floriealis

[floriealis]

just here to say that i miss alexa

[floriealis]

this blog is still on a temporary hiatus! i can mostly be found @taroet or @izstevns if i am anywhere at all <3

[floriealis]

He says it like benediction, glinting and hollow— Out. As if the word is armor. As if syllables can exorcise the rot that’s already taken root. ( As if names ever saved anyone. ) Yvella doesn’t laugh. Not really. What slips past her lips is softer— less air, more gravity. It falls, not like rain, but ash— the kind that knows how to settle into your lungs and rewrite the way you breathe. She watches him through it. Through the static. Eyes like old wounds that never bled right. A gaze that hums beneath the razored curl of her smile. Something ancient. Something inevitable. “        Is that what you think this is?        ” A question made of glass. Of teeth. Not blinked, not moved. Just existed— like stormclouds do, like silence before a scream, like the second before steel kisses skin. “        A pitch?        ” The word rolls from her tongue like something spoiled. Too polite. Too clean. Too human to survive here.

She steps forward— not to touch, not to strike, but to remind. She could. She always could. And the ground knows it. The night doesn’t flinch. The shadows don’t flee. If anything— they lean in. “        I’m not here to sell you anything, Vincent.        ” Her voice is honey and rust. “        I’m not some crossroads demon playing dress-up. If I wanted your soul — darling — I’d already have it.        ” The truth lands like a dropped blade. No menace. Just physics. Just gravity’s slow, relentless hymn. Rain doesn’t threaten the roof before it breaks through. “        What I’m offering,        ” she says, and it glows in her throat like embers, “        is clarity. A mirror that doesn’t flinch. One that don’t blink the way you do.        ”

She maps his face with her eyes like a cartographer of damage. She knows where the fault lines live. She remembers the first one. Say it again, ‘out.’ She doesn’t say this part aloud. But it lives between her teeth anyway. She steps closer. Not enough to touch. Enough to haunt. “        You think this resistance keeps you safe?        ” she breathes. “        You think it unhooks you from the bones under Tremé? From the prayers you stopped muttering when even the ghosts stopped listening?        ” Her voice is inevitable now. The sound of locks clicking. Of tides turning without asking. “        You don’t walk from this.        ” Not her. Not the city. Not the bargain already signed in the silence between his heartbeats.

“        You say you know what this place costs,        ” she whispers — barely a breath, barely a wound — “        but do you know what it’s owed?        ” A pause. Heavy. Holy. Something buried, something bleeding beneath it all. “        I came to collect, Vincent. That’s all.        ” Not to beg. Not to bleed. Not to barter. She tilts her head— the way levees do, right before they decide to fail. And the smile she gives him isn’t cruel. It’s arithmetic. It’s weather. “        But if you need to call it a devil’s bargain,        ” she offers, low and almost-kind, “        then fine. Let me be your devil.        ” A breath. A silence shaped like an altar left burning. “        Now ask me what the city whispered to me last night,        ” she teases, “        while you were dreaming of a peace that never even knew your name.        ”

#𝚅𝙶 ⸻ the devil never knocks in new orleans. she just walks in like she owns the place. and tonight, she wears yvella's face. voice like velvet and ash, graceful as rust bleeding through the cracks of something sacred. vincent's teeth ache from how wrong it all feels. like being smiled at by a curse with good posture or being blessed by a ghost that never meant to leave. she steps closer, and the light dies trying to touch her. just gives up. FLICKERS. folds in on itself. and he feels it --- the air shift \ the pressure mount \ the scrape of old magic in his bones, familiar as guilt, as grief, as all the choices he didn't make but was forced to carry anyway.

