blood on my shirt, a rose in my hand

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

Biting at the inside of her cheek, Flora raises her eyes toward the butcher, doing her best not to harshly sigh out the breath growing stale in the back of her throat. Jack...was probably protective of her; he'd said he'd kill for her, which was possibly the same thing. But she wasn't so sure she could go as far to say that the captain wanted nothing more than her happiness.

Asta's laughter eases the fingers of doubt she feels curling in around her heart, and the queen finds she's able to grin up at him in response. "I always said you were one of the good ones, didn't I?" Nudging him softly, Flora beams at him. "I don't think I can do that." She admits, her blue-green eyes gazing into the honey darkness of his own, before shaking her head slightly. "Maybe I don't deserve to be loved by someone if I don't love them like that, but...I don't know how I'd stay if they didn't feel it back." Whereas Flora could easily admit the butcher remaining stalwart in his affections no matter what Danta did or didn't do, she wasn't anywhere near selfless enough to give her life to a man who didn't love her in return. "Is that a terrible thing to say?"

Wrinkling her nose affectionately, grateful for the shift in tone, Flora laughs at the mental image of a closet full of pillowcases and the butcher and Maverick constantly covered in feathers. "And for spooning too, I imagine." Said perhaps a touch leadingly if only because if the butcher was always the big spoon then there'd never be any worry about such things, as his antlers emerge along with the rest of his usual traits, Flora happily matches the drama he'd just displayed by theatrically sagging with relief. "Oh gods, so much better." She agrees

i will never go backwards, i will never be seen
in the wake of disaster ...

“Mm, I do recall that, yes.” Asta muses playfully, peering down at her with a knowing, shit-eating grin. It’s a grin that grows softer and more understanding as she speaks, nodding his head in the interim where his antlers have vanished, allowing a couple pieces of his hair to move where they otherwise wouldn’t. “If I may be so bold, Flora, you have so much love to give. You deserve to have it given back to you and then some.” Aside from the butcher being silently in love with Danta and having those feelings reciprocated, the other downfall of Flora and his relationship was that he couldn’t love her the way she deserved to be. And he recognized that early on. “Now, speaking only from my experience; I was not able to provide that for you, even if I know you could have provided it, and more, for me. But I recognize that it was not fair to you, and before the night of singing at your beautiful bar and you sniffed out the feelings between Danta and I, I was intending to talk with you about it. I just had not gotten that far.” He shrugs the opposite shoulder to where he keeps her gently against his arm. “You deserve the world, Flora darling, and you deserve someone who treats you as though you are the most precious thing in the world. I do hope that you receive that.” He doesn’t know Jack well, but he does know that the smuggler had protected him and fought alongside him and Flora when it came to the boggart. And if Flora’s happy, well, he’s happy for her too.

Not expecting the tangent for himself to be so long, he clears his throat and huffs a soft laugh to the comment of spooning, rolling his eyes affectionately. “On the very rare occasion that Danta takes that privilege, yes.” Comes his teasing tone, before his horns are unfurling and he’s back to his usual self. His tail sways easily behind him as they continue their walk, and as she sags with equal theatrical relief, the butcher’s laugh is deep as it coincides with her agreement. “Very good. I very much dislike how short it makes me without them.” He laments, like he wasn’t already a bean pole of a man before his horns add additional height.

Astaroth

will you sink down to me?

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

Flora hadn't quite known what she'd expected Asta to say. She could just as easily have seen him reaffirming the stoicism he'd hinted at before, saying something about how loving someone silently and still being around them was better than breaking your own heart and leaving them behind, just as easily as she could hear him affirming precisely the opposite. What he did have to say had the Doubletake melting affectionately against him, her chin tilted upward to gaze adoringly at him. "Stop, you almost made me fall in love with you once." She protests playfully, nudging him with her hip even as she tightened her grip on his arm. "So...how long do I wait? I mean...I know Jack and I haven't been together that long, but...I mean enough has happened between us that I guess I feel like if he was ever going to fall in love with me, he would have by now." It's perhaps an unfair question to ask given that there was probably no answer, but that didn't stop the queen's expression turning hopeful as she continued to gaze up at Asta.

"I...had no idea." Flora had thought the butcher either woefully ignorant of her feelings and what he was doing to her, or otherwise just cruel; at her most hurt, she'd thought him both, but to learn now that he was going to try and prevent it? "I wish you'd told me that sooner." She murmurs, shrugging gently against him. "Not that it matters now." Flora adds; they'd dissected what had gone wrong and now that they were on the other side of it, the queen held nothing but affection for the butcher.

Snorting under her breath to hear being the big spoon called a privilege, Flora grins. "It's true. You basically looked like you'd started to shrink." She agrees with another laugh. "So is that something all ancients can do?"

i will never go backwards, i will never be seen
in the wake of disaster ...

