[SE] I'm brave in fixed amounts

What am I then when everything I've known is washed out

The dock is alive. It's familiar, but in all the wrong ways for her. Larger than the one in King's End by far, alarmingly so to her, what with all the ships coming and going. Different sizes glide in so close she's held her breath a time or two in preparation for the grind of hull upon hull, but it never comes, proof that among the chaos there is an organized element that escapes her. She imagines her ranch looks the same. Looked.

The reminder that she can only speak of it in past tense curls her fingers tighter around the blade in her hand. It begs for her attention to return to her task, because the dockwork is not her duty—Wyatt is out there with the ship they came on, trading their head and horses. It's earlier than it should be for the deals, and it's most all of them, normally a crippling thing for maintenance or growth, but she's ot limited places to put them all now so she's downsizing quite a bit.

Shaking her head to disperse those difficult thoughts, a decision she made but did not like, she resumes the much simpler process of sharpening her pocket knife. Staying with Edith in New Haven has upset her normal routine, and stupidly she left her bow and arrows back 'home'. The weaponry vendor has the tools she needs and would have done it for her given some extra coin, but she's short on spare spending and rather long on time and idle hands. This has always been easy too—working herself to something sharper. So she resumes the oiling of the whetstone, and with the steadiness of practice and the narrow focus of someone dodging a reality beyond a blade, she drags the metal heel across it with deliberate pressure and care.

---

Quest req: complete a thread sharpening a weapon by hand (an arrow, a blade etc.), considering the effort and finesse needed to perfect the edge.

Colt

Don't care if there's pieces left to mend, If I stay broken I can't be broken again

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

The dock breathes like a living thing, the air thick with brine and tar and the constant clang and creak of ships shifting against their moorings. Flora moves through it easily, the way someone does who grew up half in the water and half in the trouble that tends to follow it. Salt sticks lightly to her skin beneath the Torchline sun, her curls pinned up in a careless twist that somehow still manages to look intentional, gold glinting at her throat and fingers whenever she passes through a shaft of light.

Spice is looped comfortably around her shoulders, the small white dragon draped like a living scarf, her tail flicking now and again as though she, too, is cataloguing the noise and colour of the port.

The weapon stall sits exactly where it always does, tucked between a rope merchant and a man loudly insisting his maps are both authentic and not stolen, the familiar clutter of blades and oilcloths and steel catching Flora’s eye long before the vendor himself does. She slips up to the counter and leans her forearms against it, weight settling casually through her hip as one of the rings along her fingers taps lightly against the wood. "Moooorning," she says easily, her voice smooth and bright over the harbour’s din. "You have something of mine?"

The vendor disappears beneath the counter and resurfaces with a cloth-wrapped bundle that Flora knows by weight alone, even before the fabric is peeled back. One of her feather daggers rests inside, its pale blade newly honed, the edge catching sunlight in a way that promises quiet, efficient trouble. She turns it once between her fingers, testing the balance, satisfaction curling comfortably through her chest as the familiar weight settles back into her palm.

Perfect.

Sliding the dagger home among its sisters with the fluid familiarity of long practice, Flora straightens from the counter, her gaze drifting idly across the stall while Spice adjusts her grip along the back of her neck, which is when she notices the whetstone, and the person using it. Her grin arrives first, slow and bright, spreading across her mouth before the thought has even fully finished forming.

Pushing away from the counter, Flora drifts a few easy steps across the packed boards of the dock until she’s close enough to lean a shoulder casually against the edge of the worktable Colt has claimed, aqua eyes glancing down briefly at the steady drag of metal over stone before lifting again. "Heyyy," she drawls, amusement curling easily through the word. "You expanding out of ranching?" The smile she flashes is warm and crooked at the edges, curiosity dancing plainly across her face as she folds her arms loosely, Spice’s small white head lifting just enough to peer curiously at the blade moving over the whetstone.

