ghosts of the past

Kaisel

"I hate ghosts that are out of control," he corrects swiftly, and strikes a far too similar pose to the aktually gif. "When Mort has a handle on them, it's all well and good. When they're moaning and groaning down the halls trying to murder me, not good." It has less to do with the fact they're dead, a frightening enough feature to behold for anyone who likes to pretend there's no real risks to running through life pell-mell as he does, and a lot more to do with the fact they're dead and disorderly, unable to easily be punched back into place.

Glancing towards her, she appears surprisingly small. It's largely due to the fact that her face is the only thing that really sticks out from the bright frame of screaming yellow. That her expression has become something a touch forlorn doesn't help, suggesting that she's surrendering to the swallow of color and vibrant waterproofing. "We already had a much better lantern for Enzo this year," he hums with a cheer meant to buoy her. "Birthday candles." Though he knows what she means, and his hand squeezes in hers where he never bothered to untangle from her grip, because why would he.

The hush of the festival creeps even over to him though as Ludo descends, and bit by bit he watches the robes pass and wink out each lantern, leaving only one burning still. The ghostly door to Mort's realm appears with unsettling ease for Kaisel, and as it swings open, revealing the chosen soul, Kaisel's eyes widen a touch. "Is that...Harper?" A figure never met, but known from history texts on old leaders.

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody

Flora’s mouth curves immediately at Kai's correction, the shape of it sharp and knowing as she tilts her head just enough to study him, as though reassessing the terms he’s just laid out. "Ohhh, I see," she hums, drawing it out with deliberate slowness, her tone tipping into something far more wicked as her eyes narrow playfully. "So only sub ghosts who are on a leash?" The snicker slips out before she can dress it up into anything more polite, her grin flashing quick and bright as she adds, "didn’t know you had that kink."

The teasing lingers just long enough to soften the edge of everything else, and when he brings up Enzo, something in her expression loosens instead of tightening, the tension unwinding in a way that feels almost unexpected. Her gaze lifts to his, and she nods, echoing him. "Birthday candles," she hums, quieter now, the smile that follows not forced, not borrowed, but something that builds slowly from the inside out, fragile at first and then warmer as it finds its footing. For a moment it feels easy, like standing in sunlight instead of under the storm, at least until Ludo plucks up Sohalia's lantern.

"I don’t—" The words falter, break apart before they can find anything solid to land on, because of course she should be happy, she wants to be happy for Sohalia, and that expectation sits heavy and sharp in her chest, pressing against something far less willing. Her throat tightens around it, the contradiction of it, the way relief and dread and something far more fragile all tangle together until there’s no clean way through. So she turns instead, the motion quick and ungraceful, pressing her face into Kaisel’s chest as though that might block it out, the sight, the moment, the man. The bright yellow of her coat crumples against the orange of his, her fingers curling more firmly into him now, not quite seeking permission and not quite asking for anything at all as she draws in a breath that doesn’t steady so much as it holds, suspended somewhere just beneath breaking.

Kaisel

It's rare to find Flora without good footing in a situation, and even rarer that he can't fathom why. She lurches as if they're on Torchline's shore, the tide rapidly pulling the sand from under her feet, sneaking it away where the arch of her foot can't hold it so tightly. His attention shifts back to her as her words break, curiosity breaking apart into confusion, and then steadily, concern as she rolls into him as one might try to hide from being awake when sleep is still so nearby.

"What?" he manages to get out before abruptly closing his mouth and just neatly folding her into him. He makes the motion seem ordinary, bowing into the side of her neck as if they could be deemed nothing more than a pair of condiments showing PDA—honey and a rather off-color ketchup, maybe a cheeto-brand version. Even the angle of the umbrella, guided with the arm he sweeps around her back, angles like a shield to keep them better hidden. Fabric muffles them with a crinkle and a swish, all sharp lines with little give to it.

"What are we hiding from?" he whispers, unable to see much beyond YELLOW. "There's no dom ghosts, is there?" He's inclined to poke his head up and peer around, just to be sure, but resists the ridiculous urge.

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody

The way Kaisel folds her in without question—without turning it into something loud or noticeable or Flora-sized—lands deeper than she has the words for, settling somewhere quiet and vital beneath the sharp rise of everything else. Usually they meet the world at full volume, all brightness and movement and presence, but here, tucked into the shelter of his raincoat and the angled hush of the umbrella, Flora's allowed to shrink without it being named, without it being noticed, and the relief of that threads through her like something fragile and immediate.

Her fingers stay curled into him, clutching without thinking, the fabric of his coat damp and slick beneath her grip, her cheek pressed to his chest where she can feel the steady rhythm of him beneath the storm and the strange, thinning air of the festival. For a moment she just breathes there, shallow and uneven, letting the noise outside dull into something distant and warped.

