En otra vida, en otro mundo podrá ser

flora

Flora looks up when Kaisel says her name, eyes red‑rimmed and shining, and for a breath it feels like she is staring at someone she does not quite recognise. He flew all this way to reach her, crossed sky and dragons to get here (how had he got here?) and somehow she has never felt more alone than she does in this moment, standing barefoot on her own ship with her arms wrapped around herself like armour that is starting to crack.

When he steps closer, it is not to gather her up, not to close the space the way he always has before with touch acting like a lifeline between them, but to hand her a glass of water. She looks down at it in silence, the offered weight of it oddly foreign, then stills her fingers on her invisibility ring long enough to take it. She lifts the glass and takes a small, automatic sip, more habit than comfort, throat working as she swallows while the coolness barely registers.

As his says it's stupid, something in her tightens. Her brows draw together by a fraction, that tiny movement feeling monumental now that everything else has drained out of her, her expression gone strangely still as if emotion has finally overloaded and shut something essential down. She watches his gaze slide away from her, ping‑ponging off the walls of the Sugartide, and when understanding finally lands, it does so with the force of a physical blow.

He thought she was leaving him.

The shock is immediate and total; a cold bloom spreads through her chest as if all the air has been punched clean out of her lungs. Insult follows fast on its heels, sharp and stinging. He thought she'd asked him to come to one of the most dangerous places in Caido to tell him goodbye? He thought that was the shape of her love for him? After everything? Fresh tears spring to her eyes, burning hot and sudden and the glass trembles in her hand. Realizing distantly that she has been holding her breath, when she inhales again, it comes in a shaky rush, chest hitching as if it cannot quite remember how to work properly, the sound far too loud in the cramped kitchenette, the silence afterward roaring in her ears. The ache in her is vast and disorienting, hollowing her out until she feels paper‑thin and unbearably exposed.

Had it all meant so little?

The thought hits her like vertigo, sudden and total, the world tipping hard to one side. Seasons of her life flash through her with brutal clarity. Mornings slow and sunlit, Kai half-asleep and smiling at her like she was the first good thing the day had ever produced; nights folded together in warmth and sheets and laughter, limbs tangled so easily it felt inevitable rather than chosen. The quiet domestic certainty of waking up beside him, of falling asleep knowing exactly where she belonged. The way she had threaded him into everything without thinking, into her ship, her home, her future, her family, her body, her heart.

Forever, offered without hesitation. Hairties, paper rings, promises made softly and meant absolutely.

And somehow, impossibly, none of it had landed.

The horror of that realization sinks cold and heavy into her chest. Not that he doubts her love, but that all of it, every shared season and easy morning and hard-won night could be outweighed in his mind by the idea that she might still leave. As if the life they have been building together were fragile enough to be undone by a single ghost. As if she had not already chosen him, again and again, in a thousand quiet ways that were never meant to be temporary, and how, when that particular ghost had reared his head and she'd called to Kai to help her weather it, he'd thought it an ending rather than a shoulder to lean on.

The ground beneath her feels unreliable after that, trust suddenly less solid than it was a moment ago, and the ache that spreads through her is not just heartbreak but something deeper and more frightening; the sense that the language she has been speaking all this time has never been heard at all. Or not in a way that mattered, apparently.

Flora turns her face up to him then, eyes swimming, looking achingly like herself and heartbreakingly not, the pain in her gaze raw and familiar in a way that feels dangerously close to old wounds, to the day in the market and then on the beach. Even though the right thing to do when someone tells you they have doubts is to reassure them, instead of reaching for him, instead of closing the distance the way instinct screams at her to do, Flora flinches inward, folding around the hurt so tightly it feels like something inside her might calcify under the pressure.

"Oh," she says softly, voice breaking despite her effort to keep it steady, "I guess I haven’t done a very good job of showing you how much I love you, then." The words barely land before the tears spill in earnest, tracking hot down her cheeks as the glass in her hand finally stills, forgotten, while she stands there shaking, hollowed out by the weight of everything she thought had been understood, everything she ever thought she could count on.

Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you way from war

The frustration he’s prepared to see tilt into her face doesn’t come. Instead, there’s something far worse waiting there when their gazes lock. Hurt blazes clear and fresh, and despite the remnants of what’s already worn itself upon her, he’s certain that this dose doesn’t belong to anyone’s hand but his own. It echoes back through him, cold and sharp, and he’s reminded of something she once told him. Girls sometimes ask for the truth, but don’t always want it. Maybe he should have kept this inside.

Heat rushes behind his next blink, and in an instant, he grabs for her. It’s an attempt to smother any potential sobs between them through sheer force as he pulls her into him. The sudden force of it sends him swaying and sagging sideways into the counter, evidently not quite strong enough himself right now to manage the pair of them alone. ”No,” he forces out quickly, volume thin, the sound of desperate breath. The cup jostles between them, an irritant now as he’s forced to lean back for a moment, hastily plucking it up and passing it off into the sink with a disruptive clang of glass and metal.

The vision of her blurs, so he bears down as if he might lose feel of her as equally as sight. His grip tightens, though it hardly feels capable enough now, while his head tilts over hers, sending the kitchen as sideways as he feels. ”That’s not true.” The adamancy of that statement delivers it steadier than the inhale that trembles on its heels. ”I’ve never felt more loved than when I’m with you.” She has always loved him in all the ways he needs most, and she has never hesitated to do so. He’s never known a feeling quite like being accepted and cherished in this way, by her, and it seems as unconditional and as instinctual as any other part of himself at this point. It’s why the idea of losing her is so terrifying. She is everything to him now.

It’s never the depth of her love for him that he’s doubted, but how far it still runs for Jack. ”It’s just…” He struggles to swallow, eyes pinching shut for a moment, letting the rest of what he has become filled with her. The feel of her, however aching, and each wretched sound of her unease that drifts up. The press of her hair that normally delivers wisps of sea breeze, is now tempered with mountain air and travel. ”He has a room…doesn’t he? At the house.” Kaisel’s never seen it; she keeps it tucked away, but he’s wandered the house, and he knows she built rooms for everyone she cares about. The timing of it means she’d been between the two of them, so he can guess at what’s behind one of those doors that’s never open.

