What do you get when two ruthless assassins raise their daughter travelling through the wildest reaches of Caido? Take one look at Theea and you'll get a pretty good idea. Cheerful and tenacious in equal measure, and curious beyond all else, she began her journey on a mission to find those her mother once called family. And find them she did, soon rubbing elbows with demigods, leaders and even ghosts from the past. Her determination is resolute, her thirst for knowledge unmatched. We can't wait to see where her next adventure takes her!
Congratulations, Theea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
Sunlit Shadows (mastered) | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Style: Offensive | Level: Mastered
Deadly Recall | Can recall 1, or 2, or 3 of her feathers to her hand, within a range of 30ft. Recalled daggers do 1/2 damage when recalled.
Rescue (Mastered) | Remi can bring a fellow Old God demigod to his side in a time of crisis for three concurrent posts. One use per thread. If the summoned demigod also has mastered this ability, they can remain until the end of the thread.
The House of Midnight, ever attuned to the hearts it shelters, had shaped itself into something soft and contradictory for Flora.
A wide room breathed with open air and impossible geography, lit in hues that shifted between sunset and dawn depending on which way one looked. Trees like those from the Greatwood arched skyward from floors that were not quite wood and not quite earth, their bark iridescent, leaves aglow with magic that pulsed in time with memory. Beneath them, where roots should have sunk into loam, the ocean sloshed—Torchline’s ocean, clear and endless, its tide curling impossibly against bark and moss. The scent of salt hung faintly in the air, tempered by the sweetness of tree-sap and warm stone. It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t have to.
Near the water’s edge—though there was no true edge at all, just the strange peace of dreams folded over one another—Flora sat on the lip of a wide, stone-framed tub, her bare feet trailing through the gently heated water with lazy movements meant to mimic waves. She wore an oversized, backless dress, the fabric soft and worn, the colour somewhere between cream and blush depending on the light. It fell off one shoulder, careless and comfortable, pooling at her hips with all the modesty of a memory. Her back, still tender, bore the pale sheen of healing salves and magic-soaked ointments, patches of gauze peeled back in favour of air and time.
Her curls, half-damp from earlier, had been swept into a loose knot at the base of her neck, though strands had escaped to cling to her cheekbones and throat. No makeup adorned her face; she didn’t need it here, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have bothered. She wiggled her toes just beneath the surface, trying to imagine the grainy tug of real sand or the way seaweed sometimes kissed at her ankles. It didn’t feel quite right. Then again, not much had lately.
06-28-2025, 10:45 PM (This post was last modified: 06-28-2025, 10:46 PM by Kaisel.)
I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust
He arrives with a bouquet in hand. It’s a mixture of mostly white, yellow, and purple blooms, peppered with random green sprigs, long grasses, and even one mushroom. It looks a bit beat up from the travel from the Greatwoods to here, and something in it is definitely mildly toxic if the red and itchy reaction of his palm is any indicator. He's swapped out holding them for a glass vase though, back before he got on the sky ship home to King's End, so most of the irritation, and the memory of it, has long since faded.
He wanted to bring her something from her home, however creepy it might be, so anything that looked marginally attractive or he had the wherewithal to notice, he plucked. Mateo would surely be aghast, but luckily the dry season has killed most of the plant life that might have been truly horrific to brush so absently against. When he arrives at the House of Midnight, he asks for Flora, expecting her at the bar, but he's instead pointed towards one of the the specialized rooms. Unfamiliar with the unique brothel, but certainly aware of it's purpose, he hesitates at the door. Someone reassures him she's alone though, so his knuckles rap on the barrier briefly before he cracks the door and calls in, "Flo-ro?"
He's immediately entranced by the scape that greets him, a mesh of the woods he'd just been amongst and the sea he's more accustomed to calling her home. It doesn't fit, not really, but it's also so perfectly Flora that he can't help but smile a bit as he steps in and closes the door behind him, re-sealing the images in full as the quiet din of the outside spaces and the light from them is shut out once more. He spots her in the corner, perched like something dark and quiet, too at odds with the golden shine he's accustomed to. "Ro?" he asks as he steps closer, his pace picking up as he recognizes something is fully off, that something is wrong.
