I think you're shiftin' all my tectonic plates

slow down, you're doing fine

Flora adjusts the cuff of her jeans as she steps off the final slick stone stair, the fabric already smeared with mud near the hem despite her best efforts. The rain-softened lane of the Last Whisper wraps around them like a half-woken dream, lanternlight diffusing into hazy gold smears above while puddles of Memory Mud shimmer with a deceptive calm that hides how deep they truly are. Her boots sink with a quiet protest into the muck, each step a reminder that Torchline sand has spoiled her for this kind of morning.

"I’m really glad you’re feeling better," she says as she glances back toward Kaisel, her voice warm and smooth beneath the steady patter of rain. They'd more or less just gone to bed the night before in order to escape the chaos of the Blood Moon festival, which had seemingly turned every emotion loose like wild birds in a storm. She brushes a damp curl away from her temple, gold rings glinting as she does, her relief and affection for him steady and sincere.

The rain gathers in fine droplets along her lashes as she starts forward again, moving with the easy familiarity of someone who has navigated this hidden underbelly of the Inner Quarter more times than she can count. "Breakfast is this way," she adds, her tone brightening with the promise of it, the words weaving easily into the muffled hum of distant taverns and fortune tellers opening their doors for the day. The scent of spiced tea and frying dough threads faintly through the air, muted by the rain yet unmistakable.

Flora

you can't be everything you wanna be before your time

The icing on your cake, the cherry on the top

Sleeping might have put the strange night behind them, but it can’t keep the images of Asta’s grotesque shape from lingering, and it doesn’t take the loose ends and tie them into a neat bow of understanding. He’s doing his best to move on from the weird shit, to embrace nonchalance, because pffft, Asta’s true shape being a horrific nightmare hidden behind a poised and polished veneer is just an Ancient thing. After all, who among us who doesn’t have an ugly thing or two to hide, although they don’t usually take on a form that looks like it feasts on souls, but what’s your everlasting essence in the grand scheme of things? As for snapping for no real reason—we all lose our heads from time to time. Totally normal, especially when you’re trying to make a good impression on your girlfriend’s super important friends who whip out dicks and demons like they never learned what D&D stands for.

”Yeah, me too,” he says easily enough, pressing a smile into place that isn’t a complete lie, not when they’re so easy to procure in her company. ”I’m sorry I ruined another party for us. I guess third time’s the charm?” Not very sprinkle coded honestly. He’s acting much more like the paper panties on a cupcake you immediately discard. Not that he has felt thrown away, least of all by her, but he does feel like garbage about it all and there’s no denying that’s the first thing you remove to enjoy a cupcake.

He happily curls his arm through hers again once they finish descending the stairs, feeling more clingy than usual since she’d been the only lifeline back to sanity last night. Part of him is still bracing for some kind of bizarre learning experience today too, unaware he’d come here to be educated. Her heat and easy comfort are welcome amid the drizzle, and she guides them both as he lookie-lous at everything they pass by. Other than the weather, it’s a cozy little reminder of home, resembling the Silk Houses in some ways, though it’s decidedly different here. There’s something more mysterious about it, which isn’t anything to do with it being his first visit.

The promise of breakfast definitely has him perking up, the surrounding scents enough to make his mouth water as they battle the mud en route. ”Thank gods, I could eat my body weight in pancakes right about now.”

Kaisel

The perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life

slow down, you're doing fine

Flora doesn’t rush to contradict Kaisel, because the truth hangs between them with the kind of wry honesty she’s learned not to sugarcoat; the night had been ruined, or at least knocked entirely off its rails, but that had never been the same thing as blame in her books. Chaos could be born from anything under a Blood Moon, and guilt wasn’t something she planned on letting Kai drag around behind him like a broken net.

As he loops his arm through hers, the instinctive tightening of her own is immediate, a happy little flex of connection that warms her far more than the clammy morning air. The feel of him pressed close after everything they’d stumbled through steadies something inside her that had felt slightly adrift since last night, and she lets that small, radiant smile bloom as bright as any sunrise Torchline could offer.