It’s a reminder to him, that it’s not their house, it’s hers. Every room had been built around the people she loves, and he didn’t even get to leave a mark by helping her raise it up. It’s her ship, not theirs, however familiar it’s become with shared adventures. Her region, quite literally, and it feels sometimes like he’s been added to her life instead of something they’re building together. It’s part of why he wants to get the proposal so right, because it’s the first true thing that’ll feel like theirs.

Kaisel

If you need help, I'll shut down the city lights

flora

Flora finds she cannot soften in Kaisel's arms; even as he pulls her close, even as his voice presses no into her hair like it might anchor her, she stays rigid, hollowed out, all the warmth gone from her bones as if someone has poured cold water straight through her veins. She feels distant from her own body, from the familiar curve of fitting into him, from the instinct that has always had her reaching back without thought. Now there is nothing to reach with. She is glassy and numb, held rather than held, and the difference aches.

His words slide over her without finding purchase, and while they should land, instead they pass straight through, because the echo in her head is louder: I thought this was goodbye.

When he says the word room, something inside her jolts, sharp and unexpected, like a hand suddenly clapped over a ringing bell. Her eyes lift to his before she can stop them, surprise flickering naked and unguarded across her face. Not guilt. Not fear. Just..being caught off-balance by the fact that he knows. but then, of course he does. Her house has always been a map of her heart, every door a devotion, every wall built around someone she loves. She swallows, throat tight, and nods once, the movement small and heavy.

"Yes." The word falls like a stone. "I made it before everything," she says quietly, and everything tastes like salt and rust in her mouth. Before there had been fire, before things ended a second time, before choosing and re-choosing and believing she had finally learned how to love someone properly and well. "He’s never been in it. He doesn’t even know it exists." Her fingers curl in on themselves, nails pressing crescents into her palms as if pain might keep her from drifting away. "I didn’t know how to get rid of it. It was easier just to lock the door." A breath shudders out of her, thin and uneven. "That’s all." But it isn’t, of course. It never is.

Tears keep spilling, hot and relentless, but she doesn’t bother wiping them away now. The urge to vanish prickles at her skin again, sharp and tempting, her fingers itching at the gold ring as if she could slip sideways out of this moment entirely, leave only an empty outline behind. It would be so easy. "The room doesn’t matter," she insists, the words breaking with more force than she intends, because this—this—is the fault line. "It’s just a room." It was sentimental once, but now it was nothing more than dust and a rusty lock.

Her voice wavers, then falters completely as she reaches the thing that has been lodged in her chest like a splinter for years. "But his secret—" Her breath catches hard, a sob clawing up as the enormity of it presses in from all sides, too big to shape, too heavy to hand over cleanly. The secrecy. The weight. The way it rewrote her understanding of love and choice and consent without her ever realizing it was happening. The way keeping it had felt like devotion, and breaking it feels like betrayal all over again.

"Telling you was supposed to—" The rest collapses into a sound instead of words, a fractured breath that carries everything she can’t explain to someone who doesn’t seem to feel how enormous it is. She presses her lips together, shaking now, standing right in front of the man she loves and feeling more unseen than she has in a very long time. And it hurts in a way she doesn’t have language for yet.

Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you way from war

The admittance does not sting. If anything, it’s a relief to know he’d been right, that he’d carried this weight for a reason rather than imagined it and worn himself out over nothing. Even so, it’s a truth that Jack remains, in their home, like a presence that refuses to be cleared out fully. The home is full of spirits, but it had never felt haunted until Kaisel’s awareness of that space rose up.

He exhales with a heaviness that does little to lighten him as she explains. It all makes sense, but there’s more than that involved here, on behalf of them both. ”It’s not him knowing,” he insists, voice just a low murmur, trying to hide nerves with softness. His gaze dips from hers for a moment, tracing the fold of her hands between them. ”It’s that it’s there. Still.” It’s more than a room, it’s a statement of who’s important to her, who she cares about, and it staying says a lot about what she’s holding onto. ”Could paint over it, turn it into an empty guest room, or storage. It could be anything…but it’s still, Jack’s.” It’s evidence of all his fears, that however under lock and key it is, however much she explores the other rooms and opens them up to laughter and sunlight and memories, that it remains like something she could walk back into. Like something she might want to open up again. It might not be fair, especially when she's telling him it's nothing like what he's imagining, but those roots have already taken hold of him.

As her tears return in earnest, always something he can hardly bear to witness, he loosens his hold. His palms press gently onto either side of her face, holding her like something he fears might break further. His thumbs sweep over the ridges of her cheeks, careful even as his own breath shakes now in the wake of all this quiet ripping of the stability they’d woven. ”C’mon,” he says softly, giving up on combating her tears as they continually stream down, her sobs growing more strangled, words splitting apart into the noise of ruin. Instead, he clasps the hand her ring is on with one of his own, intentionally adding the curl of his grip over it and tugging them down. ”Floor time,” he urges, already starting to drop down to the floor, sink cabinets at his back like a reminder that something in this moment will hold. Yielding to gravity makes it so much easier to stand stronger under everything else, something he sighs gratefully into as he settles.

Nevermind the room. That’s not what really matters here, because she didn’t say goodbye, she didn’t open it back up, and he's clinging to the fact she's still here and telling him that she's choosing him in all the ways her tears could. ”I hear you,” he asserts, and he does, now that he’s not staggered by self-inflicted damage. ”This matters. So tell me everything.” he encourages, swallowing against the lump in his throat. He’s still trying to adjust to the new weight of this.

”How long?” He wonders, the thought landing suddenly, heavier than the locked room ever was. The whole time? ”How long have you carried it?”

Kaisel

If you need help, I'll shut down the city lights

flora

Flora shakes her head immediately—sharply, almost frantic—like the thought alone has burned her. "I’ll get rid of it," she whispers, the words tumbling out too fast, like they’ve been pried loose instead of offered. "I’ll—gods, I will. As soon as we get home."

