Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
Get-away striding is one of Jack's proficiencies, as Flora will undoubtedly realise once she's been around him for long enough, and he manages to make it look casual at the same time as necessarily urgent. Still, as they manage to weave themselves back through the tunnels of Rae's Fingers, the other icy lacerations he's received from the shrine start to make themselves quite apparent. And needy.
During this time, of course, Flora has thought about making out with him twice, and although he wants to swat at her hand as it presses against his cheek (ew, touching), instead he falls to a halt to raise his eyebrows at her. "You don't go back there alone, got it?" he says, choosing not to say because your dad will kill me.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Trying out the role of incredibly attractive nurse, Flora focuses her efforts on the cut on Jack's cheek, dabbing softly at it but otherwise having absolutely no idea what she was meant to do. And now she'd have to throw this scarf away, so hopefully it was worth it.
"Are you worried about me, Jack?" She wonders, slyly letting her aqua stare shift from the marks on his cheeks to his eyes and then back again. Raising her eyebrows as well, Flora tilts her head to the side with a small smile. "Maybe the shrine just needed a softer touch, you know? Maybe going in there all guns blazing made it feel threatened." She reasons, shrugging softly to herself.
Letting a crooked smile curl across his lips instead of answering her question - because not all lies are created equally - Jack reaches up to carefully guide her hand down and away from his cheek. "I think that's bullshit," he says cheerfully. "I reckon it'd feel threatened even if you tried to dismantle it all soft like." Letting her keep the bloody scarf (put that in your diary, Flora), he gestures for them to get going.
"If it's all the same to you, though, I could use a strong drink after that particular brand of bullshit. I can hear the Hanged Man callin' me from here. Tag along if you want." Because regardless of her plans, of course the captain is absolutely going. No makeouts just now, sorry Flora.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
He could have said anything at all to her in that moment, all soft-voiced with his hand on hers, and she'd likely have melted. "mmmm?" It's nothing more than a vocalized exhale, and Flora is absolutely sure that this is the moment. The moment he says there's only one thing he needs to feel better, the moment he strips off his shirt and says he needs her to check and see if he's hurt anywhere else, the moment this story goes from adventure heroine to romance.
Deflating, Flora's emotional metronome sharply swings as she looks down at the bloody (ruined) scarf in her hands. "Well, as nice as that sounds, maybe I'll just wait around here and see if someone with a bit more of a gentle touch comes along." There had been no makeout session and tag along if you want wasn't really an invitation, so at least if Jack was just going to leave her here, he'd have to do so with the knowledge she'd find someone else. Because you know, making Jack jealous was certainly more top of mind than staying safe.
Flora will likely never learn that jealousy both is and isn't on Jack's radar (it's very complicated and you wouldn't understand). Regardless, it absolutely isn't that emotion that grips him when she mentions staying put and trying again with someone else. Unless that someone is a demigod or someone equally as meat-shieldy, he's got a feeling she'll come out of the encounter with the shrine... well. Dead.
Definitely a no-no on the Remi Taliesin code of conduct, of which Jack knows startlingly little, but somehow still knows this. "Uh, no," he says, barking out a laugh and reaching out to snag at her appropriately-explorer-ensemble and tug her against him. "I'm pretty sure you'd much rather hang out with me, mm? I know what I'd prefer." Are they somewhat intimately close? Maybe. Depends on how likely Flora is to listen.
you wanted perfect, you got your perfect but now I'm too perfect for someone like you
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Hiccuping an ooop! as she's tugged close, Flora gasps in her surprise as she tries to twine her arms around his neck and press her appropriately-explorer-ensembled body against him. "I mean..I guess someone should make sure that you make it back okay. You might have a concussion after all." If her arms have serpentined around him, she'll try and flare her fingernails up into the bottom of his hairline.
Her thoughts are suddenly filled again with lurid looks and heaving chests; clothes tugged hastily off, though this time they land on a sticky bar floor. Bathroom stall doors shiver and shake from the passion within them as Jack calls out fucking BUSY in here to someone trying to come in.
The problem with Jack, especially at times like this, is that he's in constant danger of falling for his own con. Particularly when the target of said con starts going and imagining shit like that. For a brief and fizzing moment, it doesn't really matter whose daughter Flora is; it's just wine-slick lips and the press of skin against his own, a sensation echoed by the way Flora's fingers glide up and into the back of his hair.
"Might I?" he breathes, the crooked smile on his face never getting any less devilish. "Someone should probably check. I've heard that it's real important not to let someone go to sleep with a concussion. You know any good ways of keepin' me awake?" he wonders, and even if she is (quite successfully, he might add) draped all around him, he still tries for a few steps down the tunnel.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
08-31-2022, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 08-31-2022, 08:19 PM by Flora.)
we show off our different scarlet letters
"Mmhmmm." With her lips tucked in between her teeth, Flora nods gravely even as her eyes sparkle with mischief. "I've heard that too. I can give you a thorough checking over." She adds, somewhat predictably, but it wasn't like she needed to reinvent the wheel.
With her stomach filled with butterflies and her mind filled with all the places Jack's hands might find themselves, Flora grins widely as she nods knowledgeably. "Well...you don't strike me as a tic-tac-toe man, so I guess I'll have to come up with something interesting enough to keep you awake." She purrs, all expressive eyebrows and pouty lips.