He sinks into the tub lip beside her, the bouquet of mixed flora swaying with wild abandon as he's barely aware of it in the rush to be next to her, gaze skipping over new scars he doesn't recall being there the last time he'd beheld her exposed back. Something tightens in his chest, but he tries to work past it, tries to ignore the creeping panic that shouts at him the insane stories had been true and her letter had vastly downplayed her status, that he'd believed it. So he just sinks into the space closest to her, still clothed as his feet touch the water next to hers, his free hand reaching to thread among her fingers. "I think we have different definitions of okay," he says gently, the only thing he can offer that doesn't feel like a shout.
Sunlit Shadows (mastered) | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Style: Offensive | Level: Mastered
Deadly Recall | Can recall 1, or 2, or 3 of her feathers to her hand, within a range of 30ft. Recalled daggers do 1/2 damage when recalled.
Rescue (Mastered) | Remi can bring a fellow Old God demigod to his side in a time of crisis for three concurrent posts. One use per thread. If the summoned demigod also has mastered this ability, they can remain until the end of the thread.
At the sound of knuckles on the door, Flora doesn’t lift her head at first. She assumes it’s her mother, or one of the staff with another bowl of something too bland to tempt her or too healthy to be comforting. But then the voice curls in—familiar and affectionate in the way only Kai could make it, syllables warm as a summer tide—and her gaze snaps up before she even thinks to move. And he’s standing there in the doorway with a bouquet that looks like it fought to survive the journey, wildflowers and grasses and one bold mushroom all jostling together like they’re not quite sure they belong.
Her smile, when it comes, is surprised but soft. "Hey," she says, low and a little hoarse, sunlight filtering through the illusory trees above them to catch the shine of her curls and the faint pink of her cheeks. She doesn’t rise—not because she doesn't want to—she wants nothing more than to throw her arms around him and bury her face in his shoulder and breathe in something green and steady—but her back pulses in quiet warning, and so she stays, perched at the lip of the stone tub with her feet swaying gently in the warm water, letting the ache root her where she is.
As he sits beside her and reaches for her hand, she laces her fingers through his without pause. It’s instinct, not invitation; familiar instead of flirtatious. Still, it feels strange to be here like this again—together, alone, in a room designed for softness and seduction. Given the last time they’d seen each other, the unspoken conclusion of their night had been to redraw firmer lines between them, certainly a magical brothel would be the last place either of them would have expected to meet up next.
His comment lands gently, but she hears the panic tucked behind the words, the breathless edge he’s trying to smooth away. Her shoulders lift in a faint shrug. "I am okay. I didn’t die." Which, not that she was a demigod or anything, seemed to be the standard for assessing how things went, these days. Another shrug, and this one sends a quiet ripple of pain down her spine, though she hides it well—just a shift in her eyes, a twitch of her lashes. In the immortal words of our lord and saviour Taylor Swift, I'm okay, but I'm not fine at all which was a good deal closer to the truth.
She nudges her shoulder into his, gently, careful of the rawness beneath the gauze and healing salves. Her gaze drops to the water and the muddy swirl forming near his ankles. "Also," she murmurs, lips curling just slightly, "you’re getting dirt in my ocean." The smile she gives him now is worn and wry, as if she’s held it in her pocket through a hundred impossible days.
Her nonchalance is maddening. Her wants all of her chalances back, the way he's used to them. This feels like Flora has been muted, both in volume and brightness. Not just soft, he has seen that, when she's more like a sunset and less like the daylight. Not merely careful, when she's reluctantly breaking through cloud cover. No, this is so much worse, and horribly unfamiliar. He'd love to know all the parts of her, but this one feels like it shouldn't slot in along with all the other pieces.
His fingers are tight in hers, like he might be able to drag the color back with the strength of his grip, which he wishes now more than ever is stronger than this (in tug-o-war she'd crush him). His forearm brackets against hers, taking more than her hand, twining with as much of her as he is currently able. He holds her arm in his lap, the bouquet set down on the stone lip next to him with a subtle clink to free up his other hand. It settles overtop his hold, like maybe two hands will be enough. "See—that's what I mean," he scoffs, but it's gentle still, like they're just playfully arguing about whether you put the toilet paper roll on so it comes out on top or the bottom and not whether or not she DIED. "Call it crazy, but you don't think death should be, I dunno, like an extreme measurement and not just the low bar?" He's uncertain if she's simply refusing to be honest with him, or if she hasn't yet been honest with herself.