It had never been meant to stay, not once things had ended, but it had been easier to leave the door shut than to open it and drag everything inside into the light. That room was full of things that weren’t sharp until you touched them. Memories packed in quiet boxes that still smelled like sea salt and rum. Shadows that only moved when you looked directly at them. And she hadn’t wanted to look, hadn’t known how. For all their talk of taking things slow, she and Kaisel had set their world on fire the moment they’d touched. They’d built forever with matchsticks and laughter, skipped steps and didn’t look back. And somewhere in the rush of joy, in the dizzied certainty of loving him, Flora had just...assumed there would be time. Time to clear out the corners, time to mourn the old versions of herself, time to let the grief stop aching like a phantom limb. But of course, the room isn't just a room to Kai; it’s a shrine. A ghost. A reminder that her heart has held too many names, and not all of them are gone and gods what an idiot she is.

As Kaisel reaches up to hold her face, her expression crumples beneath his touch, fragile and bruised, like a petal that’s been stepped on. Everything she thought she knew so well—us, this, him—feels suddenly blurred at the edges. She presses her cheek helplessly into his palm, not because it soothes her, but because she doesn’t know where else to go. When he guides her to the floor, something in her lets out a half-whimper, half-laugh, the sound thin and glassy. She can see how hard he’s trying, but the frost from seeing Jack inside her is thick, and the way it doesn’t melt right away makes the ache in her chest double down. It should be easy, the way it always is with him, but today nothing is easy, and that only breaks her more.

She folds down with him, knees bare and trembling, settling into a half-collapsed sprawl against his leg. Her body bends inward again, arms loose around her shins, fingers twitching like they’re looking for something to hold on to that isn’t falling apart. When he asks to hear it all, it almost feels impossible. The story’s too big, too heavy, full of too many silences that aren’t hers anymore. But she closes her eyes and breathes, and breathes again, trying to stack the pieces in order.

"The whole time," she says, her voice barely above a breath. "But I didn’t always know." She stares at the cabinets across from them, not really seeing them, her voice distant now; somewhere out on the beach where the waves had rolled a secret straight into her lap. "He told me one day, sort of by accident. He was sick. and half delirious and he ended up replying to something I'd only thought and not said." Her throat bobs with the effort it takes to keep talking. "It nearly ended things, not that we were actually dating then, but we were...together, I guess."Her laugh is weak, rueful, laced with old disbelief. "But...because he could read my mind...he knew exactly what to say. He always knows exactly what to say, when he wants to." Her gaze finally flicks up to Kaisel, her aqua eyes rimmed with salt.

"That day," she murmurs, "on the beach, when he electrocuted you?" Her voice trembles, but she pushes through it. "It was because he could hear your every thought about him, not because of anything you actually did."

Her mouth opens again, then closes. She hunches forward, folding in like paper, one hand raking through her curls, catching on tangles and shaking fingers. There’s so much more she wants to say, but the words are coming too fast now, too full of everything that’s broken. "That’s what makes it worse when he’s cruel," she says finally, voice hoarse. "Because he knows. He knows what to say to cut deepest. There’s no part of him that doesn’t understand exactly how hard it’ll land." And then her voice breaks entirely, and she tucks her face into her knees, her tears hot again, because this is what she has lived with—this—a secret heavy enough to fracture her ribs from the inside out, and now, after all of it, after telling Kaisel the one thing she thought she’d never speak aloud, she still feels more ghost than girl.

Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you way from war

The ground is cooler to the touch, preserving most of Spice’s attention and pressing it into their skin like proof that there’s no real ice between them, not comparatively. Quietly, he adjusts to the curve of her as she joins him, though she remains so bowed over herself, protecting something instead of offering something, and it silently works the back of his throat to see it. An arm tucks around her, fingers tracing a pattern of reassurance back and forth over her side, afraid to force her open and pull her in, so he lingers on the edges like a reminder he’s still here too, a quiet brace at her side so she doesn’t have to hold herself up alone.

All the while, he listens, teeth pressing in tighter the more she explains, the more the true enormity of what’s here rises up from the clouds his mind had been in. He doesn’t let his own thoughts spill out prematurely, not when she’s finally got the strength to put more behind her voice, so he listens with a thinning patience as she explains, each new sentence a fresh horror being brought to light. When she glances up at him, his copper eyes seek hers, and widen with the reminder.

The words land wrong in his body, like something swallowed that shouldn’t have been. Not sharp—sick. The mention of the beach drags heat and ozone back across his skin, the remembered smell of burned air and panic rethreading itself through his chest in a way that makes his stomach pitch. For a moment, it’s hard to breathe past it. Not because of the pain, but because of the realization that it hadn’t just been him being foolish and loud that’d almost done him in. There had been someone else in his head the whole time, listening.

His jaw tightens, then loosens again, breath scraping in slow and deliberate, anchoring himself to the cold beneath him. The idea of it crawls under his skin the longer it sits there, that Jack had heard him thinking, had known exactly when to strike, had been inside his mind. Kaisel drags his free hand down his face, thumb pressing briefly at his mouth, trying to break through the memory with the pressure. It brings a crisp, personal understanding of what she must have endured all this time. What originally felt like something minor, not nearly as destructive as outwardly explosive abilities, now seeps in with clarity. Where he might only wonder what Spice is thinking, Jack had used it to twist the people around him to his benefit in the most invasive way imaginable.

“Flora, that’s—” He stops, shakes his head once, before it bows over him in aching disbelief. There aren’t words yet that don’t feel too small or too loud. His gaze drops to where she’s curled against his leg, to the way her fingers twitch like they’re searching for purchase in thin air. His chest tightens painfully at the sight. Without hesitation, he reaches and drags her closer, legs bracketing around hers while he sags over her from behind, arms snaking around her middle as he presses his head into her. ”He trespassed,” he manages to peel the words between his teeth, more breath than sound. ”He used everything you were against you, that’s so unbelievably fucked Flora.” It all sits like disgust curling through him, bile rising in his mind. ”That’s why you…” his grip tightens, a kiss presses to the edge of her head. ”I’m so sorry, Flora. You never should have had to deal with that, or carry that. That’s not love.”