She nudges his hip and Asta can’t help but to let the soft laugh leave him to her protest, one that once again softens to hear her question. He can’t answer for anyone else, nor does he think it’s a good idea to try and put words in Jack’s mouth when he doesn’t even know the man. So what he does know, is that he can answer honestly from himself. “I suggest you trust your gut, darling. When Danta woke me a year ago, we despised one another. It took two seasons of getting reacquainted before I began to harbor those feelings. They were.. Unusual for me and hard to explain,” he pauses to shoot her a small amused smile. “Despite how perfectly you had put it.” He shrugs a little as they walk, clicking his tongue for a moment. “I cannot say how long it takes for others to admit, but if you are worried perhaps you should be blunt and ask about it?”

If there’s one thing he’s learned, is that there could be so many things avoided if there was simple communication. Like the crash and burn of his and Flora’s relationship – if he’d spoken to her before hand when he’d started to feel that way, perhaps it would have avoided so much pain for her. “I am quite proud to call you my friend.” He inclines his head toward her with a soft smile, before he spots her grin and questions over the Ancients as a whole.

“It is something we can do eventually, yes. Though many of us prefer not to do it. We’re quite proud to be Ancients, you know.” He imagines she does know that, given that there’s a fair few she includes in her friend group. “It is quite nice at times when one wishes to not be obvious, though.” Like a built in disguise.

Astaroth

will you sink down to me?

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

"I have. He..." Not wanting to betray Jack's confidence by telling someone else things about his past she doubted if he let everyone in on, Asta was at least far enough away from the captain on a regular basis that it likely wouldn't come up. So she hoped, anyway. "...had a shitty upbringing. I don't think anyone every really loved him loved him. I know he feels bad when I say it and he doesn't say it back and he has said that he's working on it, I just.." Glancing up at the butcher, the Doubletake tries to soften the frown that tugs at the corners of her lips. "I guess I never thought you had to work at falling in love. At being a good partner, sure, but...I mean...you just fall in love, right? That...that isn't something you can just work toward." While it could be Flora's idealism at play, she didn't think it was.

"Same." The queen agrees emphatically. Selfishly Flora found that Asta was able to make her feel just as wanted and important as his friend as he had as her pseudo-lover.

"Mmmm, absolutely." Given that she'd never once seen any of the ancients she knew demonstrate such a power, it made sense. Then again Flora could understand why such predatory creatures might have an innate ability like that. "I imagine if done the right way, it could be an absolutely terrifying reveal."

i will never go backwards, i will never be seen
in the wake of disaster ...

Nodding his understanding and honestly? He internally hates how he knows intimately well what it was like to live a life without being loved the way people meant when they said I love you. And the butcher meets Flora’s bright, beautiful gaze despite the frown she tries so hard to hide, and Astaroth’s head tilts slightly as he considers her thoughts. “It is strange, isn’t it?” He muses, humming under his breath as he tries to formulate his thoughts – drifting mostly around the Maverick at this present moment. “To put so much status on such a plain sounding word, I mean. I believe I had often said I love you in far more poetic ways to Danta before that word ever fell from my lips.” Perhaps it would be comforting. Perhaps it wouldn’t. The apology for it is in the smile he slants her way.

As for Ancients and their abilities, and Flora and his friendship, the butcher focuses down the path they head, listening to the strange mixture of creatures in their sections within the Celestine as they pass by. “It is one of my favored reveals.” The butcher tilts his head as he considers it, his heavy horned head angling away from her to allow the shadow to drape across in a long-stretched hand over his arm. “You are only ever going to get to see it once, therefore, you should make it count, no?” Head still tilted, his honey dark gaze flashes toward her with amusement and a tilt of a smirk on his face.

Astaroth

will you sink down to me?

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

Frowning, her eyebrows flinching in toward one another and causing a line of doubt to crease between her eyes, Flora can only sigh. "Those poetic ways..." While she can imagine the beautiful words and gestures Asta might have offered Danta, she can just as clearly think of all the things Jack had done and said to her over the months. "..I guess it's just so easy to misread them." Of course Flora wasn't to know that in a few short weeks her and Jack's deaths would give the captain the push he needed to find the words for himself.

Grinning fiendishly up at the butcher, Flora bounces her brows in eager agreement. "Gods, I can only imagine." Whatever fear she'd felt around Asta in Frey's Breath was just a drop in the bucket compared to what he was capable of; it didn't take seeing the monster that the butcher was capable of being to know that something fearsome was caged behind his perfect hair and brutally sharp smile.

"Come on, let me buy you lunch. I'm quite enjoying the way everyone keeps looking at us." Those looks of course being a healthy mixture of intimidation and jealousy.

Tugging them down the next path which would lead them out, Flora brought the butcher to a small cafe that Mateo had shown her once which offered the most decadent finger sandwiches and tea.

~FIN