A pause, his gaze holding hers with an intensity he normally reserves for fighting. "Flora, you're not okay," it comes out louder than his other words had, and strained into something rougher. His other hand slides back overtop hers, fingers tips dragging across the spaces between her knuckles with light pressure. "And that's allowed," he says softly again, pulling her hand up to his lips where he plants a light kiss.
An exhale that doesn't quite make it into a laugh falls when she accuses him of getting her ocean dirty. "Adds more realism," he cuts back, but he releases her hand all the same to start pulling his wet boots off and the socks beneath.
Sunlit Shadows (mastered) | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Style: Offensive | Level: Mastered
Deadly Recall | Can recall 1, or 2, or 3 of her feathers to her hand, within a range of 30ft. Recalled daggers do 1/2 damage when recalled.
Rescue (Mastered) | Remi can bring a fellow Old God demigod to his side in a time of crisis for three concurrent posts. One use per thread. If the summoned demigod also has mastered this ability, they can remain until the end of the thread.
She feels the way he gathers her arm into his lap like he’s trying to hold water in his hands—gentle but desperate, every finger threaded tight as if he believes enough warmth could will the brightness back into her. She lets him; lets him pull her in and cradle her arm and wrap his hands over hers, lets him speak soft reprimands with kind eyes and a mouth too sweet for the weight of this room. But she doesn’t lean in or collapse against him. Not because she doesn’t want to, though. There’s a wild, aching part of her that wants to slip beneath his touch like it’s surf meeting shore, wants to pour herself into the curve of his chest and disappear there for a while. But something inside her is hollowed out, bruised and echoing, and the space between his kindness and her ruin feels too wide to cross just now with all the lines creating x's across the only path she knows.
Flora's body is boneless against Kai's, heavy and languid from salves and sleeplessness, but her heart stays curled in on itself, a tight bud refusing to bloom. After Jack—after the awful, final tenderness of that goodbye and the quiet devastation it left behind—Flora doesn’t have it in her to wade through the murky waters of what is and isn't allowed with Kai, not even when he’s right here trying to gather her back together like sea glass in his palms.
She glances at him when he mentions death like it’s meant to mean something bigger than it does in their world, and the truth is, she doesn’t know how to frame her pain against the lives that her parents lead. She’s not divine like they are, though. She hasn't been tasked with anything; she’s just reckless, so really, doesn't she only have herself to blame?
His fingers brush the backs of hers, light as breath, and then he’s lifting her hand to his mouth, and it’s that—that—that starts to undoe her. The softness. The reverence. The way his lips press into her skin like it’s something precious, something worth saving. Her eyes sting almost instantly, tears threatening to rise without the drama of a sob or the courage of a cry. Just water, plain and simple, like the ocean she’s trying to pretend she’s sitting in.
It’s almost a relief when he lets her go, bending to remove his boots, and she looks away—blinks fast, wipes nothing from her cheek. "No dummy," she says, lighter than she feels. "The ocean is full of sand, not dirt." The corner of her mouth lifts, but the smile doesn’t quite take root. And then—quieter now, the hush of dusk settling over something raw—she adds, "but no. I'm not okay." Her toes shift in the water. "I don’t know where I belong anymore. Or what I’m supposed to do now." The words fall like confession, like surrender. "I think I've fucked everything up." Everything with him, everything with Jack, everything with Dahlia and the Family, with Torchline and her bar.
He's too intent on unlacing leather to catch how she turns away, but the way her words land on him have enough familiarity to them that he thinks maybe there's some hope yet. He drops the discarded footwear behind him with a thud, wet socks slapping after, and sinks his toes into the water with just some lint remnants drifting away into the current of their toes. All the while he listens as she talks, but he doesn't respond at first, just stares into the ocean she's created here as if he's suspicious it might still have some sharks in it.
Instead of a voice, he sidles even closer to her, so that their hips and shoulders touch with a constant, subtle pressure. He invades the space where her toes linger, putting his under hers and lifting them in the water a bit, like he means to buoy her in every way he can. While she's uncertain what is permitted, what she can do or accept, he's never been more assured that he belongs right here, holding every part of her he can manage. The brothel is long forgotten, this is just another space Flora has claimed, another one he'll join her in, doesn't matter what scenery she's painted. There's too much muted still for it to be anything more than comfort, but he sets his closest hand on her knee, like he means to keep her from drifting away.