Kaisel

If you need help, I'll shut down the city lights

flora

Flora tries to melt into him, but it’s like trying to settle into a nest of splintered wood, every edge inside her misaligned. Her body aches from the tension of it, from the posture of protection she’s been holding for too long. She leans against him, because she loves him, because part of her still remembers how to do this, how to give in to his warmth and let it seep into her, but it’s as if something’s snapped out of place within her—bone or trust or belief—and now it can’t quite bear her weight the way it used to.

So when his arms come around her and his voice starts to shape the truth aloud, she holds her breath like it might keep her from breaking further. The word trespass lands inside her like something clean and terrible, slicing through fog, and she closes her eyes, nodding slowly. Yes. That’s what it was, especially when things were bad. A quiet invasion. A soft, intimate violence that left no bruises, just rearranged thoughts and permission she never really gave.

Her hand lifts, trembling, and she stretches it into the dim light between them, pointing at a slim golden band around her finger. It glints, delicate and innocuous, like it could mean anything. Like it hasn’t meant sanctuary and surrender and silent desperation all this time. "I got this to keep him out," she whispers, voice thin with exhaustion and embarrassment, like she’s showing him a secret she’s ashamed of needing. "Safrin made it for me, but it only blocks him a little. He’s stronger than I am. At best, it just makes things blurry." The admission falls flat between them, heavy with failure. The ring hadn’t protected her, it had just made it easier to pretend everything was fine.

But then Kai says it hadn't been love, and her whole body recoils, a slow shudder rolling through her as her eyes snap to his, wide and stunned and suddenly full of panic. Her expression fractures like glass catching frost. Her lips part, desperate to say something, anything, and for a moment, she can’t breathe. "No," she moans, almost pleading. "No—don’t—" But the words are slipping through her like water through cupped hands. "It was, at least...I think it was."

Because if it wasn’t love, then what was it? What had she fought for, bled for, died for? Surely it wasn’t all just obsession dressed up in poetry. Surely she hadn’t mistaken rot for bloom. If she’d been wrong about that—so utterly, so thoroughly wrong—then how could she ever trust herself again to know what love was?

Her throat burns with the grief of it, the confusion, the gut-deep refusal to let it all be rewritten into something meaningless. She doesn’t try to defend Jack even though some part of her wants to. She doesn’t speak to the parts of him that shaped her or the parts she saw that no one else did, though that weight sits in the back of her throat like something she doesn’t have the right to lift right now. Not here, and not with Kaisel thinking she'd wanted to leave him.

So she folds into the truth that is hers. "I just wanted to apologize," she says, her voice barely holding. "I wasn't trying to fix anything, not to go back to him...just to...to say I’m sorry for how I ended things." She doesn’t try to steady her voice anymore, doesn’t try to blink the tears away as they roll down her cheeks in heavy streaks. "I wanted to tell him he deserved more than a letter." Her shoulders lift with a shallow, hitching breath. "But he just said we'd been a waste of his time."

Her gaze drifts upward, finding Kai’s through the haze. Her lips tremble, her whole face wet and flushed, the colour high in her cheeks from crying too long and breathing too little. "Years," she whispers, the word breaking off inside her. "It was years of my life. Of loving him and trying so hard to keep something broken from falling apart completely. And if all of that—if I—was just a waste of time to him, then…..." Her voice trails off, but the question lingers, heavy and raw. Then what does that make me? She swallows hard, but the ache only gets worse.

"And now—" her voice cracks again, and her head shakes, slow and despairing, "—now it feels like it’s happening again." She doesn’t mean the magic or the cruelty or the secrets. She means this: the way someone she loves is looking at her like he doesn’t know where she stands. "Because even after everything I thought I was giving you, you still thought I was going to leave." Her eyes search his, pained and desperate and unbearably sincere.

"He was inside my head for so long, that...that maybe I don't know how to do this." Maybe her love was just a murky reflection of what she thought it was when seen by a lens other than telepathy, and even then, when seen clearly, it had been judged as a waste of time.

Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you way from war

Something terrible takes shape in him as the understanding crystallizes. It’s not sudden, or explosive, but it’s dense, and it sinks into place with the weight of certainty. This hadn’t been moments of cruelty or uncontrolled anger; it had been precision. The kind of harm that requires awareness, timing, and intent. The sort that waits until it knows exactly where and when to cut. Kaisel has only seen something like that with steel in hand, not the cold pry of thoughts.

The internal churn of revulsion leaks from his mind, curling low in his gut with an unease that pales his face and floods his mouth with saliva. That someone stood that close to her most private and unguarded space—not brushing past it, not just glimpsing it, but living there—makes his skin crawl in a way that has nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with violence. Not just someone, worse, the man she had loved. The betrayal is so severe and unforgivable that he can scarcely work his breath around it. His jaw feathers against the strain of holding it behind his teeth, the pressure of which steadily distills into something pure and absolute. A refined hatred pools inside him, seeping into every lingering crack, the very ones Jack had put there, staining them with something new and immense.

She moves, the lift of her hand cleanly forcing through the drip of rage, small but meaningful, drawing his attention without effort. Gold catches the dim light between them, unremarkable in most senses given her other adornments, until she explains. Relief, sharp and immediate, slides through the curdling sense of loathing. She hadn’t been unprotected.

It doesn’t undo the trickle of what’s already bleeding through him, the anger won’t leave now, but it narrows and finds direction for this moment. The answer to its use is written in the exhaustion she carries, in the way her body folds inward like something that learned long ago how to minimize itself. “It shouldn’t have had to be a little,” he says, rough with dislike. His fingers flex once at her sides, winding restraint through them. “Can it be made stronger?” he asks, hope etching in, though it's unsteady. ”Just in case?” He’s not sure when she might run into the Captain again, but surely the gods can give her better protection than blurry.

Her protest might be weak in actuality, but it strums through him like a chord that vibrates long after the plea is over. She clings to it desperately, as if letting go would erase her, and instinctively he leans further into her, grip tightening to keep her here in this moment with him. Not lost, not gone, but whole and here. He shifts a bit to the side to better see her face, eyes darting back and forth across the aqua buried behind tears and hurt so immense he isn’t certain he can find the end of it. “You loved him, I know you did.” The words come fast, trying to stop the spiral he can see taking hold. “But, Flora—” His jaw clenches, and when he speaks again, there’s no softness left to cushion it. “He violated you.” The word lands heavy and immovable.