What am I then when everything I've known is washed out

Well accustomed to the subtle sighs of wind over meadows, the low calls of livestock moving in groups, and the sharp cut of whistles and barks punctuating work, she never would have deemed her usual days as quiet. The noise here is different though. Not too much, Colt has never been one to shy away from being loud, but this is layered in a way that feels too new that she hasn’t learned what to ignore and what to heed. Over the din of countless conversations and sales, the bustle of sailors and dock workers hollaring warnings and commands, and the roar of the sea behind it all, she doesn’t pick up on Flora until the Doubletake is addressing her. It doesn’t help that she’s intently focused on the grind and whine of the metal beneath her hands as she pressed it against the whetstone, careful not to press too hard and regret it, a common mistake she makes, nor go too soft and end up here all day.

Flora’s approach draws Colt’s eye up, her sharpening lightening though not pausing. ”Has news spread that fast?” she says, a touch bewildered. She’d posted about in King’s End a day or two after regrouping, and her trip here didn’t take long, but she hardly thought her ranch played a role in the trade and gossip mill to have already found the queen of Torchline. Her focus wavers just enough that the next time she tries to drag the knife down her finger meets the stone instead. The touch is startling, and her attention jumps back down, seeming to realize in that same instant what she is doing.

”Oh, you mean this?” She laughs, but the sound is clearly hollow. ”I’d argue this goes hand in hand with ranching, given how unkind the work can be to blades.” Or maybe she’s the one with a rough hand on the hilt, but they always seem to dull fast with all the wood and leather she’s always lending the edge to, never mind the bad habit of sticking it into the dirt to avoid losing it while working.

Colt

Don't care if there's pieces left to mend, If I stay broken I can't be broken again

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

Flora’s brows lift at that, the expression arriving easily and without calculation, confusion bright and genuine across her face as though Colt has suddenly shifted the conversation onto a road Flora hadn’t realized they were standing near. For a moment she just watches her, the steady scrape of metal on stone continuing beneath the noise of the harbour, Spice shifting slightly along the back of her neck as the little dragon peers down with mild interest. "News?" she echoes, the word leaving her with a small, curious laugh as her head tips a fraction to one side.

As Colt gestures to the whetstone, Flora laughs and nods. "Yeah," she says, the grin returning as quick as sunlight breaking through clouds, her gaze dropping briefly to the knife before drifting back up again. She tilts her head the other direction this time, curls shifting slightly where they’ve been pinned up, gold catching the light as she moves. "What else would I mean?"

The question is light, but her eyes linger on Colt a moment longer than simple teasing might require, curiosity settling there in a quiet, thoughtful way as though she’s turning something over in her mind without quite deciding what shape it might take yet. Spice lifts her small white head again, the dragon’s gaze flicking between Colt and the blade with equal suspicion while Flora remains leaning easily against the table, waiting for Colt to fill in whatever gap she seems to have wandered into.

You are interrupted by a sharp, high-pitched screech, accompanied by a dazzling fork of lightning that leaves its image burning behind your eyes for a long time afterwards.

You swear the afterburn looks almost like a face, the mouth stretched wide in an agonised scream. If you blink too quickly in the wake of it, the face starts to look like someone you might know.

---

You have encountered one of the Scream Rain SE serendipities! You may use this to complete requirement 1. of the seasonal event. Please note: this serendipity CANNOT be used for levelling purposes.

What am I then when everything I've known is washed out

She supposes it's too late to fully recover now, her slip a bell she can't unring, even if it's been knocked accidentally. Maybe if it'd been someone other than Flora, she could have stumbled through it, but the Doubletake has always been shrewd, purposefully arming herself thusly. That's something Colt can always appreciate, especially on a woman, even when she's at the poor end of it. To the queen's credit, she tries to play it off as best she can, offering an out, but much like an overly bright and cheery path among the woods bound to end at a witch's cottage, Colt doesn't think it wise to take the easy way. Besides, she has little to hide in the matter, other than the fact that saying it aloud firms up the reality more and more every time she does, a truth she isn't always ready to face. For now though, she's already perched on that edge.