“ the whole story? ” his voice, when it comes, is a slow burn. measured, grounded, wrought. “ see — the thing about stories, is they don't always end where you think they will. ” eyes sharp, feet steady, spine locked like a ward as his breath is held, PAUSED, then exhaled like a warning. “ and i've heard enough of 'em to know when the price tag's been written in someone else's blood. ” he takes a step too, then. just one, not forward or back, but into the gravity of her. not pulled, simply bracing. “ so if you've got a pitch, you better make it plain. 'cause i don't do devil's bargains wrapped up in poetry anymore. ”

vincent shifts, just a fraction. something under the skin remembering what it feels like to be burned. “ not even for you. especially for you. ” he doesn't say it quick. he lets the weight of it settle first, lets it crawl down the spine of the night like a final spell. the truth of it tastes like iron behind his teeth: bitter, necessary. and the silence that follows? it drips. slow, like molasses in a summer storm. because she's right. he knows this city. [ he's bled for it \ buried in it \ been reborn by it and broken all over again ] he's watched it eat saints like sugar. cami with her open hands and stubborn light. father o'connell, who gave more than he ever took. davina, bright and furious, too young to be a martyr but still made one anyway. THE GOOD ONES. always the good ones. picked clean right from the bone.

his jaw tightens. shoulders square. that ache behind his eyes blooms again, old grief cracking its knuckles in his skull. “ yeah, i know what this place does. ” voice low, ever tired and true right down to the very last syllable he spits. “ i know what it costs. what it wants. what it devours. doesn't change my answer. ” his gaze cuts through her now. not sharp, but unshakable. “ i'm out. ”

[floriealis]

Izzie Stevens hadn’t meant to land in Stars Hollow— god, what a name, like something stitched into a child’s bedsheet or whispered at the edge of an old radio song. She was just driving. Motion for motion’s sake. Escape by odometer. An exorcism in fifth gear. Luggage: minimal. A single duffel with enough clothing to suggest she still made plans, still had somewhere to be. She didn’t. And then— snow. Not the city kind, slushed and sullen, but real snow, like silence made visible. A town, dreamlike. A diner with a name that didn't pretend to be anything else. A man behind the counter with a gruff voice but steady hands, his aura warm anyway.  Now: Day Two. Still here. Unexplained. Unapologetic. The bell above Luke’s Diner cried out in its usual ritual, and warmth spilled toward her in waves. She stepped inside, shook off the cold like memory. She didn’t even know if she liked coffee anymore— it had become a hospital taste. Sterile. Urgent. Bitter enough to cauterize a wound. But her hands remembered— the heat of the mug, the lie of steadiness it promised.

She found Lorelai in the corner. Just Lorelai. Because this was the kind of town where people didn’t need last names. Only stories. And everyone already knew yours, even before you opened your mouth. Izzie sat down beside her. No permission. No hesitation. Just presence. Because that’s the only thing she had ever been good at— arriving.  Even when she had no idea how to stay. “        I don’t know how you function without collapsing into caffeine-induced madness,        ” she said, eyes on the cup like it might answer her instead. “        I used to drink it like an IV. Now I smell it and I think of scalpels and trauma rooms and… crying in stairwells.        ” It spilled. Honest. Too honest. Always too much, too soon. She was that kind of wound. The kind that didn’t bleed until someone asked how you were doing.

The quiet settled like snowfall— not cold, just... inevitable. She traced the rim of her mug. Ghosts of calluses. Proof she once held lives in her hands and tried to keep them from slipping. “        I was a surgeon,        ” she said, like it was an apology. “        Before I walked away from it. Or maybe it walked away from me. Depends on the day, honestly.        ” She had fed herself fictions: Leaving is healing. Stillness is sanity. Normal is possible. But what was normal, anyway? A town where snow was soft, and dogs had names and titles, and grief didn't knock— it wandered in, took off its boots, and sat at the counter.

“        I’m sorry,        ” she muttered, voice barely hers, to the coffee, to the woman beside her, to the parts of herself that kept making noise. “        I talk too much when people don’t know me. Like maybe if I say enough, I’ll prove I was here. Just in case I vanish again.        ” There it was. The marrow of her. No filters, no polish. Just the ache that didn’t know where else to go. And Lorelai, chaotic and grounded like a kite tied to the earth with thread and a smile, just listened. Izzie looked up. Met her eyes, and in them— saw something that didn’t flinch. “        You have one of those faces,        ” she said softly, “        the dangerous kind. Makes people want to unburden. Spill decade-old secrets like diner coffee.        ” A beat. A breath. A smile— small, cautious, real. “        I guess what I’m saying is... thanks. For not calling me crazy and making me leave.        ” And outside, the snow kept falling like time had decided to pause just long enough for her to stay. / @venustrape liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !

[floriealis]

A huff, expelled— not laugh, not breath, not anything really. Just pressure, something trying to escape, the sound of restraint with nowhere to go. Her fingers twitch. Hungry things. Wanting. A flick. A grip. A throat. Anything but fabric. But there it is again: the fray of her own sleeve, the raggedy edge of being. Always her. Always empty. Always ready to fight ghosts with bare hands. “        Yeah,        ” drawn out like a blade unsheathed. Drawn out like a vendetta whispered into the dark. A word that tastes like rust and aftermath. She tilts her gaze up— ceiling, cracked. Veins above her like the body is bleeding from the inside. Watermarks bloom across the plaster: bruise-colored flowers. Rot disguised as memory.

“        There’s probably a thousand names for people like us,        ” she says, and each one sounds like a slur someone forgot to swallow. Survivors. Monsters. Collateral. Pick your poison, pick your pronoun, pick the scar that fits best. She kicks at the floor like she’s trying to dig her way back to the beginning. Back to bedrock. Back to something that doesn’t lie. ( But the foundation lies too. ) “        Personally?        ” flatline voice, all oxygen and no pulse. “        I like ‘liabilities.’        ” Official. Cold. A word with paperwork. A word someone writes down when they want to forget you faster. True enough to sting. That’s the trick, isn’t it? Not the knife. The honesty behind it.

She leans now. Shoulder finds plaster. Hope’s heat still clinging to the wall like sweat from a dream. Ghosts don’t knock anymore— they just take up space. If it’s not the dead, it’s the version of her who thought she’d make it out clean. ( Spoiler: she didn’t. ) She scratches her wrist— no blood, no scab, no sin visible. But the skin knows. It remembers. “        I used to think…        ” whispered like a confession to a God that already left the building. “        If I just stayed clean, kept my head down, I’d dodge the fallout.        ” But fallout doesn’t care about intentions. It settles. It stains. It knows how to cling. She doesn’t look at Hope. Doesn’t need to. They’ve both been through the same fire. Breathed the same ash. Soot sisters. Burned different, branded the same.

“        It always gets on you,        ” she says. Blood. Smoke. Guilt. Pick a remnant. It’s on your hands either way. A shrug now— jagged, like she’s trying to rip the past off her shoulders but it’s sewn into the lining. “        So maybe that’s the word,        ” not hero, not villain, not survivor. Just: marked. Chews her cheek like penance. Then — light, almost — “        But hey, like I said… if we’re already marked,        ” ( And we are. God, we are. ) “        might as well leave a mark back.        ” There. Not softness. Never softness. Steel. Burned into belief. A kind of holy rage that keeps burning after the match dies. She looks at Hope, finally. Chin up. Eyes steady. No armor, no smirk. Just invitation disguised as threat. “        Yeah?        ” Not really a question. More approval. A prayer with teeth.

hope shifts. slowly, barely. shoulder peeling off the wall, just a fraction of space, like the air around her has changed. or maybe she has. or maybe it's just the heat: thick and clinging and alive in that way fire always is before it takes. there's something alive in her eyes, too. something burning, something bruised. a kind of stillness that has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with pressure. she is both the wick and the flame. and any minute, she could detonate if only you breathed too loud. [ still our busted hands. still the same broken blueprints. ]

the tribrid doesn't argue. how could she? it's true. every word, TRUTH, like glass under skin. but there's something else, too. something in the curve of her spine, the press of her thumb against her own palm, the way her breath comes a little tighter now. something other, something dangerous found hidden in the notion of not giving up. she nods once. slow, solid. her tongue dragging across the inside of her cheek --- thinking, bracing, biting back the part of her that wants to laugh and scream and throw something just to feel it all leave her body.

“ and somehow its always us left still breathing when it's done. ” dull blades around the edges, these are words that have been spoken before. words that have been lived again and again and again. THEM: still breathing when it's done, like it or not. and they don't, not really. it wasn't the sort of goal that offered any prize. just a hollow space inside the chest and a shrine for those lost along the way. “ we never get to stay clean. just … closest to the wreckage when it stops moving. ” a beat. this one drags. then decides to stay, perhaps longer than it should.