It hasn't been long, he doesn't think, since she finished speaking. Long enough to let the quiet settle with a presence that he feels sag onto them, but it doesn't suffocate. He wants to be sure she's done before he puts his own words out there, because he's glad she finally admitted it, not being okay, and he doesn't want to trample that honesty with his enthusiasm for more of it. "Why do you think that?" he gentles the air with the question, his thumb brushing across the slope of her knee, as much to steady her as him. As far as he can tell, she's still got Torchline, and the Sugar Tide, and Jack's shadow, and all the other things she has always had, just now some extra markings on her skin. He doesn't know everything she lost to earn those, and is definitely sure it doesn't mean she ought to lose all of herself with it.
Sunlit Shadows (mastered) | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Style: Offensive | Level: Mastered
Deadly Recall | Can recall 1, or 2, or 3 of her feathers to her hand, within a range of 30ft. Recalled daggers do 1/2 damage when recalled.
Rescue (Mastered) | Remi can bring a fellow Old God demigod to his side in a time of crisis for three concurrent posts. One use per thread. If the summoned demigod also has mastered this ability, they can remain until the end of the thread.
Every place his body touches hers gives something back—presses warmth into hollow places she hadn’t realized had gone so cold. It isn’t sudden, not the kind of jolt that revives or awakens, but something slower, like sun thawing sea-glass after a long, dark tide. He doesn’t ask permission, doesn’t hesitate or hold his breath while waiting for her to speak—he just moves, constant and insistent, and Flora, always so stubborn, nevertheless finds herself slowly leaning into the shape he makes around her.
When his foot slides beneath hers, she lets out the barest breath of something that might’ve been a laugh, and slips hers from above to rest on either side of his, sandwiching his toes in a touch that’s quiet but deliberate. Her fingers curl again into his without hesitation now, this time with intention instead of reflex, and when she lets herself fold—finally, fully—into his shoulder, it’s not with the ghostly detachment of earlier. It’s with weight; with the ache of someone who needs the shore and has only just stopped swimming.
Her eyes close as her cheek settles against the soft worn fabric of his shirt, and for a long moment, she just breathes.
"He came to see me," she murmurs finally, the words stretched thin and raw like fabric held too long in saltwater. "Jack." Her voice cracks at the edges, but she doesn’t hide it. "I think it was the last conversation we’ll have. For a while...maybe ever." There’s no apology in her tone despite whatever Kai might feel about Jack. "I know how you feel about him," she adds quietly. "But I…I don’t know how I’m supposed to go home now. He’s everywhere, Kai. He’s everywhere in that place. I know the plan is to ghost around him, to pretend, to be civil, or distant, or whatever the hell people do, but I don’t know how to do that."
She sighs again, heavier now, more from within than from weariness. "After Dahlia—when she followed me from the Greatwood to King's End, I channeled all three of my dads and they managed to stab her with a rose. Hadama said that there's going to be some exchange and that the Family are going to leave.." She lifts her head just enough to glance at him, lashes low, voice trailing into something small and unsure. "It should make nearly dying worth it, but..." Her gaze dips toward the shifting, gentle tide around their feet. "I don’t know where I belong anymore. Do I stay on the Sugar Tide? Do I go back to my apartment? I know it’s dumb to feel displaced when I have too many places to live, but somehow it’s like I belong in none of them now. Like I’ve worn through the seams."
She exhales again, sharper this time, eyes flicking upward before she gestures vaguely over her shoulder. "And I don’t know what to do about the bar either. Caly came to visit me, and said the triplets have made it their own. And like..I think that’s great, but it doesn’t feel like mine anymore." Which, y'know, was maybe just fine. Maybe for the best even, but it just felt like for all Flora had done, the world had just moved on without her.
06-29-2025, 07:37 PM (This post was last modified: 06-29-2025, 08:29 PM by Kaisel.)
I'm not giving up, kicking off the rust
His toes wiggle, breaking against the surface of the water as she holds either side of one foot. One corner of his mouth twitches with the start of a smile, relieved to tug something playful and warm back into the space between them, however small. He clamps his other foot next to hers, making it a sub sandwich.
All his wiggles stop though, when she creeps back into the hold of his hand, which threads with hers instinctively, the fit familiar. Even the eventual weight of her head on his shoulder is one he recognizes, one he carries gladly. He tips his a bit too, so even their hair can hold each other, building something as close to peace as possible right now.