"Mm, the burning down of my ranch just a bit ago," she remarks, far too casual as her attention returns to the steel in hand. She's flipped the blade, running the other edge over the whetstone now, using it like a point for her to summon all her focus into, leaving the loss of her life as nothing more than an exterior distraction to the true task at hand. Easier that way to walk amid the memory of ruin, like she is standing outside of it instead of half-buried inside it. "Lost everything, except what was alive enough to save its own hide. Most of them are being sold right about now, got nowhere else to put 'em." A practical matter, the emotion cut clean out of it, or so she'd like to pretend. Her brow pinches, lips thinning as she ends her comment, and she doesn't speak again for a while yet while her grip and attention tighten on the sharpening. Without meaning to, she ends up pressing the blade too firmly into the drag, scoring it wrong. The metal complains right as the sky splits.

Colt startles off the motion, blade slipping suddenly to the side with the sudden jolt. It knicks her finger, red welling instantly, ad she curses under her breath as she fires a glance up, accusation bristling back at the clouds. "What the fuck?" The lightning fades nearly as soon as it's come, the wailing with it, though it reverberates through her like an audible afterimage, searing into nerve. "Y'know when you think something can't get any worse, and then it starts to rain? And then, it starts screaming?" She frowns at the sky before glancing up at Flora, aware she's just become unduly dour over nothing. Sighing, she brings her finger to her mouth to suck on the cut before the blood runs and stains something. "So, I happen to be open to new career paths." Maybe not weaponsmith, if this go is any evidence.

Colt

Don't care if there's pieces left to mend, If I stay broken I can't be broken again

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

Flora’s jaw drops open, the reaction as immediate as it is unfiltered, though there’s something in it that isn’t just theatrics, something that lands a fraction heavier in her chest than she expects as the words burning down settle into place. She blinks at Colt, once, twice, as if that might rearrange the sentence into something less final, but it doesn’t, and the way Colt keeps moving, keeps dragging steel across stone like she’s listing off inventory instead of a life, makes something tighten quietly beneath Flora’s ribs.

"Oh fuck," she exhales, the word slipping out softer than usual as she shifts her weight, the easy lean she’d taken up at the table faltering just enough that she has to catch herself with a hand against the wood.

Her gaze drifts, not away, but closer, watching the set of Colt’s shoulders, the narrowing of her focus, the way everything about her pulls inward and sharpens down to the blade like it’s the only thing she can afford to feel properly. Flora’s mouth presses briefly to one side, a flicker of something more thoughtful than teasing threading through her expression, the pieces of it clicking together in the quiet spaces between Colt’s words.

And then the sky split; the sound rips through the harbour, high and wrong and screaming, and Flora recoils before she can stop herself, hands flying up to cover her ears as the afterimage burns bright and ugly behind her eyes. For a moment she just stands there, breath caught halfway between a gasp and a curse, the world ringing in a way that feels too sharp, too close. "Gods—" she hisses, dragging in a breath as the sound fades, shoulders lifting before she forces them back down again, fingers slipping away from her ears as though the air itself might still bite.

Her gaze flicks upward, briefly accusing, before she exhales and shakes her head, a wry, apologetic twist tugging at her mouth as she glances back to Colt like this might somehow be hers to answer for given they were in her region. "Yeah, sorry," she says, the words edged with a rueful sort of humour. "The rain’s been a bitch lately." The joke lands thin, and Flora doesn’t try to push it further. Instead, her attention drops quickly to Colt’s hand, to the bead of red welling where the blade slipped, and before she quite thinks about it she’s already reaching out, fingers closing gently but decisively around Colt’s. The ring on her hand pulses once, a soft, golden flicker beneath her skin as it works, knitting the cut cleanly back together in seconds.