“ so yeah, let's make it a good one. ” and this time when she says it, there's no smirk. no wolf biting. just the quiet, terrible promise of someone who's already decided if the world's going to burn anyway — might as well be their fire. her knuckles crack as she flexes her hands once, twice, an itch for impact. “ think there's a word for people like us? ” head tilts. more curious than playful. tired and strained in its own way. “ i mean … besides the really obvious one. ”

[floriealis]

Sunlight, soft as breath on glass, dissolving into the edges of afternoon. Penelope — pressed in shadow, in silk, in hesitation — stepped into the Bridgerton conservatory and found the world had stilled. As if Mayfair itself had exhaled, and now waited. Roses whispered their perfume into the air— lush, aching. But it was something else that curled in the hush between stone and bloom. Not quite memory. Not yet desire. Perhaps the ache of becoming. And Sophie Baek— Still. Folded. Composed. A portrait, not painted but survived. Not beautiful in the way girls were taught to be beautiful— no powdered perfection, no gilded noise. She was beautiful like dusk was beautiful: quiet, inevitable, refusing applause.

Penelope hovered. Unmoored. Forget-me-not dress suddenly too loud, too chosen. She wanted to shrink from herself, from her frills and her fictions, and sink into the wall of roses where no one knew her name— neither Penelope Featherington nor Lady Whistledown. “        I’m not intruding, am I?        ” she said, a lie shaped like a question. She had already crossed the threshold. Sophie turned. Only slightly. An orbit adjusting, not welcoming. And still, Penelope sat— awkward, fluttering, counterfeit calm. Her hands a parody of composure in her lap. Her insides a fluttering thing, the same kind that Colin once sparked— but not the same.

The silence returned, heavy as velvet. Penelope — chatterbox, secret-keeper, ink-stained oracle — had never met a quiet she couldn’t drown. But Sophie did not seem to need saving from the silence. And Penelope— Penelope wasn’t sure if she did either. Not anymore. Still, it frightened her. Not ballroom-fright. Not mama’s-eyes-on-you fright. The fright of looking into still water, and seeing your own face blink back— unmasked. “        I’ve always liked it here,        ” she said, half to Sophie, half to the air blooming behind them. “        The conservatory. The only place in Mayfair where one may be alone, and yet utterly surrounded by life.        ” She meant: This is the only place I can breathe. She meant: Please see me. Penelope didn’t expect for Sophie to answer. But her profile — lit soft with the amber mourning of the sun — was carved from truth. From honesty. From something Penelope had never dared put on the page. 

She looked down. Hands twisting. Words threatening to spill like ink from a split bottle. “        You’re not like the others.        ” A whisper. A wound. “        You move through this world like you’re not afraid of it.        ” Not a compliment. A confession. No reply needed. It wasn’t a conversation. It was an undoing. Penelope had worn masks so long she forgot the shape of her own mouth. Cleverness was armor. Wit was armor. Lady Whistledown had been a fortress of words with no doors, no windows, no softness. But Sophie— Sophie had no armor. And still she survived.  Maybe that was what made Penelope ache. Maybe that was what made her stay.

She swallowed. Hard. Bitter. “        I think I came out here to be alone,        ” she said. A sentence dressed in ink and falsehood. Because the truth — the wild, unedited truth — was this: She was tired of being alone. Alone with ghosts. Alone with pages. Alone in rooms full of people who never looked twice. She was tired of being seen only when hidden. And Sophie— Sophie saw. And stayed. Still. Always. / @sopineun liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !

[floriealis]

New York— never sleeps, only simmers.  Even now, in the lull between chaos and reconstruction, she hums. A hymn of asphalt and exhaustion. A city stitched together with taxi sighs and neon scars. Jazz spills from a window. Not loud. Just enough to remind you you’re alive. Or trying to be. Steve stands in it. The hush. Arms folded like a question no one’s answered yet. The wind at his back speaks in tongues, but he’s not in the mood to listen. The shield— always with him. A relic. A habit. A promise on his spine. Not a mission tonight. Just a pull. A pattern. A presence.