It's only then, when she has given up bracing, that she explains and he hears all the ways she's begun to crumble into uncertainty and grief. She’d been standing in the sea, believing she could weather every storm — but salt rusts metal, moisture warps wood, and waves wear down even stone. She might have looked okay on the surface, until this piece pulled away and revealed all the damage twisting into seams that should have been sturdy. The thing about living by the ocean... you can't expect anything to last, you just have to be ready to rebuild.
Jack's name fills Kaisel with a sigh, but he swallows it, because the air she used to say it is already fractured, and anything stronger than an exhale could send all the shards scattering into each of them. He just breaths it out, steady as any other, because he knows, or likes to think he does—how much they're still wound. It's a part of what sits between them still, like a boot slid into a door trying to shut. Even now, with all her wavering finality, Jack will always be there. Love leaves a stain, and his might as well be blood for how hard it is to get out.
The weight of what she says next surprises him. The gentle arc of motion his thumb had been tracing on her knee goes still. The Family is going to leave? He turns when she does, holding that seaglass gaze, but where he expected a flash of triumph he just finds something hurt. Flora—gods he wishes he could take all this from her.
More movement and heat starts to edge in at the end, and he wonders if this is her first time saying it all aloud, laying it all out and looking at each broken piece like a puzzle that could be rearranged into something close enough to complete if she wanted.
He doesn’t rush in with platitudes, doesn’t try to solve her tangle all at once. Instead, he pulls his hand from her knee and cups her chin with it, begging her eyes back to his. "Hey," he starts soft, trying to bring her back from the spiral of shit. "You don’t have to pick a place yet. Or a way to be. You don’t have to do any of that alone either." His thumb brushes against her cheek as he pulls some stray hair away from her eyes. "If you wanna move back to your apartment, just let me know and I'll pack up all your boxes. We could park the Sugar Tide above it, best of both. I'll even go take all the sails off Jack's ship so you'll never see him flying around again, tell all the bars to ban him so he'll go linger further away from you. Or, if you just wanna get on the Sugar Tide and sail so far away there's no maps that go out that far, I'll help you steal the wind to make the journey."
Whatever they are, he knows that he will do whatever it takes to unmute her. He doesn't have all the answers, shit is definitely fucked, but he can make sure she doesn't feel so alone trying to figure it out. "You also don't have to belong to a place," he says gently. "You can belong to people. You already do, even if you don't mean to." Something shy tugs at the edges of his lips.
Sunlit Shadows (mastered) | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Style: Offensive | Level: Mastered
Deadly Recall | Can recall 1, or 2, or 3 of her feathers to her hand, within a range of 30ft. Recalled daggers do 1/2 damage when recalled.
Rescue (Mastered) | Remi can bring a fellow Old God demigod to his side in a time of crisis for three concurrent posts. One use per thread. If the summoned demigod also has mastered this ability, they can remain until the end of the thread.
Jack would always be so much larger than just a boot in the door to Flora. He was a storm that had passed through her life again and again, a presence that filled every corner even in absence, too loud to be silenced and too familiar to forget. He had said, during their last conversation, that if love were all it took, they’d be together, and it was only the everything else that made it so hard. It wasn’t so different with Kaisel, really, whose love had arrived in moments tucked between shadows, hidden from the sun. Maybe that was the shape of love she was meant for—not the kind that flourished in daylight, but the kind that bloomed in secret, behind doors half-shut and eyes that only met when no one else could see. Maybe she was simply the sort of girl who could only be loved in hiding.
When Kai shifts to meet her eyes, she matches the movement, her gaze finding his for the briefest moment before slipping away again. She turns her focus instead to the low table nearby, where Hadama’s letter rests. "The exchange is happening in two days. And then they’ll be gone." Though the words should carry pride or even relief, they feel strangely empty in her mouth, as though victory had arrived wrapped in too much silence to be celebrated. There is no parade for success born out of recklessness. No fanfare for scars which could have been avoided.
Kai draws her gaze again with the gentlest touch, and though her eyes lift in answer, she cannot hold him there for long. The tenderness in his expression is far too much, and the warmth of his thumb tracing over her cheek feels like it could melt every defence she’s built just to keep him safe. His promises unfold between them—of sails removed and skies remade, of winds stolen and paths rerouted—but they only remind her how quickly she would give everything in return, how deeply she would destroy herself just to keep him from breaking under the weight of what she brings.