“He didn’t even tell you,” he continues, anger sharpening his breath now. “You had to find out because he made a mistake. Because he slipped.” His grip tightens again, unyielding. “He was never vulnerable with you, but you were always exposed to him.” It’s the part that roils his gut all over again. The imbalance of it, the way she’d been open and bleeding while Jack stayed armed the entire time. Kaisel shakes his head once, sharp and emphatic. ”That’s not love, that’s control.”

As she talks about the apology, the letter, the way Jack dismissed years of her life with a sentence meant to inflict the most harm, something flares hot behind his eyes. “You’re never a waste, Flora,” he says immediately, a hard edge to it which cuts neatly through the air. “That’s him trying to wound you.” His voice lowers though it doesn’t soften, not when intensity is coiled tightly through it. “He knew exactly what to say, and he said it because he knew it would stick. Don’t let him in, Flora. Don’t let him keep fucking with you.” Now that he knows, he won’t let Jack continue to rip her open, not if he can help it, and gods does he mean to help it.

...it feels like it's happening again.

Dread hits him full-force, something cold closing around his ribs while his ears whine with a distant ringing sound. For a heartbeat, he can’t tell if he’s breathing. His hands tighten before he can stop them, a reflex born of panic rather than thought, and he swallows hard as if the thought might choke him if he doesn’t. His gaze doesn’t waver from hers now, though it feels like staring too close to an open edge and risking the loss of all nerve by doing so. “I’ve never doubted your love,” he urges, scrambling for explanations, for delays, for anything to hold her. “Not once. I swear to you.”

A sharp breath pulls in, but it does little to ease the quickening of his pulse. “I just—” he falters, then pushes through it anyway, “I thought maybe you still loved him too.” The admission feels like it’s exposed the fool that he is, especially now, after learning everything. “I don’t, anymore. Not now. But you did, not that long ago.” There’s no accusation in it, just a naked fear. He shakes his head, like he’s trying to dislodge the image that’s been trying to haunt him ever since she struggled to talk to him upon arrival.

“When you called me here, after running into him. When you couldn’t say anything…I’ve never seen you so upset. You've never been able to talk to me before. So the only thing I could think of that would be so terrible, was that you were saying goodbye,” he tries to lay it out again, to walk her alongside him through that seizing moment, the way rooms and ghosts and ignorance to everything she'd been carrying altered something just enough to become a worry, however unlikely.“But even when I thought that, I never intended to let that happen.” His words torn loose with a resolve that he would, is, going to fight for her, for them, with every piece of him.

“Flora, I’d give everything for you,” he says hoarsely, eyes bright with the strain of holding himself together now when it feels like he could break apart with one more held breath from her. “Everything I am. Everything I’ll ever be.” He doesn’t promise to be perfect. He doesn’t promise to never be afraid again. He just stays there, breath uneven, fear and love tangled tight in his chest. “We built our own starwhale adventure. We’re building our own love. They're nothing like the ones you and him had.” His hands reach for hers, trying to link their fingers together. "I love you, Flora. More than anything."

Kaisel

If you need help, I'll shut down the city lights

flora

Flora's fingers curl slowly across the thin golden band and when she looks up at Kai, her voice wobbles somewhere between apology and awe as she nods that yes, it could be made to be stronger. "If anything, you should be the one to wear it," she whispers, throat tight around the syllables. But there’s a deeper ache waiting just beneath the gold, and it’s harder to say if only because she knows Kai will likely scoff at the idea. "He’d kill us if he found out I told you," she says, barely more than breath now, biting down against the trembling that starts in her mouth and tries to find shape in her chest. Asking Kai to carry Jack's secret is something she can't do, but gods if they want to put this behind them surely the best thing to do is bury it? "Or try to." Jack might never have raised a hand against her, but gods, she’s seen the storm he can call without ever lifting a blade.

And then Kaisel says Jack hadn't loved her and that it was just control, and his words don't just land, they pierce. Something deep and delicate inside her withers, folds in on itself like petals hit by frost. Because for so long, she clung to the idea that at least Jack had loved her. That even if it wasn’t perfect, even if it had been messy and sharp and sometimes cruel, it had still been real. And now—hearing Kaisel say it out loud, in the kind of voice that only speaks when something has snapped inside—she feels the bottom drop out from under that belief. Like maybe she’s been standing on a hollow version of love this whole time, and everyone around her had seen the cracks she refused to. Sohalia. Melita. Her family. None of them ever liked Jack, and they didn’t even know. What would they say if they did? Would they echo this same truth, cold and shattering, and leave her with nothing to hold onto but the ache of being wrong?

She nods, but the motion lacks conviction. It's the kind of nod that only happens when arguing would hurt more than admitting it might be true.

Silence pools between them, but not the empty kind; this one holds weight, holds breath, holds everything that still hasn't found words. And when he says that he wouldn't have let her go, that when she called him here, when she’d stumbled over everything she couldn't say, he thought she might be saying goodbye, that he'd never planned on letting her, her breath hitches. Her eyes blink fast, a stunned sort of light cutting through the haze, a flash of clarity that flares hot and real. "You wouldn’t?" she breathes, the question stitched with disbelief and wonder and something dangerously close to hope. The world tilts and the air feels thinner, easier to breathe, like maybe something just shifted back into place, or maybe it was never there at all and this is what it feels like to choose right.

As his fingers reach for hers, she meets him halfway, lacing them together like a promise. She presses their hands to her chest, holding them there like she’s trying to fuse the moment into her ribs, her bones, her heart, before pressing her truth ring against his palm. "Even if Jack had gotten down on one knee in the lighthouse," she murmurs, voice ragged with feeling, "even if he’d apologised for everything, if he’d gotten rid of his telepathy, if he’d undone all the awful—" She swallows, hard, then finishes softly, "I’d still choose you." She squeezes his hands tighter, the motion trembling but fierce. "This is the love I want," she says, stronger now, like the truth has finally grown roots in her. "You’re the one I want, Kaisel."

Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you way from war

The ring glimmers with a low light, reminiscent of fireflies rising like winking hope amid the dark.
Something more that could be done. Maybe not a true shield or fix, but better than just being laid open like a book, better than blurry. The relief is brief. It collapses into something far more dangerous as her warning surges, no better than seafoam amid the shove and pull of this tide. Maybe being aboard a boat had been a bad call.

His body tightens all at once. Understanding, more than surprise, cinches down. The secrecy. The struggle to say it. The way she’d carried it all this time. His jaw works, muscles pulling taut along his neck as a cold, steady fury rolls through him, so controlled it almost feels calm. “Is that why you kept his secret?” he asks quietly. “Did he, threaten you, Flora?” The loathing that grinds through his chest provides such a discomforting pressure he has to actively manage it. Kaisel drags a hand up through his hair, the movement trembling in it’s sweep until he exhales hard through his nose.

“No, no.” His hand drops with a stiff shake of his head. “You’re definitely keeping it,” he says firmly, leaving no room for argument. “And I’ll get one too.” Anger and the underlying hum of panic bleed off into planning. “We’ll make them as strong as we can,” he continues, low and certain. “Strong enough that he never gets that close again.” The sound barely rises above a murmur, pitched low and rough in a way that vibrates against the back of his teeth. Whatever anger sits beneath it has already settled into something colder and more deliberate. This threat has been seen, and it will be answered.

The disbelief in voice hits harder than anything else she’s said, and for a moment, all the noise in his head goes quiet. He doesn’t hesitate and doesn’t soften it, the force of his conviction coming through in the full force of the rushed truth. “I never plan for us to say goodbye again. I let go of you once already, I won’t make that mistake twice.” Not a promise shaped for comfort, it’s a decision, one he made the moment he first told her he loved her on the beach.

The thread of her fingers with him, locking into place like something sure when everything has felt opposite of that, flares hope too fast and too bright. Instinctively he wants to look away from it, afraid it’ll vanish if he stares too hard, but he holds it in his peripheral as he keeps her eyeline. With every word she says, the impossible fear of there being something other than them unravels.

Relief overwhelms him and he folds more around her, leaning into her and holding her with equal brace, balanced together. A sound that’s half laugh and half sob, all wonder, tears loose from his chest and her name slips out like it belongs to a god. “Flora…” He clings for a heartbeat longer than he means to, grounding himself in the reality of her before he dares to pull back. When he does, it’s only enough to look at her, copper eyes bright and unguarded. “Only you,” he says, voice rough with feeling. “I pick us. Every time. Forever.”

He draws back abruptly, breath still uneven, one hand slipping into his pocket with a nervous, deliberate motion that sends his pulse skidding all over again. When his fingers close around the small box there, the nerves morph into something steadier. “Let’s build our own secret,” he says softly, almost reverent. “A good one.”

He opens the box and holds it up between them, hands trembling but sure, the ring catching the light like it’s always belonged there. “Marry me,” he says, breathless and earnest all at once. “Today. As soon as we can.” A crooked, hopeful edge creeps into his voice. “We can have a real wedding later. For everyone, but I’ve only ever needed you.”

---

Kaisel gives Flora

Everblooming Band | A gold engagement ring shaped from delicate interwoven vines, set with a central diamond and accented by alternating opal and rose-quartz stones like tiny petals, with a few peridot stones in the band like leaves. At sunrise each day, produces one fresh, random flower. Works only for Flora.

Kaisel

If you need help, I'll shut down the city lights

flora

this is your fault I was doing so good

Flora flinches as she feels the tension that radiates from Kaisel in quiet, razor-fine pulses. It echoes through the silence like thunder before a storm, and she feels herself shrinking without meaning to, trying to make space in her body for everything this moment has become. When he asks if Jack threatened her, something in her chest cinches so tight she almost forgets how to speak, and her mouth works for a moment before the words find her. "Not directly," she says softly, each syllable weighed down like her tongue’s been soaked in salt. "At first, when I was still furious with him about it all, he said that if I was going to tell anyone, to let him know first." Her voice hitches, and she glances down at her lap like the memory is something she has to pull up from her gut. "So that he could go. Disappear. Or worse."

There’s a long pause, long enough for her to taste the iron in the back of her throat, the shame, the quiet horror of having ever believed that this was a reasonable situation she'd found herself in. "He didn’t say he’d kill himself," she adds, eyes distant now, but clear. "But he made it seem like that would be the only way out if the secret ever got out. Like...it would ruin him." Her mouth curves into something brittle and wry. "I don’t think I’d be the only one upset to find out what he could do."

She shrugs, but it’s a small, broken thing. "So I never said anything, or..well I did, but it's complicated. For a while, I didn’t even question it. I was...happy to protect him. Happy to pretend I didn’t care about all the ways it made things complicated. All the times I couldn’t explain why things felt so strange between us, why I couldn't ever explain to anyone else about the highs and lows of it all." A breath escapes her, frayed and dry. "The only other person who knows is Sunjata, but obviously he wasn't the best person to talk about it with."

When Kaisel says that he'd never planned for them to say goodbye again, something cracks inside her; not in a way that hurts, but in a way that frees. It’s like a band pulled too tight for too long finally lets go. Like breath returning to lungs that hadn’t even realized they were starving for it. Because with Jack, everything had rested on her. Her silence, her loyalty, her ability to bend, to shrink, to sparkle, to hold a thousand unspoken things in her chest and pretend it didn’t burn even though he said it didn't. But with Kaisel, it isn’t like that. With Kaisel, the weight is shared, and even if she’ll never stop carrying her part, she can feel him lifting it beside her, not because he has to, but because he chooses to. It floods her limbs with warmth, chasing out the numbness that had quietly settled there since having seen Jack's face again.

She opens her mouth to say me too—to tell him she never wanted goodbye to be part of their story either—but then he’s shifting, and his hand is moving to his pocket, and a new kind of breathlessness catches her entirely off guard. Her heart skips so violently it almost hurts. She doesn’t need to see the box to know what it is, not when the shape of it burns a hole into the moment, and her entire body stills with something between delight and awe, like time itself has snapped taut around them.