Her lips twitch to the side as she releases her, gaze lifting again, sharper now, more deliberate. "Is there anything I can do?" she asks, the question direct, no softness padding it out. "I could lean on the Gilded Market a bit, get materials, labour, whatever you need to rebuild. Or at least not start from nothing." A pause, brief but considering, her brows lifting slightly as another thought slots into place. "Do you need somewhere to stay?"

What am I then when everything I've known is washed out

Oh fuck is about the most perfect summary there is to one’s life going up in flames. It doesn’t leave room for grace or apology, it’s just the raw, unfiltered reality of it all being bad. An acknowledgement, rather than something trying to pass as pretty, and Colt’s more grateful for the ringing drop of it than even she realizes. Most of her and the hands haven’t said much about it, a lived experience they don’t need to waste breath on, but it’s left something to build quietly in their chests. It escapes Colt now as a hollow, ringing laugh, more exasperation than amusement. ”Yeah,” she agrees, and that’s that. Oh fuck.

The sound cuts short as she bears down on the knife, and shortly thereafter, the sky does the same to them. Biting back her glower with a huff at the bitchy weather, Colt finds her finger grasped securely in Flora’s hand before they ever grant the copper taste to her tongue. ”Thanks,” she murmurs, finger bending as if to test the quickly repaired skin the healing left behind.

Not shying from the risk of more injury, Colt adjusts her seat and swings the blade back into sharpening after re-wetting the stone. She’s mindful this time of her pressure and her focus, sparing Flora a glance just before she starts, if only to register the full weight of everything Flora just offered. Healing, help, and a home. A bounty of things Colt suddenly finds herself in need of, and a hard pill to swallow so blatantly for someone well used to doing things on her own. ”I appreciate the offer,” she says with a quiet softened by sincerity. She did not expect such a show of kindness. Still, she shakes her head as she brings the fine edge back to the blade, repairing what damage she’d done with her careless force before.

”Not quite sure I’ve figure out next steps beyond today though,” she admits with a sound half grumble and half defeated sigh. ”I keep coming back to the idea of rebuilding, and finding I’m not as sure as I once was.” She pauses the drag of the metal, testing the sharpness on a fingernail. ”We fight the fires every year in King’s End,” she admits, a certain weariness creeping into her tone, a soldier who has stood through many battles only to lose the war still. ”This time it just happened to win. Seems like a waste of time and effort and money to just recreate another matchbox.” She doesn’t know, not for certain, that it’d burn again, but it feels like a matter of when in a place that always ignites. ”Might not be as obvious as climbing up next to a volcano and complaining it’s hot, but the premise is the same.” There’s massive degrees of difference to it, because she could probably, eventually, fireproof another ranch. She’s not positive you could do the same to a volcano. Still, she doesn’t like the in-between.

”Not to mention the time and resources to redo it all… nowhere to put all this herd while it goes up, and need the coin from the herd sales to do it. Say I build it, now the herd’s small, it’ll take years to regrow to what it was, and I’ll be covering all that ground all the while.” The more she reasons through it, the more unappealing it sounds. She shakes her head, setting the blade back to the stone, mindful of angling it to just one section that needs it. ”No, I’m thinking now’s the time to see about something new.”

Colt

Don't care if there's pieces left to mend, If I stay broken I can't be broken again

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

Flora watches Colt take it in, the thanks, the refusal, the careful reshaping of the blade like that might be the only thing in reach that still listens when she tells it what to do. There’s something in that the queen recognizes too easily, something that sits uncomfortably against the weight of everything she could offer, the quiet, stubborn understanding that not everything broken wants to be handed back whole by someone else. It leaves her a little off-balance, like stepping onto a boat that shifts just enough underfoot to remind her she doesn’t quite control this.

Her mouth quirks anyway, because that’s what she does with discomfort, smoothing it into something lighter even when it doesn’t quite hold. "Fireproof magical ranch?" she offers, the suggestion tossed out with a crooked grin that doesn’t even try to sell itself as practical, her brows lifting slightly as if she knows exactly how flimsy it sounds before the words have even fully landed. She exhales a soft breath through her nose a second later, the humour easing off as Colt continues, the reality of it settling heavier the more it’s laid out. The numbers, the time, the effort, it stacks in a way that doesn’t leave many gaps for optimism to squeeze through, and Flora’s gaze drifts briefly down to the blade again, following the careful correction of the edge before lifting back up.