"That’s the problem with belonging to people," she murmurs, and the words slide into the water between them like driftwood loosened from the wreckage of something once whole. "There’s no one I haven’t hurt." She keeps her eyes down as the litany unfolds, as the ache begins to crack open in her voice no matter how tightly she tries to hold it closed. "Hadama hasn’t spoken to Sohalia just because I asked her to send a letter, and he was furious with me for ages. And Koa, gods, loving me seems to have made his life worse and even now that he's trying with Sohalia it feels like I've made it impossible."
Flora's fingers tighten, not around Kai's, but in the folds of her dress in her lap as she pulls her hand away enough to fold inward again, shoulders curling forward as her gaze drops to the gentle ripples below. The tears do not fall, but they press against her throat and her eyes like a tide that refuses to recede. The pressure grounds her for a moment, just long enough to raise her eyes and meet his with something raw and hollowed. "You nearly died because of Jack," she says softly, her voice a breath away from breaking. "And Jack did die. Because of me."
Even now, the words feel heavy in her mouth, too jagged to swallow, too sharp to leave unspoken. They hang there for only a moment before the next truth falls—quieter than the rest, but deeper somehow, like something lost beneath all the rest of it. "And my twin. He died because of me too." Enzo had been the first victim of her recklessness all those years ago, because she'd wanted adventure and freedom and Enzo had paid the price for it.
She's convinced herself she's the shade and not the sun. He can't fully see it yet, doesn't realize just how many internal scars she's carved into herself, as if every choice she's made can only be sparkling and perfect or else she is the worst. He can see enough though, especially when she glances away quickly, when she withdraws again like all his attempts to press in something warm have been too hot on skin too sensitive for anything but room temp.
As she folds in on herself, Kaisel lets her hand slip from his. If she needs the space, he'll give it, but he refuses to break the other tethers. He keeps his foot tangled with hers in the water, solid and quiet, his shoulder still nudged against hers. It's all a promise that he's not going anywhere. If she demands more space, he'll yield that too, and if she kicks him out of the room, he'll sleep outside the door.
He glances at the ocean around them, shaking his head a bit as she talks. "You also the reason the birds fly?" he asks with a lift of his 'brows, skeptical. "Are you why the trees lose their leaves?" He's quiet for a moment, not really expecting an answer, but letting the point settle. "Flora, you are not in responsible for what other people choose to do, unless you've laced their food with one of your black market curses or got some mind melting magic in one of those rings." It's like she's blaming herself for the sun having to set every day.
"People make their own choices. We take risks sometimes and we choose to live or to love in dozens of different ways for hundreds of different reasons. And sometimes... that means someone gets hurt. A lot of times, actually, because life hurts." You can even get hurt by never leaving your house and staying all closed up like a hermit. Varying degrees of hurt, sure. Dropping soap on your foot isn't the same as being murdered by a member of the Family, but it's still pain.
"So, I don't see how you're the one who's in charge of everyone's decisions or pain all the sudden." He squishes her toe between his, insistent. "Even if you were, I'm not going anywhere Flora. You belong to me too, and nothing's gonna change that." For all the ways Jack is spilled across her and lingering, she's something in him he'll never be rid of. He'd rather take all the knocked over soda and soaked in beer that's set in because of her than something clean and empty. He wants to know what being hurt by her is like, because then it reaffirms something bigger than him matters.
Sunlit Shadows (mastered) | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Style: Offensive | Level: Mastered
Deadly Recall | Can recall 1, or 2, or 3 of her feathers to her hand, within a range of 30ft. Recalled daggers do 1/2 damage when recalled.
Rescue (Mastered) | Remi can bring a fellow Old God demigod to his side in a time of crisis for three concurrent posts. One use per thread. If the summoned demigod also has mastered this ability, they can remain until the end of the thread.
She shakes her head, not to dismiss him but because he truly doesn’t understand, and it’s all too much to explain. Plenty of people have been called difficult, complicated, hard to love—but none of them have the kind of track record she does. No one else has had a crown of broken promises pressed so tightly into their skin that even kindness feels like it might splinter beneath the weight of their choices. Her breath hitches, eyes shining with unshed tears, and then she turns sharply toward him, her voice rising louder than she intends.
"I am responsible," she says, the words breaking loose before she can soften them. "Because I’m the one who makes the choices. Not just for me, but for them." Her fingers curl again into the fabric of her dress, as though she could squeeze the memory from her hands, could press it all down deep enough that it might finally be still. "Before the war, Enzo told me he’d go wherever I wanted. And I wanted Torchline. I wanted freedom and adventure. I wanted something bigger than the life we had, and he said yes like he always did, and now he’s gone."