He speaks again, and gods, the words marry me wrap around her like the tide rushing back in, like sunlight breaking through stormclouds, like hope so overwhelming she doesn’t know whether to laugh or sob, and then she’s doing both. Her mouth falls open, and the tears that pour down her cheeks now are not born of fear or grief or from the ghost of a man who'd nearly broken her. They are the kind that rise from joy too big to be contained, from the dizzying relief of being seen, chosen, loved, even here, even now. Her breath hitches hard, caught between the trembling of her chest and the wild, impossible brightness blooming behind her ribs. He wants her like this. Puffy-eyed. Hair a mess. Wearing nothing but a tank top and underwear, heartbreak still fresh on her tongue. He’s seen every vulnerable, messy, exhausted edge of her and still, still, he wants forever.

She starts to nod before her mouth can catch up, her head jerking with the force of everything she can’t yet say. But then she finds her voice, hoarse and shaking but true, and the word flies from her like it’s always belonged to him. "Yes," she breathes, and then again, louder now, with laughter in the tears that stream down her cheeks. "Yes." The ring sparkles before her like it already knows its place, like it’s always been hers, and gods help her, she wants it. Not because she needs to be saved, not because she’s running from the past, but because this—this wild, impossible, beautiful love—is hers. Is theirs. And for the first time in her life, Flora doesn’t feel like she’s holding her breath waiting to be abandoned. She feels wanted. Chosen.

Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you way from war

Every bit of new knowledge she hands him is an act of displacement. Worries melt away while new ones firm up, reassurances few and far between. The weight of all her injustices and the immense failures of those around her threaten to crumble in on him, but newfound resolve ladles out what it can. Through it all, ignorance bleeds out to rancor.

Piece by piece, he picks up her history, her truth. The implication of ruin, the way the threat had never needed to bear its teeth to be effective, the purpose that protecting him had given her in the shell of their love. She commits fully and fiercely, and she loves by throwing all of herself over the edge, never once expecting wings to appear but always hoping they might. That she did all this, for Jack, is no surprise, much as Kaisel wishes it had come to different ends before it bore down into her like this.

That was then, and this is now, and now is different. “So,” he says after a beat, tone full of considerations rather than barbs. “What if we post it on all the notice boards? If everyone knows, maybe he does what he said and vanishes.” The idea isn't perfect, but he scratches it out like it's the place to start from. “I don’t want the threat of him hanging like a bad shadow over us forever,” he adds quietly, and there's as much truth to that as there is the cold, slick, vengeance coiling inside him.

As momentous as Jack's reveal is—arguably the catalyst for sparking the next shape of their love—it's her that consumes the moment in full. It always has been. So the monster fades, because right now. Right now, the woman he loves more than anything, has just said yes.

The word lands like something too heavy to have come just on breath alone. Surely, the containment of his whole world can't rest within three, wonderful, perfect letters? Yet the manner in which time stilled, the wait brief but enough to live a lifetime inside of, is the very same one that spins now into something terribly rushed. Maybe that's just his stomach doing that, on second thought, the one he feels like is trying to float up behind his eyes for all the weightlessness he feels. With breath caught between careful hope and eager wonder, he slowly lights up from caution, becoming near incandescent with joy. “Y-yeah?” he exhales, and that first rush is an effort to squeeze past the swell of his heart.

When she nods again, tears spilling freely now, the rest of him gives way. All the tension and fear and uncertainty collapsing into something bright and overwhelming. His hands shake just a little as he slides the ring onto her finger, entirely new and yet looking like it has always been made for her. He can’t help himself after that. He leans in, drawing her down with him as he kisses her with his own anxious tears pinching free at the corners. He claims her with something deep and unhurried, pressing devotion and promise and future into each breathless kiss until they’re sinking together, flat out toward the floor. Laughter catches between breaths, nerves shaking away with a flood of certainty like he's never known. Yes, she said yes!

“I'm so glad I was on my way from picking it up when you wrote,” he says with a soft huff, forehead resting against hers. “Although this was nothing like my plans.” And that feels very fiitting for how loving Flora has gone, because she's effectively tossed most of his plans out the window, and he's never been happier for it, each and every time. “This feels better than what I imagined. Better than perfect. Because I want every day with you, Flora. Even the ridiculously messy ones—the ones where we're sad and on the floor.” he admits, voice rough with emotion. “Especially those ones, because they never feel all that bad as long as I'm with you.” They have clawed out of wreckage before and always stood stronger for it, and though he'd like perhaps the actual wedding day to be upright, he'd not trade any of the moments where they fought for each other. "Because you, my fiancé, make everything better."

His words dissolve into adoration, raw and full as his palm cups her cheek, holding her gaze steady. The smile that breaks across his face feels too big for all the fragility they just escaped, and his breath hangs high in his chest, puffing out slow and low, this moment preserved soft and calm. His thumb brushes against her face again and again like he needs the contact to convince himself this is happening, that they're here and whole and not dreaming. Needing to share every rampant flare of love for her with her, he leans in to kiss her once more, warm and lingering and full of a happiness that still feels a little unreal. His heart pounds hard enough he’s sure she must feel it too, echoing the truth of it all through his ribs. It's them, now and always.

Kaisel

If you need help, I'll shut down the city lights

flora

Flora's lips part, but nothing comes out at first; not because she doesn’t have an answer, but because too many are fighting to be first. The idea of it—of taking Jack’s secret and posting it like a wanted notice, like a lightning strike nailed to every tree—makes something sharp twist behind her ribs, a tight, staggering breath catching halfway up her throat as her eyes flicker wide. "I—" she breathes, her voice barely more than the tremble of her mouth and the flinch of her brows. "I don’t want that either." But the words dissolve the moment they leave her, useless things, a breath without ballast, and her throat bobs as she tries to swallow the ache building like salt behind her teeth. It’s too much. Too soon. The vengeance of it curls like smoke around the edges of her vision, and even though some small savage part of her wants it—wants the world to know, wants to dismantle him in the court of public horror—there’s still too much tangle in her heart, too many threads that haven’t yet been cut clean. "Can we—" Her voice cracks, eyes shining as they lift to his, helpless and soft in the same breath. "Can we talk about it later?" she whispers. "It’s too much to think about right now."