Her. Chloe. Wrong name for the right kind of ghost. Not from here— not this time, not this Earth, not this rhythm of broken glass and endless sky. But she wears the world like it owes her nothing. Talks too fast. Smiles like the muscle aches. Stands like she knows what it costs to be the one who stays. Steve knows that weight. Recognized it first in the mirror, then in Natasha’s eyes— not the sharpness, but the silence underneath it. Chloe reads a room like it’s burning. Counts exits. Always. How the ones who’ve survived long enough learn to do that. He doesn’t trust. Not easily. Not anymore. But lies— they have a taste. She doesn’t serve them. Just truth wrapped in misdirection. Like jazz. Improvised. Real. Bleeding at the edges.

The rooftop stretches beneath him, city light scattered like fractured gold. There had been static. Encrypted coordinates. A whisper buried in noise. Only she heard it. Only she understood. Decrypted it like it was child’s play, dropped the intel in his lap, and vanished like nothing had happened. Two weeks ago. Now— creak of the door. Boots kissing concrete. Her silhouette, blooming behind him. But he doesn’t turn. Not yet. His voice— low. Not a threat. Just a truth laid bare: “        I don’t know what you’re looking for.       ” A pause. Jazz breathes between them. “        But you’ve stepped into something bigger than you realize. People usually want something— from the Avengers, from me.       ”

A glance. Half over the shoulder. Not suspicion. Something gentler. Tighter. Like a string pulled taut between then and now. “       You’re not from here.       ” Not just New York. Here. This.  Then— he turns. The skyline frames him. Light carving his jaw in gold and ash. “        I’ve been patient.       ” ( He always is. Until he’s not. ) “        But if you’re going to keep showing up…       ” A breath. A softness. Almost warmth. “   I think I deserve the truth.       ” And then, the question, offered like an open hand or the first note of a song that might never end: “        Who are you, really?       ” / @venustrape liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !

[floriealis]

The question lands not as a sound, but as a hush— barefoot and trembling, a thing too soft to touch, and yet it halts her. Not her feet. Not even her breath. No— deeper. Something buried in the ritual hum of her surviving. The ache she’s spent years sweeping beneath practiced smiles and laminated schedules. Could you help me? It splits her open— not loud, but tectonic. A fault line beneath her ribs. A shiver where there should be structure. And it’s the way she asks— Hope, child of storms and ruin, asking not as the needy do, but like someone excavating the shape of need itself, brushing dust from bone and memory: as if the question came long before she had a voice, and long after she forgot how to use it.

Caroline feels her chest tighten. Not grief. Not quite. Recognition. Because yes. She knows. What it is to stand on the edge of the living with a body still warm and a soul refusing to thaw. To wake in a world that spins and spins and spins, and never once slows for the newly broken. To wear love like a bruise and call it proof. To hurt as if hurting is the only way to keep them close. Their eyes meet. Clear. Steady. Soft in the way only survivors can be. Only the ones who’ve cracked and kept walking. Only the ones who’ve begged the night for silence and made peace when it answered.

“        Yes,        ” she says. Not loud. Not trembling. Just… yes. A word like a held hand. A presence, not a cure. A truth, not a fix. Her voice holds. But her eyes — oh, her eyes — they shine like altars lit for the still-living. Then: “        There’s no manual for grief,        ” and if there was, you know she’d have indexed it, highlighted it, pressed it into the trembling hands of every shattered heart with a plastic smile and tired hope. But this isn’t that. This is memory speaking now. And all the versions of her that bled to make it. “        We confuse strength with silence,        ” she says, “     with still-standing, still-breathing, still-smiling— but survival isn’t only healing. It’s just the doorway.        ”

Healing, she wants to whisper, is a mosaic. Not clean. Not linear. But jagged pieces refracted into meaning— every fractured self, every breathless night, every silent scream pressed into something that still glows. “        You get to keep all of it,        ” she says, “        the drowning and the rising both.        ” And then: a hand. Hers. Reaching— not as savior, but as an anchor. Not dragging. Not fixing. Just being. “        I’ll help you.        ” No ache this time. No trembling in the vow. Just certainty. Just truth. “        As long as it takes. As long as you need. You’re not alone in this.        ” A breath. A beat. Something beginning. “        You never were.        ” And softer still, as if the words have waited lifetimes to be said aloud— “        You don’t have to live like this forever. You’re allowed to live like more.        ”

the words don't hit all at once. they seep. like floodwater, like light through a cracked door she hadn't meant to open. and suddenly it's loud inside her chest again. so very loud. every memory, every silence, every time she stood still because moving meant leaving something behind. someone behind. [ you're carrying love, too. ] it doesn't land gently. it never lands gently, not in a body such as hers. a body born of war and shaped by sacrifice. of a father, a mother, an uncle, a friend. on and on and on again. leaving her here, like this, with this body that's always carried a bit too much.