"Yeah," she murmurs, quieter now, her head tilting slightly as she considers it, as if turning the shape of Colt’s future over in her mind might somehow make it easier to hold. "That...sounds like a bitch, honestly." Her lips press together for a second, then loosen again as something else surfaces, not quite offered, not quite held back. "When my twin died," she says, the words slipping out more casually than the weight of them really deserves, easier now that Enzo was back from the dead, "and I lost the bid for Queen the first time.." she pauses, not searching for the words so much as choosing how much of them to let out, "I pivoted. Did something completely different for a while." There’s the faintest twist of her mouth, something that isn’t quite a smile but isn’t far from it either. "It didn’t make it hurt less. That part just...stays, for a bit. But having something else to pour myself into helped. A lot, actually."

She shifts her weight again, gold glinting as her hand settles loosely against her hip, Spice adjusting along her shoulders with a quiet rustle. "In the long run, I was better for it than if I’d just kept throwing myself at the same wall and hoping it’d move." Flora exhales softly, her expression tightening just a fraction as she looks back at Colt properly. "It all still really sucks, though," she adds, plainly, no polish to it this time, no attempt to soften the edges of the truth. "Do you have anything in mind? For what ‘something new’ could look like?"

What am I then when everything I've known is washed out

There’s a stubborness to her route, she knows it. A sense of earning meaning ownership. She has always prefered the things her own hands make as opposed to the results of someone else. Not because what she produces is without flaw, but because she knows exactly where those weakpoints will be, and there’s something to knowing where the cracks will form. Taking everything Flora’s willing to hand her, it’d never feel like it belonged to her, and she’d always be squinting and running a hand down it, searching for the first spiderwebs that’re bound to show.

Even this blade, imperfect as her job has been, she knows where to push it and where to hold it back because she’s shaped its strength as much as its ruin. It’s better now, sharper than when she began, but surely there’s some damage to the metal edge that the smith would never have granted. It requires a feel she’s less practiced with, and a consistancy she has never been able to maintain in her life, to keep the angle and the pressure and the drag just right. It’s close enough to suit her needs though, as the nicks in her nail will attest, and that’ll do just fine.

Lifting the blade off the whetstone, Colt’s gaze swings from it to Flora with a wry expression at the suggestion. ”Right along when I’ve tamed a pegasus,” she huffs. Satisfied with the new bite to what had been dull before, Colt slides the knife back between her boot and pant leg. ”Yeah, that’s life,” a real bitch, as Flora promptly goes on to explain.

Watching Flora fully as she offers up some parts of the places she’s been burned, if not so literally, Colt knows there’s the recognition of suffering and the strength needed to endure it in the tragedies she lists off. Proof, that her words carry more weight than something pretty to give in place of having nothing else. A show of friendship, or understanding, of wanting to fix what should never have been set askew. If only being understood properly meant it also made it all hurt less, but all it does is show everyone’s hurting a little bit, in their own way. A comfort, in some fashion.

Colt nods, not interrupting the point Flora is making, but holding it on the keep of her breath, letting it settle. ”I don’t think things ever hurt less,” she says after a moment, quieter than she means as she pulls on a deeper vein of thought. ”Think we all just learn how to adjust to it, same as a three-legged dog still runs.” The pain becomes the new normal, and every day it feels like it’s fading, it’s just the body shifting around it. A pause, briefly considering, before she leans in a touch over the fold of her legs on the seat. ”You’re very good at hiding your limp, you know,” she murmurs, and there’s praise in that observation. ”Wish I had that down half as good as you do.” Her smile creeps in slow and honest. She’s only ever turned hers around, kicking with every stride like that’s what it takes now to step.