And it is, gods, it is—because before she can even settle the enormity of that conversation into place, before she can stitch together the remnants of who she used to be with who she is now, he is there, lighting up like the sun breaking over the sea, and the whole world tilts again, not with grief this time but with giddy, dizzying joy. Her breath hitches into a laugh—one of those watery, hiccupping ones that slips out sideways like champagne foam—and the sound of his laughter only stokes it. It rises between them like bubbles from a deep sea vent, heat and pressure and impossible beauty. The ring slides onto her finger like it’s always been meant to find her here, like it knew her hand before she did, and the sight of it there—shimmering like the first petal of spring rising from a cracked-open seed—makes her vision blur all over again. Her heart, already storm-tossed, seems to lurch higher, punching at the inside of her chest with something like awe. And gods, she’s so glad she took that sip of water when he'd offered it earlier, because the last thing she’d want is to meet this moment—their first kiss as fiancés—with the taste of stomach acid on her tongue. But she has no chance to think anything further, not really, because then his lips are on hers and her world narrows to this: the press of his mouth, the tremble of their breath, the way her lips keep breaking into a smile no matter how she tries to hold the kiss steady. It’s impossible not to, and when he pulls her fully down, flat on the floor, she barely registers it because he'd already turned her world upside down in the best way.

Her legs are folded awkwardly under her, still tangled in his, and she’s laughing again, quiet and breathless and so full of something luminous it feels like it might spill out of her skin. As he gazes down at her with that mix of giddiness and gravity, she lifts her left hand—the one now ringed with green and rose and light—and gently pushes his hair back from his forehead, her fingers catching against the dampness of his temples. "I think it’s perfect too," she murmurs, voice trembling with wonder. "All the way up here, in the mountains, after you ran to find me when I needed you most...In the place where we first kissed.." Her smile is so wide now it nearly hurts, her cheeks flushed from emotion, her throat working to swallow everything that’s blooming too quickly inside her. "Gods, your fiancée," she whispers, and then inhales sharply like the word alone might detonate inside her. She presses her face against his shoulder, trying to muffle the wild grin that threatens to undo her entirely, a scream of joy bottled in her throat like a firework just waiting to burst.

His hand cups her cheek again, and this time she meets his gaze without flinching. Her own hand rises, fingers curling over his, the diamond and petals and peridot of the ring cool against his skin, and she breathes in the space between them as if it’s the only air she ever wants again. "I’ve never felt so happy," she whispers, voice cracking around it. "Or so loved." And then, with every ounce of promise she has in her, she adds, "I’m going to love you forever."

It’s not just a kiss when she leans in again. It’s a collision of every past version of herself giving way to this new one. Her arm slides around his neck as she inches her hips closer until their bodies are flush, heartbeats crashing like waves against the same shore, and when her lips find his, there’s nothing hesitant in it. Only warmth. Only yes. Only this. Forever.

Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness
'Cause it's all over now, all out to sea

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

When enemies are at your door, I'll carry you way from war

Her refusal isn't something he balks at. This secret belongs to her far more than him, but now that he's got a grip on it too, he doesn't mean to bury it inside him. He doesn't want to hold on to any part of Jack if he can help it, the name alone something that already festers inside him, so affording the shitstain any amount of protection, especially now after knowing so much more history to it all, it's revolting. Still, he's not married to the noticeboard idea (just to her), he's just thinking aloud.

He nods once, slow and deliberate, the edge of his mouth tightening in grim agreement. “Later,” he agrees quietly, thumb brushing once at her knuckles as if to seal the understanding there. Jack can wait, and he means that. The man has already taken enough time from them, enough happiness. He'd rather give the Captain none further if only he could, if only it were that simple. The fury sits like a stone, but it doesn't burn for attention, not when everything inside him has lifted to much greater heights than her spoopy ex.

Her laughter is so breathless and bright, it knocks against him like the first call of morning, light streaking in over the hush of sleep and pulling him from dreams into a reality far better, because he's always waking up perfectly tangled beside her. The sight of the ring on her hand steals what laughter he has left, chest stuttering as joy rises so fast it’s almost disorienting. He feels light-headed with it, the kind of happiness that makes the world worth it.

Her smile flutters like a pulse against his lips, tugging forth helpless, breathless laughter that curls around them. When she pushes his hair back, fingers cool and sure against his skin, he leans into her touch without thinking. Her reminder that here, not the Draig, but the Sugartide, being where they shared their first kiss clutches at his heart. He hadn't even considered that, but it feels like the perfect collision of the different parts of their love. "I think we should get married here," he murmurs, a boyish shape creeping into his expression, unguarded and wild. "At the top of the world, where we have always found each other, I'm not sure there's a better place. And I could shout it down for the rest of Caido to hear. The wind might gobble it up, but it'll be whispered a little bit on every breeze, how much I love you, so that everyone will know that, even if they don't know the full truth."

They slot together with ease, sinking fully to the floor, lost in touch and a bliss so immense it threatens to tip into unbearable, his chest humming at an extreme. Breath shudders at the confession of all her joy, the admission striking him with a quiet, overwhelming force that doubles around his own, because "ditto." His grin threatens to consume them both for a moment, but the insistence of the kiss melts it away, leaving him little but a puddle of happy goo folding around her.

He presses his forehead to hers, breath still uneven, and brings her hand up between them, rolling a slow kiss over her knuckles and lingering deliberately at the ring finger as if committing it to memory. "I don't have the wedding rings ready," he murmurs, a quiet laugh trembling free. "Since I didn't think I was even proposing today." His thumb traces the side of her hand, unable to keep from touching her wherever he can right now. "But I think we should make them something that means we can always get to each other, like your compass." He pulls back just enough to see her fully, eyes glimmering with a relentless affection.

"Until then, because we're keeping this between us…what if we wore hairties on our wrists?" The idea feels small and perfect, because it'd be theirs. "We'd know what they mean, but that way we can do this outloud later, for everyone, and the way you deserve." Because as happy as he is with only this, weddings are as much for friends and family as they are for the bride and groom.

Kaisel

If you need help, I'll shut down the city lights