His whisper nudges at her, soft and ridiculous all at once, and it pulls a small, broken laugh from her before she can stop it, the sound catching halfway up her throat like it doesn’t know whether it’s allowed to exist here. It shakes loose something else with it, something sharper, and when she tips her face up to look at him, her lashes are damp, her eyes too bright in the dim, flickering light. "I’m the reason Harper was murdered," she whispers, the words slipping out of her like something unlatched, quiet but unmistakably steady in their shape, even as everything else about her isn’t.

Kaisel

Well, Kaisel has a new finger he'd have to put down for drinking games going forward. "Wuh-?" he starts, fabric noisily proclaiming the turn of his head as he sets his sights on the wet of her lashes after feeling her crinkle and shift beneath him. "Uhh??" he continues, brain loading on dial up for a moment. He swallows, a soft reset.

"Are you doing the thing where you blame yourself too much again?" It feels like a very plausible option, and he grabs hold of the lifeline readily, shifting in the embrace of her to better regard her now. Something of a fond simper has tilted his features, as if this too is just another one of her quirks and tales that he's so deeply affectionate over. The way she shoulders the world too readily for the sake of others, even when murder is on the line. She has a history of it, after all, with Enzo being a ghost she haunted herself with. "You're not responsible for everything that goes wrong."

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody

Flora shakes her head almost immediately, the motion small but insistent against Kai's chest, her throat tightening so sharply it feels like it might close entirely before she can force anything through it. The words don’t come right away; they catch somewhere behind her ribs, snagged on the breath she tries to take, and when she finally inhales it hitches hard enough that she nearly chokes on it, her grip on him tightening without meaning to.

"I don’t—" she starts, but it fractures, her voice thinning out into nothing as her gaze flicks past him, quick and nervous, scanning the shifting lanternlight and deep shadows as though the Wildwood itself might be listening in, might twist her confession into something louder than she can bear. When her eyes come back to him they’re too bright, her face drained of warmth except for the sharp flush high in her cheeks and the vivid, almost startling blue of her gaze. "I don’t even know if anyone knows," she manages, quieter now, the words pressed close to him like they shouldn’t exist anywhere else, like letting them drift too far might make them real in a way she can’t take back.

Her lips part again, hesitation dragging at the edges of it, but she doesn’t stop this time. "Jack murdered Harper," she says, the sentence landing heavier than the storm pressing down around them, and for a heartbeat she falters, the next part catching on something raw before she forces it through anyway, softer but somehow worse for it. "For me...because he’d been mean to me."

Kaisel

She doesn't lean into it with the shrug or the eyeroll he expects. Of course she wouldn't though, this isn't shouldering something so light as an argument or a misstep, this is murder. Still, his features falter, slipping back into the patience of something discreetly somber as she struggles to find the words to properly explain. Time for a new Flora lore achievement.

Despite the crowd of her body near his, small, soft lights perk back up in the dark canopy of the world around her. More lanterns, he assumes at first, although that wouldn't be right, not with Harper already standing in the doorway of the afterlife and now. Will-o-wisps, an inherently spooky glow and mischievous addition to the festival that is more suitable than he likes. They're basically ghost eggs, and he does not want to explore the lifecycle (deathcycle?) of souls any further, thanks.

Frowning deeper as the realization of the orbs hits, Kaisel starts to move them further aside, trying to grant more distance between the spooky tea lights and them, head tilted all the while to catch her fractured voice. All the better too, with the way she keeps it hushed, the press of so many people nearby suddenly seeming too much. "C'mon," he ushers, his steps wider and more urgent now to pull her with them, two very inconspicuous shapes given their bright rain jackets, trying their darndest to go unnoticed now. Fortunately Harper makes a very interesting thing for everyone else to look at. "Over here, away from the party."

Still tucked in close to her side, lips pressed into the grim line that comes when things turn unpleasant, Kaisel is momentarily startled to hear Jack's name enter the chat. The flash of it streaks across his expression, wide and lifting all the narrow portions of concentration for her huddled tone. That settles quick enough though, because of all sentences to be strewn together, Jack and murder make perfect sense. For a moment, Kaisel says nothing, trying his best to come to grips with this new information. The enormity of a life feels like it should require more than a barely heard breath carrying scarcely more than ten words. Yet, here they are.

"That..." he starts, then pauses. Caught between a desire to clench on the ire he always feels whenever the Captain's nefarious nature reveals itself to be even deeper than he first realized, and the urge to point out, once again, that she is not the one who directly caused this death, Kaisel instead chooses the secret third option. "Did he deserve it?" In other words, how mean?