Glancing away briefly, letting the moment pass and bleed away into the next scream the sky lets loose, Colt’s attention swings back around at the question. ”Yeah, I’ve got a new wall I’m considering leaning into.” An untested one, but she’s certain it won’t budge so easy. She blows a breath up into her hair out of the corner of her mouth though, almost a sign of ancitipated exasperation. Almost. ”Won’t give up ranching, not yet, not entirely.” It’s got too much of her heart, and it’s familiar enough that it’s easier than some other things, even when it’s at it’s hardest, like now. Smaller though, so easier to manage now too. ”But in an effort not to burn again, I’m considering…” Her lips quirk to the side, and she chews on the thought for a moment.

Aside from Deimos and Wyatt, she hasn’t told anyone else yet, and while she doesn’t bank on the approval of Flora, there’s no denying the queen’s slew of accomplishments. If she plucks it apart, Colt just might be limping for a few weeks longer. Glancing up for something like reassurance in those sea glass eyes, Colt sighs, and there’s courage in that defeat. Something lowering, because if she’s already on the ground, what’s the loss of the last things she owns—her defenses. ”I’ve been through Hak Etme before, and I think it has potential to be more than it is.” She holds that out there for a beat before continuing. ”Suvahasi’s gotta have enough water to support that much plant life, so could be a place worth making a home. Just enough feed for ranching, and nothing so liable to burn.” A small shrug, like this is all just a fantasy and not the thing that’s begun to keep her up at night as she turns it over to look at every angle. ”Those plants could be worth harvesting and making a business out of. Maybe more, once I get some footing in place.”

Colt

Don't care if there's pieces left to mend, If I stay broken I can't be broken again

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

Flora’s grin flashes quick and bright at that, her brows lifting as though Colt has just confirmed something entirely reasonable instead of brushing up against the edge of impossible. "See? Easy," she says lightly, the words tossed out with a breezy confidence that makes taming a pegasus and building a fireproof ranch sound like items on a casual afternoon list rather than feats that would make most people stop dead in their tracks.

The humour settles, though, as Colt continues, and Flora lets it, her shoulders rising in a small, unbothered shrug at the thought of pain and limping and learning how to carry it. There’s something in her expression that suggests she doesn’t entirely agree, not quite, but she doesn’t push it either, not here, not now, not when the edges of Colt’s loss are still sharp enough to cut. At the quiet praise, though, Flora huffs out a soft laugh, the sound slipping free before she can quite catch it, her head shaking just slightly as if she can’t decide whether to take that as a compliment or call it out for what it is. "Please," she says, though there’s no bite to it, only a wry sort of amusement curling through her tone. "The trick is I run every day."

Her mouth tilts at one corner, something knowingly self-aware in the expression, like she’s letting the joke land where it wants without spelling it out any further, her fingers idly brushing along Spice’s side as the little dragon shifts against her neck.

Falling silent to listen, her head tipping slightly until it rests against the curve of her shoulder where Spice is draped, Flora's aqua eyes narrowing just a fraction in thought as Colt lays it out piece by piece. Hak Etme. Suvahasi. Water, feed, something that doesn’t go up in flames the moment the world decides it’s had enough. When Colt finishes, Flora lets out a soft, incredulous laugh, her brows lifting again. "Damn," she says, the word warm with something that leans a little closer to impressed than teasing. "You’re really not half-assing this, huh."

She shifts her weight, one hip angling against the table again as she considers it, gaze drifting briefly toward the distant horizon as though she might be able to see all the way to Hak Etme from here if she tries hard enough. "My brother’s got a contact up north," she adds, her attention sliding back to Colt, the corner of her mouth quirking as her brows lift in a way that doesn’t bother hiding the implication of what that contact was for. "Someone to harvest dream cacti for him in larger quantities than he can grow on his own."

"It gets moved around quietly right now," she continues, tone thoughtful, almost speculative, "but if someone figured out how to make that...less underground? Could be very lucrative I'd say." She lets that hang for a moment before pushing off the table again, stepping just a fraction closer, her head tilting slightly to the side in a way not meant to crowd, but support. "Can I help at all?"