As he takes a few steps toward daylight, the butterflies in her stomach take flight, flushing her cheeks and filling the back of her throat with a plume of laughter. Given that Jack was a few inches taller than she was, it wasn't as though Flora could walk with one arm draped over his shoulders, so she attempted to untangle herself from him whilst sneaking an arm around his waist.
Sighing out a long breath, Jack shakes his head in a way that does not suggest he disagrees with her at all. "Who am I to stop such a selfless gesture?" he murmurs. The wheel doesn't need to be reinvented and it definitely doesn't need any greasing between these two, but here they are anyway.
Tic-tac-toe is actually kind of therapeutic for the captain when he's in a bind; it's inevitability makes it never mind back to the flirting omg. "Oh, I'm sure you won't find that too difficult. You're anythin' but boring," he drawls, shifting so they might walk together and he can settle his arm comfortably arould her shoulders.
He absolutely knows all the better places his hands could go - and his tongue, too, because if Flora thinks playing solo has been fun so far, she's got another thing coming (spoiler alert: it's her). It doesn't take long for them to navigate back out of Rae's Fingers, and the brisk sea breeze is a surprise after the stillness of the tunnels. "To the Hanged Man, then?"
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Uhm? Was this all basically going perfectly? Jack with his arm around her shoulders (okay, around her waist would be better, but whatevs), saying that he wanted to hang out with her, that she was anything but boring (which, I mean, obviously she wasn't boring), and now they were basically going on a date after he'd all but saved her life?
Despite wanting to scream and skip giddily along, Flora remained reserved and cool, and confident, and...you know, all the things that made it seem like this was old hat and totally not a big thing at all.
Inhaling a deep breath of fresh air, Flora sighs and sinks against Jack as her hand falls closer to his hip. "To the Hanged Man." She agrees, singing out the words as if this were some broadway number about to kick off into a musical medley. Flora's mind is so full of what-if's that her mind can hardly get one fantasy off the ground before she's inventing a new one. They reach the Hanged Man before Flora can decide if she thinks losing her virginity on the bar counter or Jack's room in the Ark would make for a better story.
Flora almost ruins it all by being Flora about it, and Jack is shaken from his pleasant cloud of imaginary sex scenarios by the giddy young woman pressed against his side. From her perspective, it will likely just seem as though he's fallen into some brooding silence (the concussion, ow, etc.), and as they make their way to the Hanged Man and his deft fingers trace across her shoulders and the back of her neck, it's with the hope that she'll concentrate more on that than the love story.
Holding open the door for her - a gentleman, Flora, look - Jack leads them inside and swats away someone who is trying to get his attention. It can wait, because ultimately he still very much wants that stiff drink. "You want your usual?" he asks her, because how better to make this than by knowing what she drinks?
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Indeed, as Jack's fingers wander, they inadvertently (to Flora's mind at least) change the tone of her mental musings to something far more pink indeed. And then red. And then scarlet, until finally the deep ruby mist covered each and every thought of hers.
Gasp! How sweet Jack! Smiling appreciatively, Flora sashays her way ahead of him, only to pause and peer at him over one shoulder. While him knowing what her usual was as if this was something they did often filled her with joy, Flora didn't want to be a lazy participant in this game of cat and mouse. Giving her head a little shake, she pretends to think (it's all still fingers gripping satin sheets), before she smiles. "I'll have what you're having." She replies with a crisp sort of confidence.
What Jack is having is an erection, if Flora isn't careful, but he manages to focus enough to give her a wolfish smile and a nod towards one of the tables. "Your wish is my command. I do owe you for helpin' me out, after all." So saying, he heads up to the bar only to return a few moments later with two glasses of top shelf whiskey, as well as the Hanged Man's surprisingly well stocked first aid kit.
"I can only imagine the fun we could get up to with this," he drawls, sidling into his seat and taking a (well-earned, in his opinion) drink, but not before clinking his glass against her own. "I s'pose I owe you a new scarf as well, don't I?"
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Gods, those words just fill Flora's stomach with seawater and make her legs feel like jelly. She wanted to laugh and scream feeling suddenly both hot and cold. Instead of saying much of anything, she just titters a bird-like laugh before going to find them a table where she could try and coerce her thundering heartbeat to take it down a few pegs.
'Oh?' Flora muses as she looks at the first aid kit, clearly stalling for time to think up something witty to say in response. "It all seems a bit on the stuble side for someone like you." She manages, raising an eyebrow. "Not like anyone could get tied up with a few sutures, or.." Looking at the various pads of gauze, Flora gives her head a shake. "..those don't look good for dampening screams." Was any of this working? Gods, it was for her at least, because in her mind's eye Jack was saying your wish is my command as he looks up at her from his knees, his hands bound behind his back with thick rope.
Clinking her glass against his, whatever sly comment she was about to make about the things he may or may not owe her was cut off by the sudden appearance of a rather grubby man at their table. "Uhm? Can we help you?" The cacophony of images in Flora's mind was quickly sullied by the stink of stale whiskey and dried blood wafting generously from the man's clothing.