the ache lodges in her throat before she can stop it, fists curling at her sides. breath— one, two, three —flutters too fast in her ribs. and she's not crying. but she thinks she could if only she had enough grace to let herself. instead, her eyes burn but don't break. lips parting like she's going to speak, only to not. a beat, a beat, a beat. they come and go, rise and fall, thoughts churning inside an overly crowded head. until finally, “ i don't know how to carry it without hurting. ” the admission is thin and barely there. a whisper branded with shame --- because she's supposed to be strong. because she's supposed to know. because she's supposed to be HIS daughter and her mother's legacy. the hope of so many people. and right now? all she feels is small.

hope's gaze drifts. not down this time, not away, but through. searching, desperately, hopelessly, for somewhere that grief can't reach. she doesn't find it. “ i want to believe you. i really do. ” breath comes more broken than the last. the tremor from the ache bloomed beneath her ribs. she bides her time. trying and failing to fight off the crack that threatens to overtake her voice. “ but i don't know how to stop thinking that letting it in means letting go. ” she stops. swallows. it hurts. “ i don't know how to stop being afraid that if i feel anything else, then one day i'll drown in it. or worse— ” that i won't. that i'll lose more than just it, them, myself. that i won't know how to exist without it. that i'll only let them down again — the silence that follows is thick. yet not empty, not the way she'd prefer. no, it hums with everything that could be said and everything that doesn't have to be as hope's fingers reach, instinctively, shakily, for the sleeve of her jacket again. then stop. hover, then fall.

“ i don't want to live like this forever. ” and the truth of it hits her as she says it. i don't want to live like this forever. she hadn't known. hadn't dared to know. uncertain whether it was even allowed of her. if she even had a CHOICE in the matter. if it could be anything more than a betrayal to all those who had come before her. fighting, clawing, dying to keep her safe. to keep her here, alive and breathing. and so forms her next thought. not a demand, or even really a request. just a girl with a thousand ghosts inside of her, finally reaching for something that might resemble light. “ could you help me? ”

[floriealis]

Izzie Stevens was tired in that behind-the-eyes, marrow-in-the-bones way, the kind of tired that sleep couldn’t fix and caffeine only dared to mock. A hollowed-out tired. A left-the-body-hours-ago tired. A held-together-by-clipboard-and-willpower kind of tired. Seattle Grace sighed around her. Not silent, no — hospitals don’t do silence, not really — but hushed. Like a beast sleeping under thin skin. Monitors pulsed in lullabies. The pit emptied. Interns: gone or horizontal, limbs thrown over on-call beds like afterthoughts. But Izzie? Still there. Always. She haunted the corridors like regret in white sneakers. Not penance— not anymore. She’d outgrown the idea of punishment the same way she’d outgrown hope: reluctantly, bitterly, with her nails still dug in. Not since Denny. Not since the dress, the bathroom tiles cold against her skin, mascara bleeding into grief. Not since the heart didn’t come.

Now? She just stayed. Because where else was there. Her eyes tracked the clipboard in her hand— reading without reading, walking without walking. Floating. Orbiting herself. Until— Collision. A flash of blonde. A blazer too crisp for these walls. Confidence with Miami sun still stitched into its seams. “        Calleigh?        ” A name, startled into the air like a bird flying into glass. Not meant to be spoken. Not meant to be. But there she was. Backlit by fluorescents like something pulled from a fever-dream. A half-memory with badge edges and crime-scene residue. Wrong place, wrong world. And yet— exactly right. Izzie blinked. Once. Twice. The room didn’t change. The feeling didn’t leave. They hadn’t talked much— small nods over vital signs and extra blankets.