She shakes her head again, this time smaller, more fragile, like she’s trying to erase the thought before it forms too clearly. "Jack got caught up in all of this because of me. Because of my choices. Because I was too loud, too reckless, too me. He was targeted and killed by Pierce because of me."
Her voice falters, caught on the edge of something too raw to shape, and when she opens her mouth again, the words are almost too quiet to carry. "Even with you—" But the rest doesn’t come.
She thinks about how she was the one who asked him to stay that night, how it was her idea to blur the line that had once held them safe. She had kissed him. She crossed the boundary they’d so carefully drawn, and even if he says he doesn’t regret it, even if he tells her he’s still here, she can’t shake the sense that she’s the common denominator in all this unravelling. The hand that keeps tugging at the seam until everything splits open.
Her gaze drops once more to the water, where their feet still drift together, toes tangling like roots in salt and silence, and though she doesn’t say another word, the truth is there in every breath she takes: she wants to believe him, wants to let herself rest in the space he offers, but he's just one voice not loud enough to drown out those of her parents, of Jack, of the Deimos's and Hadama's of the world saying no, no, you fucked up.
He doesn't flinch at the increased volume or the edge to it. Welcomes it in fact, if it means some color is coming back to her. He'll take whatever she'll give. He wants her frustration, her grief, her mistakes and her explanations. He'll let her place it all into him if it helps lighten her.
Every name she spills wrenches his heart a bit further, so convinced they're all marked with her signature alone. It takes him a moment to steady his own breathing, to quiet the first flash of protest that rises, because he knows she doesn’t need him to argue every point like a sword fight, slicing her grief apart until it’s smaller. She needs him to hold it. To hold her.
So he does.
The leg he's kept anchored next to her withdraws, water dotting the stone edge as he straddles it and faces her. He reaches out with both hands to cup her cheeks now, and this time he won't let her look away. He leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead, then tips his to rest against hers, breathing her in like he needs her.
"Okay," he says, simple and soft, the word feeling far too thin to cover what she’s confessed. "Okay, you made choices and it affected other people. They made choices too though." He draws in a steady breath, letting it out slow, hoping she can feel the calm of it against her skin. "Flora... after every bad choice, every too-loud, too-reckless thing you think you did—they chose to be with you still." His thumb strokes along her cheekbone, as if he could soothe every break in her voice, every place she’s tried to patch herself together with guilt.
He's certain that for every bad decision, she made even more good ones. For every flaw she's got dozens of perfect angles, and that's why she always manages to shine. "I know you think you wrecked everything, but I’m telling you right now, Ro—" he pulls away to look at those water-lined eyes, a fierce edge in his, "—I’d rather be wrecked by you than live clean and safe without you. Every single time."
He wants nothing more than to gather her in his arms and carry her through this, but even as his fingers twitch with the desire, he keeps them still, reminded of the wounds still healing on her back and sides when the scent of ointments drifts in every so often. "I don't know what you're trying to be Flora, but perfect isn't real and I'd rather have the mess of you just as you are." He pulls her faintly towards him, his hands threading into the sides of her damp curls, and he leans back in to lightly seal a kiss on her mouth, full of all the things he can't articulate.
He can't seem to remember what a line even is anymore.
Sunlit Shadows (mastered) | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Style: Offensive | Level: Mastered
Deadly Recall | Can recall 1, or 2, or 3 of her feathers to her hand, within a range of 30ft. Recalled daggers do 1/2 damage when recalled.
Rescue (Mastered) | Remi can bring a fellow Old God demigod to his side in a time of crisis for three concurrent posts. One use per thread. If the summoned demigod also has mastered this ability, they can remain until the end of the thread.
The moment the words leave his mouth—they chose to be with you still—something catches in Flora's chest like fabric torn mid-seam. A sob rises but doesn’t crest, caught too tightly in her throat to escape, because they didn’t. Not all of them. Not him. Jack had chosen silence, had chosen distance, had chosen to carve her out of his life like she was a cancer that needed removing before she ruined him entirely. And even though she knows Kaisel means well, that his arms are a harbour and his words are meant to be balm, the ache of it swells inside her all the same. If she’d been quieter, softer, easier—if she hadn’t asked for too much or needed so loudly—maybe Jack wouldn’t have slipped away in the end.