What am I then when everything I've known is washed out

The humor doesn’t stick, although she’s grateful for the distraction. The attempt matters more than the results, and when she’s in a better state of mind, it might come creeping back in like a dog asking forgiveness. The acknowledgement of how much ass she’s using does much the same, and she doesn’t hold it long, especially because she doesn’t entirely agree with it. She’s trying not to go into this with her head in the clouds just because she’s lost her footing, but there’s still a lot for her to figure out and decide. Including, is she actually gonna do this? She keeps mentioning it, slipping it out like a love note and bracing for the heartbreak, but everyone just keeps sealing it with a kiss and giving it back, so she’s begun to collect shades of lipstick instead of the expected tears.

When Flora mentions a contact potential, and what could be made from it, that Colt holds onto. ”Y’know, you got more sides to you than a crooked barn in a windstorm,” she remarks, the appreciation drawn out slow as her gaze slides across the Doubetake, seeing her in a fresh light. She’s sorely misjudged Flora more than once now. ”I’ll be sure to see a cactus about its thorns.” Her lips quirk to the side, the start of a smile twitching there.

She makes to rise about the same time Flora steps off her lean. Colt kicks her stool in with a toe, leaving the station back to the weaponsmith. ”If you know any sailors that don’t mind hooves on deck, I’d appreciate the connection. The ones I got now, they don’t go out that way.” It’s ships and men she’s had connections with for years to sell her cattle, but the route is worn and set with time, and the shipments large to make it worth their hassle. What she needs next, to take what remains to Hak Etme, it’s smaller, and there’s no trade benefit for the sailors once they get to the desert. She could pay, a pretty price, but she’s being mindful of her spending, and she’ll avoid the cost of convenience until she gets desperate enough.

”And if you know anyone crazy enough to try with me, I could use all the hands I can get to wrestle a place like that under heel.” She glances around, the port and the hum of Torchline an impressive beast of trade and politics. ”I expect you’ll be seeing me around more, either stocking up, or limping back here if it goes tits up.” Assuming she does this…it’s sounding like she’s doing this…fuck, is she really doing this?

If she fails, a beach is not so different from a desert, and maybe she could carve something of her own outta here if worse came to worse. She’s not sure she can ever return ‘home’ to King’s End, not when just the thought of it puts her teeth on edge right now. Maybe in time that’d pass, but it’s hard enough to see past the feelings to the desert, much less back around to the ashes of what she’d once had.

Colt

Don't care if there's pieces left to mend, If I stay broken I can't be broken again

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

Flora’s grin brightens at that, the compliment landing easily even if it carries a weight she doesn’t quite lean into, and she tips her chin just slightly as though accepting something far more dramatic than it is. "Mm, well, I’m called the Doubletake for more than just my looks," she says, winking with an almost shameless bit of flair,

"As for sailors..." she says, exhaling softly through her nose. "The only one I know who might even consider something like that is Thalassa, and I’m not sure she’d love hooves on deck either." Jack is excluded from the list obviously for reasons that don't need naming, least of all because certainly he'd not allow horses on his ship.

Grinning again, easier now, Flora lifts one shoulder in a small shrug. "Seriously, though, if you need anything at all, let me know."

Then, because she isn’t going to bank on Colt failing and still can’t help wanting to leave a net beneath her all the same, her expression softens into something more sincere. "And if it comes to that," she says, "Torchline would be better for having you." Taking a breath, Flora glances back toward the boardwalk, the rest of her day tugging insistently at her sleeve, and exhales. "Shit, I’ve gotta go." Her attention snaps back to Colt, brows lifting with sudden seriousness that cuts through the ease of everything else. "For real, though. I’m happy to help. Anything you need."

With that she gives the rancher a wave, Spice shifting against her shoulders as she turns back into the rush and racket of Kaiholo Port.

~FIN