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody

Flora doesn’t notice the will-o'-wisps at all, their eerie glow folding easily into the already-strange atmosphere of the festival, her attention narrowed entirely to the press of Kaisel’s side against hers and the way he moves them away from the crowd with a quiet urgency that she doesn’t question. In her mind it’s obvious; of course he’s pulling her somewhere Harper won’t see her, somewhere no one else can overhear, somewhere this doesn’t have to exist any louder than it already does. She goes willingly, melting into him as they move, her bright coat crumpling against his in a tangle of yellow and orange that should be impossible to miss and somehow feels hidden all the same.

When he speaks, though, her head tilts up toward him almost instantly, her pale face searching his, brows drawn tight with everything she’s carrying, and then something else flickers through it, quick and startled. Surprise, clean and sharp, because she’d braced for something different, judgment or absolution, and instead he meets her there, in the middle of it, asking a question that doesn’t let her slip neatly into guilt or forgiveness.

Her mouth parts, caught for a moment on the unexpected shape of it, and she swallows hard before anything comes out. "I mean..he was really awful to me," she says, the words uneven at first, still finding their footing as they move further from the noise of the festival. "In front of everyone, when I ran to be queen the first time." The memory flashes too bright against everything else, heat rising into her cheeks again as though it’s happening now instead of then. "He was cruel. He embarrassed me—like, properly—in front of everyone," she adds, the frustration threading through her voice before it falters, catching on something heavier.

"But..." The word softens, breaks apart as she shakes her head, the motion small but definite. "He definitely didn’t deserve to be murdered." The last word lands with weight, quieter but more certain, and she pulls in another breath that doesn’t quite steady her, her gaze dropping briefly before lifting again. "Right before, he even sent me a letter. Said he was stepping down from leadership anyway." Her voice cracks on Jack’s name when it comes, the sound betraying more than she wants it to, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek hard enough to ground it, her eyes slipping away again as if that might hide the shape of it. "But Jack..." she starts, and for a moment it feels like the rest won’t follow, like it might stay lodged somewhere behind her teeth. "He never liked that Harper got away with talking to me like that."

Kaisel

He can't quite tell if the way she nearly trembles is from the shuddering of unpleasant memory, fear a residual thing full of echoes, or if it's the twist of guilt inside her that's churning her gut. That becomes clearer as she explains, because in place of some horrific tale of cruelty and vhemence, it sounds like the usual underhanded nature of politics. He doesn't know the finer points, but of all things, embarrassment doesn't seem enough of a cost for the price this man paid. Not that it absolves Harper of the shit he pulled with Flora, but it certainly keeps him from ever being able to amend them.

And now? Now she gets to carry this alongside the already poor memories of her own experience. Fucking Jack.

She worsens as she goes on, and it's as if something buried and forgotten has been dredged up for the first time in so long the sudden pressure of it rising up and the glare of the surface's light on its customary dark is too much. "Hey, hey," he says quickly, jellyfish umbrella flopping to the ground beside them as he lifts both hands to cup either side of her face. "You are not responsible." He pours the copper of his stare into all the blue of hers, holding her steady in the seat of his hands, as if he's watching her start to drown and means to keep her head up at the very least. "You did not ask for it. You did not want it. You are not accountable for Jack's shitty choices."

He leans in to press a fierce, slightly rain-damp kiss to her forehead before hauling her fully back into his arms for a tight and unrelenting hug. Slowly, he rocks her side to side in the embrace, twisting faintly as he does. "You are in control of your actions, not those of anyone else. Don't take his darkness just because he's trying to put your name on it."

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody

Flora looks up into Kaisel’s certain face, into the copper-bright insistence of his stare as though maybe, if she holds still enough beneath it, some of what he believes might slip beneath her skin and make a home there. For a moment, she almost wants to let it. She wants to be simple enough for his hands on either side of her face to be the whole answer, wants the warmth of his palms and the fierce damp press of his kiss against her forehead to scrape the guilt clean off her bones like mud from the soles of her boots.

But even as her chin dips slightly in his grasp, making her cheeks squish faintly beneath the pressure of his palms in a way that would normally have her complaining immediately and loudly on principle, the tightness inside her doesn’t loosen. It only sinks lower, dragging roots through the softest parts of her until she’s tangled in it all over again.

When he pulls her into his arms, she goes, folding herself into the bright orange shelter of him and trying to take what he’s offering; the squeeze of his embrace, the slow side-to-side sway, the shape of safety made ridiculous by raincoats and dropped jellyfish umbrellas and the wet, enchanted dark pressing in around them. She tries to let his words settle, she really does. She presses her face against him and breathes in rainwater and festival smoke and Kaisel, letting the rhythm of him move her, letting herself be held as though that might keep everything inside her from spilling out onto the leaf-strewn ground.

"I know all of that," she says at last, the words muffled at first before she turns her face just enough that he can hear her, her voice small in a way she hates but can’t quite polish into something prettier. "But…" Her swallow is visible in the pale column of her throat, and when she draws back enough to look at him again, the blue of her eyes is still wet and too wide beneath the frizzed gold of her curls. "I don’t think it changes anything."