But the argument wilts on her tongue the moment Kaisel’s fingers brush across her cheek. The gentle drag of his thumb, the warmth of his palm against her skin, undoes her in ways words never could. Her aqua gaze lifts and finds his again, luminous and trembling beneath the weight of too much feeling. A single tear spills free, trailing down the curve of her cheek to land on his thumb, glistening like something sacred and ruinous both.
When he tells her he’d rather be wrecked by her, the air leaves her lungs like a wave pulled back to sea. It’s the sweetest thing she’s ever heard, and it’s devastating precisely because she believes him. Believes he means it with every beat of his too-big heart. And gods, that’s the problem. He thinks he can survive her because he’s never taken a step back far enough to see the damage she leaves behind. He’s still standing in the eye of it all, where it’s calm and warm and deceptively safe—but if he drifts even a little to the edge, if he ever turns around to see the wreckage behind her, she knows he’ll find nothing but splinters and salt. Her storms have never left anything standing, whether he chooses to believe that or not.
She opens her mouth to tell him—to warn him, to protect him from her—but before the words can shape themselves, he’s kissing her. It shouldn’t surprise her, not when every part of them fits so easily like this, but it does. Familiarity and shock fold together in the space between their mouths, in the way his fingers curl into the edges of her damp curls, in the way her hand finds his thigh and presses there like she’s grounding herself with touch alone. Her body leans into his with an urgency born of longing and instinct, every part of her turning toward him before her mind can catch up with the why of it all (and perhaps most importantly, the why not).
And then—too soon—there’s a knock at the door.
Flora jumps, the spell shattering with a suddenness that makes her inhale sharply through her nose as she pulls back, blinking as though surfacing from underwater. A woman pokes her head in, polite and calm in a way that feels mildly accusatory, holding a small woven basket full of creams and bandages. Flora straightens just enough to pull her shoulders back, as if guilt alone has made her spine stiffen, and she smooths a strand of hair behind her ear before exhaling, voice touched with breathless embarrassment. "Sorry," she murmurs. "Thank you. Um—Kai can help me with that you don't have to stay."
Her chin tilts toward Kaisel, her expression too composed to be casual and too soft to be convincing. The woman gives her a look that holds both scepticism and understanding, then nods once before quietly stepping out and closing the door behind her.
He's never fully recognized the weight she always carries. She always shrugs everything off, like it isn't heavy, like a smile and some gold-laced fingers are all you need to solve the problems of the world. He believes she could, armed with just that, because who would be willing to let that slip away. Not the world.
He hasn't really thought this through. He hasn’t exactly rushed into it. It’s more like he’s eased back into a space he knows, one that feels familiar now. That's the thing with stepping over something, it teaches you that you can. All those years abiding the keep off the grass signs, like there's lawn police about to haul you away. You finally break once, and suddenly you realize you could've been making your own path all this time.
It's not just that, though. Maybe that's why he doesn't hesitate for longer than he did, but he's trying to give her the same comfort she gave him when he'd been drifting down into the bullshit. That night on the Sugar Tide, she'd made every monumental issue feel like something small enough to pick up again. Not because she solved all his problems, or because she fought them in his stead, but because she'd been there. Because she'd crawled onto a bench with him and entertained dreams until some small part of them became real enough to grab onto, just for a little while. He can't untangle Jack from her heart, he can't pull Enzo from the ground, he can't repair everything that she's broken, even the things she's just scared of crashing apart. He can sit next to her while it all happens though, and he can love her, like he always has, like he's still learning how.
He's not sure his kiss even came close to saying all of that, but she doesn't withdraw, and that's something he'll seize. At least, until...
"Hi!" he greets the stranger, one hand lifted up in a small wave as the woman delivers the assorted dressings. Kaisel glances at it, the meaning behind all of it twisting in his chest even as the door seals the woods and the sea shut again. His other leg pulls out of the water, wet toes leaving stains that fade into the seascape before he quietly stands and grabs for the basket. He rounds on her, basket balanced in his hand. He's here. He will be here. No amount of hurt, no amount of bandages or scars or storms will push him away.
"Alright, walk me through it," he says, voice pitched steady, shoulders set with a quiet determination, his gaze as sure as a sunrise on her. "Where to start. Where to stop. Whatever you need, Flora."
