Always, always, always.

Flora

The Greatwood hums with the hush of late LongHeat, will o’ wisps blobbing lazily somewhere high in the canopy. Invisible though Flora is, the forest seems to recognise her footsteps anyway—soft and barefoot, brushing through moss and root in a rhythm as familiar as her name.

Flora drifts between the trees in a loose flowered sundress, the fabric catching now and then on a wild bramble or wind-shifted leaf. She doesn’t rush. There’s no need to—not today. The heat is thick but not heavy, softened by the shade overhead and the occasional drift of cooler air from unseen streams.

She walks with her fingers grazing the bark as she goes, a hand trailing like a whisper across the trunks. “Just me,” she murmurs to an old maple, its branches creaking in the breeze. “I’m going to see Niki for tea. Nothing dramatic, promise.” She pats the side of the tree as if in reassurance, smile curling though no one can see it. “Well. Probably.”

A few birds flutter above her, startled more by her absence than her presence. Somewhere off to the left, a squirrel chatters like it’s trying to call her bluff. Flora ignores it with the practiced dignity of someone who’s had too many opinions thrown her way lately, and keeps walking—soft, secret, sun-dappled—as she heads toward the tea house.

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

The forest isn’t the only thing that seems able to recognise Flora and her movements, but then the Queen of Torchline has taken laying low to mean continue to do whatever I please and act as if being invisible will save me. Which, nice try, but no dice. If Vox can hear - and oh boy can he hear, especially if you literally talk to the trees - then there’s a good chance a lot of other nefarious things can too. Dahlia won’t say she’s been tracking the girl on her jaunts across Caido, exactly, but let’s just say Flora hasn’t made it difficult to pinpoint her location.

And so, as the Doubletake’s fingers brush across maple bark and her presence ghosts through the sweet canopies of LongHeat splendour, something touches back. Something quick, silent, deadly. Claws lance from between two moss-slick branches, lethal in their precision. The scent of ozone laces through the air, a static accompaniment to the Reaper’s vengeance.

”Go on,” Dahlia purrs as she slips out from the forest and onto the pathway. ”Call someone. Call your fathers, even. I’d love to have a word.”

---

Dahlia appears, using Vox to pinpoint Flora’s location, and attacks using her claws.

Magic: First Blood | When an enemy is at full HP, physical attacks do x1.5 damage.
Type: Dark | Rank: Mastered

Magic: Maker's Mark | On a successful physical attack hit, enemies are Marked for 3 turns.
Type: Dark | Rank: Mastered

Magic: Mania (passive) | Dahlia's damage increases by 50% following every successful attack to the same target.
Type: Dark | Rank: Basic

Magic: Claws | Dahlia's fingertips become curved, elongated claws at will, counting as a Mastered weapon.
Type: Dark | Rank: Mastered

let me put my lips to something
let me wrap my teeth around the world

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Dahlia’s attack hits.

Dahlia HP: 1020/1020
Flora HP: 482.5/616

Flora

The forest has always held her gently—like a breath cupped in green palms, like a hush pressed against her skin. Flora walks it like a daughter returning home, fingertips trailing the bark with soft-spoken intent, trusting in the way it welcomes her back each time. She’s even smiling, faintly, as she brushes a petal from the curve of her shoulder, the hem of her dress light against her thighs, invisible to all the world.

Until she isn’t.

The voice slithers out of the trees like a serpent, slow and sharp, and before her mind can finish putting a name to it—Dahlia—the world rips open. A sickening sound tears through the air, something between a snarl and a wet crack as claws punch through the glamour of her invisibility, through silk and skin and deeper still. The sundress splits like paper. Blood follows.

Pain blossoms. Not like fire, but like light—white and blinding and everywhere at once. It’s so pure, so immediate, that for half a second she doesn’t even register it as pain. Just a wash of heat, of searing weightlessness, as if she’s been unstitched from her body entirely. Her knees give before her mind catches up, her vision fracturing at the edges like glass beginning to splinter.

No. No, no, no.

The panic barrels through her next, uncoiling in a tidal rush that chokes everything else. Dahlia. Dahlia. She wasn’t supposed to find her. Flora had been careful. Hadn’t she? She’s not even visible—how could she be seen—?

But the Family doesn’t need eyes. Not when monsters wear masks that can smell blood in the wind and cruelty in the soil.

The compass is heavy in her pocket, but her hand moves on instinct. Not grace—there’s no grace in this. Just desperation and the kind of ragged training that came from knowing this moment would come. Her thumb slams down on the button even as her other arm collapses beneath her, even as her blood paints the roots of the tree she’d just whispered to. The bark doesn’t answer her now. The trees have gone silent.

And then—just before the darkness creeps far enough in to claim her—she vanishes.

---

Flora uses her compass!

Type: Light | Style: Other | Level: Basic
Capitol Compass | Can travel to the political hubs in all settled lands.


~FIN

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