Her fingers curl into the front of his raincoat, clinging to the slick fabric as if it’s the only thing keeping her from being pulled backward into the moment she’s been avoiding for so long. "I’m still the reason he’s dead." She hadn’t held the knife, hadn’t given the order, wasn’t responsible for Jack’s actions, but, she was the reason for them.

Kaisel

He almost doesn't catch the words that puff up between the rain gear and all the wet they've repelled. She's close enough though, and the sway he keeps small enough that there's little to hear other than her right now. Where relief should settle when she says she knows is suspiciously empty. He can predict the 'but' before it comes, because if she knows, this would be an easier thing to look at than the half-buried, tear-smudged thing she's offered up. It's one thing to know something, another to accept it wholly.

He doesn't try to keep her as she shifts back a bit, his arms not fully releasing her, but affording the distance to see each other fully again. A frown sits plainly on his brow as she continues past the ass-end of the explanation, and a second one settles on his mouth by the time she's done. "By that logic it's your fault Harper said all that mean shit to you in the first place, since you're the reason he would have?" Kaisel pushes back firmly, not about to let her pick up the burden of Jack's poor choices and wear the bruises of them where the weight sits too heavy. "Or maybe it should be Remi that takes the blame, since he's some of the reason you exist at all." The explanation tips as absurdly into the impossible as her being at fault here feels to him.

He shakes his head, the motion rough with the certain refusal. "A shopkeep does not call you up and ask you to pay for a figurine you touched weeks ago just because it got knocked over and broken now." The very idea makes no sense, especially not when the culprit is so clear. "Why are you blaming yourself when Jack is right there?"

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody

Flora only stares at him as he starts pulling the logic apart, the blue of her eyes still too wet and bright in the strange light, her expression hollowed out by something that refuses to be reasoned with just because he’s found the cracks in it. Her lips press together, and she exhales through her nose, the sound soft but unmistakably unconvinced as she shakes her head, curls trembling in their humidity-frizzed halo around her face.

Maybe from where Kaisel is standing, the line between her and Harper’s death looks tangled enough to cut apart. Maybe it looks like one of the Wildwood’s paths, doubling back on itself until blame becomes a trick of the trees, a thing that only seems to lead to her because she’s standing too close to the dark. But Flora can still see the dominoes. She can see the one with Harper’s name on it, and the one with Jack’s hand against its back, and the one before that with her own hurt stamped bright and ugly across the face of it. There’s a difference between being one of a thousand reasons something happens and being the reason someone else decides blood is an answer.

"You know that isn’t the same at all," she says softly, without heat, because she doesn’t have enough of herself gathered up for a fight and because some things feel too awful to keep explaining once they’ve already been dragged into the open.

Maybe if someone’s death had ever been pinned squarely on him, if his name had ever been written in their blood by someone who claimed they’d done it because of him, he’d understand the shape of it better. Maybe then the difference wouldn’t feel so small from the outside. Flora doesn’t say that, though; she only lets her gaze drop briefly to the abandoned jellyfish umbrella gleaming wetly on the ground before looking past him, toward the festival and the crowd clustered around Harper’s return.

"Can we go?" Her voice is still quiet, but there’s a thin thread of need pulled through it now. She glances back toward the lanternlight, toward the shape of everyone watching the dead become briefly un-dead, and forces herself to add, "unless there’s anyone else you want to see?"

Kaisel

It's true, he hasn't had the weight of someone's life hand at the end of his hands, no matter where in the string of events his fingerprints might have landed. Maybe it would give him a better idea of the perspective she's taken, but until then he'll mark this one firmly under 'shit Flora feels guilty over, but shouldn't.' It's a longer list than he thinks it should be, although that may be largely in part because most of the things on that list make her feel like shit, which is the exact opposite of what he'd ever want for her, making most marks on there an arguing point for him.

The quiet way she refuses nearly has him pulling out another round of buts, except for the way her eyes land on him. The lighting's low, the will-o-wisps bobbing about nearby barely adding much and the lanterns distant and snuffed out enough. The wet shine to her is easily mistaken for the rain haloing gently around them both, smearing melancholy into all the spaces without effort. Yet, the way she looks at him now, it's unmistakable. "Yeah," he agrees softly in return, all the heroic battlement to fight for her, with her, swept out of him in an instant sag of shoulders and a swallow of breath. "No, no, I want to get out of there too. Let's find somewhere to get warm and dry again."

Reaching to pick up the umbrella and hold it above them once more, he tucks her stride in beside his, arm looping at her back. "Should we do cocoa or cider?" he wonders, all the gravity of the world shifting to this very important decision now as they retreat back to the Sugar Tide and leave old ghosts to the woods.

[FIN]

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed