breath coming fast.

It's not until she says it's not your fault that the façade starts to crack, a segment of stone peeling away to reveal the tangled mess beneath. "You want me to understand?" His voice is a sudden explosion in the quiet, the harsh, guttural, mirthless laugh a far cry from his usual, easy delight. For the first time Koa looks back at Flora, the hand that holds those stupid flowers thrust ineffectually at the air. "Fine. Explain. Whatever makes you feel better. Because that's what this has always been about, right? How you feel, and what you want, and how I've failed over and over to meet whatever fucking expectations---"

He stops abruptly, his teeth clicking down and his throat closing as he swallows the words. Again Koa looks away from Flora, shaking his head as though to clear it out. Any chance that he could contribute something positive is gone. All he wants now is for her to finish unloading her explanations, to let him loathe himself in peace.

With each love I cut loose, I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

i could be the reason you can't sleep at night

Flora can practically feel the implosion of Koa's emotions, watching as the blood drains from his knuckles and heats his cheeks, imagining the places where his tenderness and boyish affection must be hiding in order to make room for his rage and anger. She wants him to understand so that he can heal, so that he can walk away knowing that he won the breakup, that he was the golden one, that every ounce of sympathy should be laid at his feet.

Only then, as understandable as it is, he's lashing out at her, and gods but it's so incredibly predictable the way the sparks of his anger immediately have Flora forgetting all the ways she was meant to be soothing his ego, forgetting how big her grief and guilt had been only moments ago, and instead needing to defend herself.

"To be clear, the fucking expectations of mine that you FAiLeD OvEr AnD OvEr to meet included—" Holding up a finger, Flora lifts her eyebrows. "Not sneaking out of my window after taking my virginity—" She holds up another finger. "And not having the decency to just tell me you were interested in someone else instead of just fucking me whenever and galavanting off with my best friend."

Looking at the sunflowers and then back at him, the queen folds her arms around her chest once more before trying to hide a sniffle. "You sound like you're already pretty sure you're better off without me, so.." Her cheeks felt unbearably hot as if the sheen from her tears was magnifying the sun, but she wouldn't wipe at them, instead just tightening the knot of her own arms around her body.