"I honestly think your drink was spiked," she says, voice light as she guides them around a puddle deep enough to swallow a boot whole. She glances up at him with a thoughtful tilt of her head, curls darkening in the drizzle, and lets her shoulders lift in an easy shrug that makes the idea seem perfectly reasonable. "Or maybe someone cursed you a little. Could have been either." There’s the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth as she considers the likelihood of Caly or Jack doing something like that and the fact that she hadn’t spotted either of them doesn’t mean a thing in a crowd that breathed chaos.

Flora beams up at him again with renewed brightness. "Either way, it wasn’t you," she adds, as many times as it takes, nudging his shoulder with a reassuring sweep of warmth before letting humour slip in. "And if anything, Asta was probably just worried about his shirt. He takes his fashion very seriously."

Her stomach gives a theatrical little protest at his mention of pancakes, and she hums an indulgent mmmmmmmmmm that rounds itself into a pleased sound as she steers them across the lane. Mud squelches beneath their boots while the welcoming glow of a small breakfast boutique comes into view, its hanging signs boasting FRESH SQUEEZED JUICES and PANCAKES AS BIG AS PIZZAS in cheerful lettering that cuts through the gloom of the morning like a promise she fully intends to keep.

Flora

you can't be everything you wanna be before your time

The icing on your cake, the cherry on the top

The unwavering support from her is the only thing keeping him steady throughout all this. That the confusion and misunderstanding didn't devolve into a fight between them is one he's deeply grateful for, because she would not have been in the wrong to find his actions outrageous. He still does, but her explanations are all reasonable. They are troubling in their own right though, because it'd mean someone had targeted him, or Flora by proxy. With her bar reduced to ash it's not a surprising potential, other than the possible continuation of it while they have stayed their hands. It rankles him to consider it, but without proof he supposes it could have equally been a random, harmless prank that sent his evening careening off a cliff. In the end no one was harmed, other than some clothes, but a good cleaning should take care of that.

"You're probably right," he concedes with a roll of his shoulder, trying to leave the unsettling feelings behind them. Glancing down at the bright stretch of her smile, it seems simple enough to do. "I'm just glad you were there to stop me," he sighs into her hair, leaning his head against hers for a step or two, full of such immense gratitude he cannot do anything by try and offer it via osmosis. "Seeing you, and hearing Rupert," his lips twitch with the faintest humor at the result of one thieving toad's presence remaining in his life, "it brought me back." That he'd snapped back into the full appraisal of Asta's horrors did not help smooth over the affair at all, but still, it kept him from diving in deeper to the nightmare of the night and what it could have become if he wasn't stopped then and there.

A low shake of a sound, suspiciously like poorly formed laughter, answers her claim about Asta's fashion as they navigate the walkways. "He does?" He can't withhold the surprise at that revelation. "Huh, I never would have thought," he admits with a shrug, rather preferring Danta's styles. Maybe Asta should take it less seriously, a bit stuffy in his selections and all. "Either way, I should apologize to him. Curse or not, he got the short end of the deal there." His lips press in a bit tighter on the corners, an attempt at keeping back the urge to think about the Ancient's awful haunt in place of the man.

They pass by several peculiar shops in quick succession. TAILS R US seems to only sell accessories for tails, and near it is Ashes ALL Fall Down, which as far as he can discern is a place with various tools for cleaning or arranging all the wood fires and their upkeep for the Ancients. There's what he thinks is a bar based on its design, called 'Til the Last Drop, but the scrawl of its outdoor menu only seems to have various types of bloods being peddled. Luckily their destination lies past all of them, and its very inviting signage has his eyes nearly doubling in size. "MEGA pancakes!?" Turns out there are some good things to discover around here. "Maybe I'll skip eating it and just cozy up with them like a cloud bed. A cloud bed that smells really good." Sans syrup and butter of course, he's not a psychopath. There's also no way he wouldn't be eating it, but a bed made out of pancakes does have a certain appeal to it.

The rain departs as they step under the canopy of the cafe, and after telling the hostess they'd like a table for two, he busies himself brushing off the rain that clings to her back so she won't sit and have it slowly soak through. Though nearby fires dance in ready application of heat and the promise of drying them out.

