[SE] If you're in a coma, just wake up

Kaisel

The disgust is enough of a win that he receives her disdain like a medal, grinning helplessly as she drapes it around him. "Well, he leaves them around everywhere," muttered with a casualness that suggests he's no better defense than this. He doesn't get very far in any of them, gleaning the most he needs from the covers more than anything, the need being curiosity's demise. One had been particularly jarring and he's been a bit more leery since then.

The Rattlin' Bog takes over everything after that, whatever the current state of her nipples. The chaotic rush of it all tumbles between them, picking up speed like they've decided to race gravity on a downhill sprint. When shared with her, happiness takes on such an energetic quality that everything else feels too slow to ever catch them again.

Still recovering from the flush of it, pulse fluttering like little confetti poppers being set off by the beat in his chest, he can only extend the breathless, adoring smile back at her for a moment. He pauses suddenly, turning about in a circle, desperately searching for something. He catches sight of it on the ground near the tent, cushioned by his backpack, and he reaches for it with a quickness that suggests time is precious. The camera is snatched up and he turns it upon her before she can properly react, snapping down the button to capture her exactly as she is in this moment, in a state of giddy disarray that's ever his favorite look on her. "Got it!" he declares, as if it might have escaped otherwise, especially with her magic at their disposal. There's a nice aspect to freezing the moment though, and using those little stills to decorate his mind with the memory triggers of them. This is one he doesn't want to forget any time soon.

"OKay," he says around a clearing of his throat, straightening up as if he's stepping onto the stage to lead a grand performance rather than shout into the woods with more enthusiasm than talent. "Well, it's much shorter than yours, but y'know what they say, length isn't all that matters." An over the top wink handed over. "Not that we've got any experience with that." Clearing his throat again, he begins, belting it out so loud the words almost lose their definition.

"This old squid
He is odd
He's a boneless cepha-lo-pod
With arms, tentacles, and suckers everywhere
He squirts ink when he gets scared!"

He finishes with a small bow offered to the imaginary applause of the ready audience.

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

The camera comes up so quickly that Flora has only enough time for her eyes to grow vaguely wider before he snaps the picture. She’s still flushed from laughing, curls loosened around her face and smile half-caught between breathlessness and surprise, and when the moment settles into what he’s done, her mouth tips crookedly to one side. She shakes her head at him as though scolding him, but there’s no real reprimand in it, not with the grin breaking through or the affection that slips warmly through the bond after it.

Raising a brow as he clears his throat, Flora gives him the full benefit of her attention, her expression already sharpening with expectation when he mentions length. She waits, very obviously, for him to say something about girth. When he doesn’t, her eyes narrow with theatrical suspicion, as if this omission is far more incriminating than anything he might have actually said.

The squid song begins, and ends, almost before her amusement has properly finished rising. It sparkles through the bond in bright, disbelieving bursts as she watches him bow for an audience that absolutely does not exist. Flora doesn’t clap. Instead, she waits, brows still raised, giving him every chance to reveal that there’s more coming.

There isn’t.

"Wait, for real, that’s it?" Her nose wrinkles, but the laugh catches up with her almost immediately, spilling out bright and helpless. "That isn’t a campfire song!" She laughs again, glancing around the Undergrove as if some hidden council of camping experts might appear to back her up. "And who the hell teaches young Dragoons a song about squids?"

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Kaisel

Having seen this response coming from a mile away, Kaisel lifts from his bow and the silent roar of the crowd's adoration into something utterly impassive. Slowly one arm, then the other, crosses over his chest, and he leans further into one leg as if needing the kickstand for however she might try and push him over.

"Is this not, a campfire?" he queries with the faintest head tilt, gaze darting to their ramshackle start of one, which does momentarily call into question if this fits the bill yet or not. The intent is there at least, and that seems enough for him. "Was that not a song, sung round said campfire?" One hand untucks itself to gesture plainly at the assembled sticks and stones, some of which she's trying to use to punch holes in the good ol' cephalopod.

Though, resist as he attempts to, her laughter is a contagious thing that tugs adamantly at the corner of his lips. He tries to correct it like one might a wrinkle in their suit. "It's catchy, it's silly, and it's educational. All the proper ingredients for a camp song." The why hardly seems to matter. It'd been a tool to shut young boys up, and that makes it invaluable. "What, you thought we only sang about smelly socks and fists?" He scoffs, as if her profiling is completely unfounded, despite all evidence otherwise.

Haters on my back like a backpack
Blowin' up I'm fucking flawless

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Flora

Flora grins at Kaisel, entirely delighted to have found her match in a man who will apparently die on any hill placed in front of him, no matter how large, small, stupid, or squid-related. Plenty of men would have backed down by now out of annoyance or fear or basic good sense, but Kaisel only plants himself more firmly in the argument, arms crossed and expression arranged into the noble suffering of someone defending art from an ignorant public. "For one," Flora begins, lifting a brow as her gaze slides pointedly toward their glowstone-ringed arrangement of sticks, "I don’t see any fire." Her eyes flick back to him, bright with challenge. "And two, I think you sang the song at me, not around the campfire."

His mouth keeps trying not to smile, which only makes hers worse, and with a bright laugh Flora closes the distance between them. Her arms slip around his neck with no ceremony at all, and she leans into him with the pleased confidence of someone who has absolutely won despite the fact that neither of them has agreed on the rules. "You’re catchy and silly." She leaves out educational on purpose, the omission sharp and obvious enough to be its own little prod, because if he wants full credit, he’ll have to earn it with something better than one verse about a nervous squid.

"Well, no," she adds, tilting her head as she looks up at him. "But I thought you’d at least sing about, you know, the outdoors. Or marshmallows. Or sleeping under the stars. Or things vaguely camping related." Her grin turns crooked. "Not a boneless sea creature having a panic response."

Fatefully, I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me
Misery, Like the war of words I shouted in my sleep

Code stolen from Queen Sky