Kaisel

The perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life

slow down, you're doing fine

Flora tips her head toward him with a crooked, bright-edged grin that always seems to spill warmth into the spaces between them, her curls brushing lightly against his temple as she answers with a playful ease that carries something much steadier beneath it. "Well, better not go anywhere without me then," she murmurs, the teasing lilt in her tone wrapped around a truth she doesn’t bother to hide. Some people might call it clingy, but to Flora the logic is simple: if they don’t have to be apart, why would they ever choose to be? There had been enough distance in her life already, enough hollow places carved out by time and choices and grief. She isn’t interested in adding more when she doesn’t have to.

Still, her expression shifts, her smile softening at the edges as she exhales a breath that carries last night’s echo. "It was crazy seeing you like that," she admits, shaking her head a little as she steps under the café’s awning and lets the rain fall away from her shoulders. "I knew it wasn’t you, that something else had to be going on, but..." Her throat tightens before she can smooth it away; she swallows, shaking her head again because the memory of it still feels jagged. Seeing him act like such an asshole was so wildly out of character that it grated against everything she knew and felt about Kaisel in a way that made her want to shiver.

Flora's brows lift as the moment lightens, another grin curling its way across her face. "Mmhm, he sure does. For the like, two weeks that we dated, basically all we did was go shopping," she says, tone bright with remembered amusement. The thought of Asta looks less intimidating when wrapped in something familiar and mundane like colour palettes and tailoring. She nods as they approach the hostess stand, her voice warm as she adds, "We can pick him up some of the dark cherry tea that I know he likes, after breakfast because his shirt is probably already at the dry cleaner’s anyway."

At Kai's declaration he might sleep with one of the pancakes instead, she nudges his side with open scepticism. "As if you’d be able to keep yourself from eating it as a midnight snack," she teases, already imagining him sneaking bites out of his hypothetical pancake bed the moment he thought she wasn’t looking.

Once they’re shown to their booth, Flora shrugs out of her jacket in one fluid motion, tossing it onto the seat she’s meant to take. Instead of sitting across from him, she slides in right beside him without hesitation, her hip brushing his as she settles in with the contented ease of someone who never intends to spend a meal an arm’s length away from the person she loves.

Flora

you can't be everything you wanna be before your time

The icing on your cake, the cherry on the top

He doesn't take her words entirely for face value, instead loosing a small chuckle at the idea of never separating from her. Not because he doesn't share the sentiments to some extent, never someone who thrives when left alone and more than happy to share every moment he can with her (happily running his mouth off about whatever ones she happened to miss), but because he immediately pictures her in scenarios she wouldn't ordinarily be. Cheering from the sidelines of some scrap he's in, for training or not, or somehow delightfully pocket-sized to join him on otherwise tedious and dull patrols. The overly domestic merger of everything, not bothering to close the bathroom door or sitting on a counter and swinging his legs while she finishes up her makeup for some event.

The possibilities of it all fade into a different thought, one he does think they could both agree on. "It would be nice to have a compass or something that snaps us to each other." Because whether they're both on board with the idea or not, he knows there will be moments where they are apart, by choice or not. That trick would at least erase the distance the moment they desired it to. "Although a compass feels too...distant. It'd be better as something smaller or more permanent, not so easy to get lost or stolen." Maybe he'd get FLORA tattooed on his lower back and every time he throws it back she appears.

The brushing of his hand down her back pauses to settle over her shoulder as her words land. The press of his palm and the curl of his fingers offer the weight of an apology and squeeze a brief reassurance against her before they fully step into the cafe. Though, he's quickly the one left reeling after the mention that she had dated Astaroth. He had been meaning to ask her more about them both once they sat down, like how she came to know a pair of Ancients so well and what the backstory of their friendship might be, like maybe they saved each other from some crisis or another, would certainly explain the age gap.

Already swallowing so much down recently, this large pill joins the rest. He rolls it over in his thoughts, absently listening to ideas about gifts and push back on pancake beds. "Yeah, tea's a good idea, I'm guessing you've got a shop you know around here?" he answers to avoid slipping completely into the spill of his thoughts, though they're buzzing like a light ready to burn out behind his eyeballs. Soon after he returns a half-hearted bump of his hip for the jab about the breakfast mattress (even if she's right), "two in one, even better.".

The seat they take affords him a chance to gather up everything he'd just been rolling over in his head. It's not the threat of Asta still holding a place in her heart, they clearly each found someone else that matched that particular beat better, and the length of time being two weeks is not intimidating in the slightest. It's just the shock of picturing her alongside the old and very uptight, demon. "Soooo, you and Asta, dated?" he attempts at casual, even feigning interest in the placement of his silverware with one hand, as if he's not about to hang onto her every word. His other hand naturally slides around her shoulders, melding the sides of their seat into one seam of contact and warmth, for the time being anyway, he would need to reclaim it once food arrived. "Must have been ages ago and you two laugh about it now that you're such good friends, yeah?"

Kaisel

The perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life

slow down, you're doing fine

Flora hums her agreement, though the sound curls warm at the edges as delight swells so visibly in her cheeks that she has to look down at the mud-streaked cobblestones to keep it from spilling too brightly across her expression. The idea of an item that snaps them back together threads straight into her heart with a sweetness so sudden it nearly knocks the air from her lungs, and while she doesn’t say a word about the first thing that flashes through her mind, the thought shimmers there all the same. Wedding rings would be perfect for magic like that. She knows it with the same certainty she knows the tide will always come back in, but she keeps that particular dream wrapped in something precious and unspoken. Even though they’ve talked about marriage, even though she doesn’t doubt for a second that they’ll get there, she refuses to make it mundane by tossing the idea too casually into the morning rain. Some things deserve gilding, and so she merely hums her agreement.

"Of course I know a place," she says brightly as she glances up at him, the adoration in her eyes as effortless as breathing. A quiet laugh slips from her, soft and incredulous. "I can’t believe I didn’t think to get you a life-sized pancake blanket for your birthday," she mutters, shaking her head with exaggerated disappointment in herself, as though failing to procure a novelty bedding item has been a grave oversight.

When Kai circles back to Asta, she feels the subtle shift in him the way one feels the faint tightening of a rope they’re holding; small tells, shaping the air between them like the unnecessary fuss over silverware and his measured tone slipping just slightly around the edges. Flora settles her hand on his leg, her palm warm through the fabric of his jeans as she leans comfortably against him, choosing softness instead of teasing the way she might otherwise have done.

"It was a long time ago," she agrees gently, her voice smoothing the air rather than catching on it. "And honestly, dating is probably the wrong word." Her eyes roll upward with wry amusement before she adds, "What we were doing was dating. I thought we were dating. Asta absolutely did not think we were dating." She gives her head a small, resigned shake. "He thought he was just being a gentleman, even when things got physical. Which, in retrospect, is very on brand for how he can be sometimes."

She doesn’t let the moment sit long enough for Kai to stew in it. "Anyway,”" she continues, her tone lifting as the memory warms with humour, "that’s actually how Danta and Asta finally got together. They’d obviously had feelings for each other, and one night we all got drunk and did karaoke, which started normal enough, but then I basically outed them both for being in love with each other after Danta confessed his feelings to me, and then kicked them out of my bar so they’d finally figure their shit out." Her grin widens at the memory, bright and fond, even though she'd felt hurt and betrayed at the time. "So trust me, the whole thing is ancient history."

Flora

you can't be everything you wanna be before your time

The icing on your cake, the cherry on the top

Failing to get a novelty bedding item IS a grave oversight, but he'll let it slide, this time.

The unease begins to melt away beneath the cover of her hand, something grounding him to the here and now of her instead of a past version that by all accounts, he said he would not want to have changed. He doesn't, he meant that, but it doesn't make it any easier to hear difficult things that've been set behind her. Dating Astaroth isn't one of those difficult things...completely, but imagining her with anyone else is something he'd rather not dwell on as much as possible. The challenge here is that Asta is still part of her life, so he's got to swallow that knowledge one way or another.

The rest of the wariness puddles away completely with her explanation. He can't wrangle back the grin that emerges when she confesses she'd been the only one apparently dating Asta, and even mention of things getting physical doesn't dim it entirely. He leaves his silverware be, leaning his head onto that hand to properly look at her, not so gracious as she is to not tease. "How is it you've managed to date someone who didn't know it, and attend a date without knowing it? Either one should be a rarity, but both?" He's referring to her little arranged meeting with Neron, because it seems even when a man is a dead there's still competition for her attention. Thankfully between ghosts and ghouls (Asta) it's all been one-sided in some form or another.

With the true tea of her tale spilled, his 'brows rise, mouth opening more and more from a grin to the shock of outrageous gossip. It's all punctuated with her last line though, and after dragging him to the edge of his seat with the recount, that punchline has him leaning back with a deep laugh. "Ancient history???" Repeating it sends forth another wave of laughter and he slouches heavily into her with a happy sigh. "That was a fucking good one," he commends once he can manage a word around the humor. "So, you're actually a very accomplished matchmaker is what I'm hearing."

Kaisel

The perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life

slow down, you're doing fine

Flora lets out a startled little huff of laughter, the kind that escapes before she can decide whether she’s supposed to be offended or flattered, and she nudges Kaisel with her shoulder in a scolding sweep that contains absolutely no heat. "Shut up," she tells him, but the words land warm and adoring, wrapped in that soft shimmer of fondness she can never quite hide from him.

When his laughter breaks fully open, everything inside her loosens with it. The tension she hadn’t been fully aware of slips free in one long, bright exhale, and gods, the sound of him laughing might be her favourite thing her heart has ever learned how to hold. It transforms him in a way she feels all the way through her chest, like her ribs are echo chambers built specifically to house the pulse of his joy. She snickers with him, grinning broadly as the humour rolls between them like shared sunlight in the dim booth.

"I am ," she agrees, a playful lilt threading through her voice. "Sunjata and my mother got back together after the opening of the Hanged Man." She lifts her shoulders in a casual shrug as if this is simply a fact of nature. "Maybe it’s because Frey was there when I was conceived or something." There’s a teasing gleam in her eyes, but beneath it sits a genuine pride in having nudged the universe in directions that made people she loved a little happier.

The levity lingers, but something gentler begins to fold around her expression as she bites lightly at her bottom lip, the movement small and almost absentminded. She hesitates, not because she wants to withhold anything but because she wants to honour the steadiness between them by being careful with it. Her fingers curl slightly against Kai's leg, a grounding touch as she gathers her nerve.

"Is there...anything else you want to know?" she asks softly, her voice dipping with a vulnerability that isn’t fragile so much as intentional. "About who I’ve dated, or anyone I’ve been with, or..." She trails off, colour blooming across her cheeks despite her best effort to keep her tone conversational. It is uncomfortable, but she meets the moment anyway, turning her face toward him with earnest openness if only because she'd rather squirm a little now than ever see Kai be blindsided by something in her past.

Flora

you can't be everything you wanna be before your time

The icing on your cake, the cherry on the top

His smile hangs wide and adoring as he looks at her, soaking in her company like leaves to sunlight. He doesn't remind her that he's already heard about Sunjata and Hotaru from her, he'd listen to her retell all her stories. Besides, managing to help the forging of a love connection is no small feat and deserves all the recognition it can get. The Dantalion and Astaroth tale is the newest for his understanding, and her talents are all proved further by it happening more than once. "I didn't think Frey cared so much about finding love as making it," he muses with a troublesome grin. "I rather think it's just you making sense and taking action. Certainly worked on me." He'd been content to keep her sectioned off to his dreams otherwise.

As the lighthearted moment shifts, not fading so much as changing, receding only to deepen, he's not entirely prepared for the question she offers him. He can trace the moment it begins to happen on her face, the way thoughts crinkle certain corners of her features, the uncommon worrying of her lip, the small grip in her fingers as they hold him firmer like something might go adrift otherwise. He can't predict what they mean though, not entirely. It's a sure sign that he should listen, at least, because it's not often that Flora has to drag and ready something to say to him.

He blinks, a clear oh. The streak of color that emerges and the readiness of her expression as she sets it upon him speak enough to the weight of the words and what it costs her to offer them. To lay herself bare, essentially, nothing more than an open book he could peruse at his leisure. He instead sits up off his hand, clapping it over the one she's got on his leg so he can hold her in return completely. "I want to know everything there is about you, Flora," he insists with a quiet sort of intensity, a heat that doesn't mean to burn bright and fast but bank low and long to last. "I don't need it all listed off though, or a body count. Your past is important, it happened and it made you and sometimes it lingers. But, it's our future that matters most." She could also please keep everything about Koa to herself, as there's some horrors a man cannot escape from once they've been revealed to him.

"What I would like to know, is what it is you mean to drink, so we can flag down a waitress."

Kaisel

The perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life

slow down, you're doing fine

Flora’s grin tilts wickedly as she lifts a shoulder in an airy shrug, the mischief brightening her whole expression. "Surely most people have better sex when it’s with someone they love?" she muses, playful but entirely sincere, her voice carrying that lilting certainty that turns every sentence into something sun-warmed and sure. Obviously brothel workers and serial monogamists would be exceptions, but for most people, Flora is fairly certain the sex just is better with someone you loved, at least if everything she'd recently experienced with Kai was anything to go on.

When his hand closes over hers, her fingers immediately search for the spaces between his, slipping into them with soft, instinctive ease. The moment he says he wants to know everything, her eyes widen just a touch, a flicker of sudden oh gods is breakfast about to become a memoir? lifting through her chest with an almost comedic swiftness. It isn’t that she wouldn’t give him that—she absolutely would—but it’s a lot to unpack over pancakes the size of wagon wheels.

So when he clarifies, when he tells her he doesn’t need everyone listed or a tally of past partners, the nervousness melts off her in a slow exhale. She slouches adoringly against him, her body curving toward his like a shoreline seeking its tide. "I think you know everything that’s important," she says softly, the words tucked against the side of his neck like something grateful. "But if anything lingering ever needs to be talked about, then we absolutely can." His mention of their future sparks a glow across her entire face, something bright and unguarded, and she leans in to press a tender kiss against his shoulder as if the affection has nowhere else it could possibly go.

Then she straightens, her brows lifting with an eager spark. "I want a swimming-pool amount of orange juice," she declares, deadpan and expectant, before settling back so he can wave someone down. She picks up the menu and lets out a soft sigh as her gaze drifts over the options, her voice easing into something thoughtful as she murmurs, "It’s crazy to think that so many of the people we know used to be trapped inside the Hollowed Grounds, you know?" Her fingers tap lightly at the laminated page, her expression distant for a heartbeat before brightening again as she nudges the menu between them for him to see.

Flora

you can't be everything you wanna be before your time

The icing on your cake, the cherry on the top

He opens his mouth faintly, aware he's been bested and struggling to come up with a reasonable rebuttal. There isn't one, certainly not one he can make, because now that she's pointed it out he wholeheartedly agrees. "Valid. Alright sooooo, some essence of Frey and a lot of Flora, and BAM, you're in love." His smile is honest and delighted at how true that sounds.

Trying not to undercut the seriousness of the situation that matchmaking flows into, he cannot entirely help it when her expression begins to take on the size of the advertised pancakes. A short laugh drops out between breaths, especially when she leans in like he's just saved her from herself. Though it could easily appear like she's got some skeletons in her closet, he doubts she'd open the door to it so willingly if that were the case. We all have moments we're not so proud of, where we don't shine so well, and it's embarassing to relive them to any extent. Everything is rather far reaching, so perhaps it was better phrased as he'd take everything she'd offer (sans Koa deets), but the timeline for it and the improtance of it all remains the same.

"Well that's not true," he asserts swift and smooth, right as she finishes claiming he knows everything and they can address whatever lingers. Pausing for a touch of dramatic effect, accusation drawn into the shape of his gaze as he wields it towards her, he relents after only a beat. "I do not know what sort of breakfast you'd eat if it was the only meal you were ever allowed to eat again. Or what animal you'd pick to either grow or shrink to the same size of the horse, without any negative effects for doing so, in order to have a new mount. " He makes a sound of thought, as if deeply considering the answers, and just as troubled by the lack of them. "It's really driving me mad." He dissolves back into a helpless smile beneath the press of her lips, the adoration rippling up like a wave, and he kisses back at the air in response as if space and time can't hold them back.

Taking her drink order in stride, he nods as though she's said the only reasonable thing so far today. "Okay so we're skipping right over bathtub and going to pool-size. You don't want to upgrade it to a private lake?" He doesn't wait for confirmation, because both are absurd, and he sees the waitress and waves her down with a tilt of his head, unwilling to unlace his hand from hers. "She wants all the orange juice you own, and I'll take at least one glass before you transfer the title over to her, please." The worker doesn't find it nearly as charming as he does, but she's kind enough as she departs.

"Is it?" he thinks, glancing over towards the menu that she points at. He already knows his order—pancakes. "No one really talks about it much, so it slips my mind."

Kaisel

The perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life

slow down, you're doing fine

Flora beams at him, the warmth of it rising like a tide she couldn’t stop even if she tried. "Sure seemed to work on you," she echoes back at him with a softened lilt, leaning into his side in a quiet, intimate sweep of affection that says more than words ever could. If not for the obstacle of the table in front of them, she would already be in his lap, curled into him with the complete lack of hesitation that has always been her first instinct where he’s concerned. Alas, manners and the table lip keep her in place.

When Kaisel claims there’s something he doesn’t know, she blinks up at him with a whole exaggerated comedy of confusion, bracing herself for some dramatic GOTCHA moment she’s certain doesn’t exist—well, except for Jack’s telepathy, but that is a secret too sharp to touch—and then he continues, and her grin blooms wide enough to lift her entire face, her aqua eyes sparkling with a twin flame of amusement and love. "Mmm, you’re right," she says, drawing out the words with mock gravity. "You caught me. I have been hiding those things from you." Her fingers drum idly against his leg, her voice dipping into something almost coy even as joy rounds every syllable. "Unfortunately, those are answers only my husband will ever get to find out."

The smile that takes her over is so wide it nearly breaks her ability to speak, her whole body buoyant with delight at even the mere shadow of the idea. The single word unfurls inside her with such brightness she half expects the lamps overhead to flicker in response.

When he suggests upgrading to a lake’s worth of orange juice, she shakes her head with a soft snort. "I don’t want to be greedy," she teases, then flashes the server her most innocent smile in return for the woman’s exasperated stare before turning fully back to Kai, contentment settling over her like a warm blanket.

"Yeah," she says of his musings about the Grounds, fingers brushing lightly over the edge of the menu without really seeing it. "It seems so weird that no one ever talks about it, you know?" Her brows draw together with thoughtful curiosity as she goes on. "Like..Ronin and Remi, and Deimos and Sunjata, and my mother....they were all from somewhere else." She gives her head a small, almost disbelieving shake. "I can’t even imagine what that must have been like."

Flora

you can't be everything you wanna be before your time

The icing on your cake, the cherry on the top

He leans back as far as he can before it'd mean giving up holding her completely. "OH—that's the game we're playing now, is it?" Much as he means to come off dismayed and offended at her gatekeeping, he can’t keep a disbelieving smile from rising, or the shake of a laugh that undoes him entirely. ”Saving your darkest secrets for marriage, I understand.” He resettles against her with a long sigh. ”Guess I’ll just have to wait to hear them, then.” Spoken with an assurance that there is no other possibility that lies ahead of them than a wedding, and the patience to make it one worthwhile, despite a time or two already wanting to steal her away into the sunset and saying fuck it to decorum.

Smiling after the retreating form of the server, unbothered by her lack of amusement of their antics, his attention soon returns to her. ”I think orange juice after a bad night is absolutely something you’re allowed to be greedy about.” But fine, fine, they’d stick with pool sized.

The lightheartedness doesn’t fade, not exactly, but it quiets into meaningful thought. His thumb brushes over her hand as she works out her questions and the tangle of her thoughts about the history here. ”Maybe they don’t like to dwell on certain parts of their life? Either things they’d miss, or things that weren’t pleasant.” What little he does know of when people had been trapped here is usually not recounted happily. ”I’m sure if you asked, they’d say more, but some things are better left in the past.”

Kaisel

The perfect mix of Saturday night and the rest of your life