Calleigh: George’s cousin. Calleigh: smoke in her lungs, sharpness in her eyes. But there was a pull, quiet but undeniable. Like static between radio stations. Like recognition across timelines. “        You’re still here,        ” Izzie said, like it wasn’t obvious. Like it wasn’t always 8:00 p.m. in this place. Like she hadn’t hoped. A smile tugged at her lips but died short of blooming. Because honesty is a dangerous drug.  She glanced at the folder in her hands like it mattered. Like it could hold her weight. But her voice cracked a little softer when she added, “        How’s your chest? Breathing still okay?        ” Doctor mode. Safety mode. Pretend it’s clinical. Pretend it’s not a lifeline being coiled, slowly, between two women who forgot how to ask for things.

Because Calleigh had seen her. Not the coat. Not the clipboard. Her. Like she was visible. Like she was still someone worth looking at. And God— visibility felt like mercy. A breath. A beat. Then: “        You hungry?        ” Words spilled before permission. An offer, awkward and hopeful, tangled up in vending machine jokes and lavender lies. Crap food. Better drinks. A chance. It wasn’t a date. It wasn’t anything. It was a moment. A door cracked open by exhaustion and something softer. Izzie hesitated. Let her eyes stay. Let herself be seen. “        I could use some air.        ” / @cduquesne liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !

[floriealis]

The Salvatore house— a hollowed shell. A cathedral of shadows where the absence of Stefan was not grief but vacancy, a cold shape pressed into the walls. Elena stood, still but not steady, arms folded like a fortress, fingers twitching, restless beneath knit sleeves. The afternoon light dragged itself through tall windows, gold dissecting wood in cruel slashes. Dust danced in the beams— time, dissected, suspended. Stale. And the quiet — god, the quiet — was not peace. It pulsed, it clawed. It was silence that listened. Silence that waited. Then: Click. Click. Click. The sound of inevitability in four-inch heels. Katherine Pierce entered like an afterthought sharp enough to cut open the room. Perfume preceded her— roses, yes, but the kind that bled at the edges. Elena didn’t need to turn. The air had already changed its shape to make room for her. Her. Herself, not herself. Her twin by fire and blood and bad decisions. The Not-Elena. A trick of bone and mirror.

She watched the hearth instead. Blackened wood. Fireless. Unchanged. A metaphor, maybe. A mistake, more likely. But it fit— some things burn out and no one bothers to sweep the ashes. “        I thought you'd show up,        ” Elena said.  ( Flat. Not invitation. Not fear. Just fact. ) “        You always do.        ” Silence, again. Katherine’s favorite blade. She never wielded daggers when a pause would do. The quiet smirk rippled across the room like a heatwave. Elena could feel it on her skin, on her spine. She turned, finally. There she was. Face to face with her face. Always disorienting. Always off by just a fraction— like a painting with the eyes too wide, the mouth too sharp. Katherine, beautiful in the way wildfires are beautiful— spectacle, ruin, awe. Elena looked and didn’t flinch, but still, something ached.

“        You know, I used to wonder,        ” she began, quiet like a confession wrapped in glass, “        what it would be like to meet you. The photo in Stefan's drawer… I thought he still loved you. Thought I was the echo, the afterimage, the mistake made twice.        ” A laugh. But it fractured in the stillness, bitter and brittle. “        But I see you now. And I’m not scared.        ” ( Not the same kind of scared. Not anymore. ) There was still fear. Of course there was. But it lived in her differently now, like marrow instead of muscle. Something deep. Ancient. Recognized. “        You’re not me,        ” Elena whispered, as if saying it aloud would solidify it, would break the spell. “        You wear my face. That’s all.        ” And then— the truth. The wound. The thing that sat behind her ribs for days, months, maybe lifetimes. “        But I think you used to be.        ” The words hung. No oxygen left to carry them.

“        You loved. Once.        ” A whisper now. “        Stefan. Elijah. Maybe even others. Before you killed the softness in you to keep breathing.        ” She stepped forward. “        I see it in your eyes sometimes— like a light that forgot it could still flicker.        ” Another step. Another breath. Closer now. “        You pretend you don’t care. That nothing matters. But if that’s true… why are you still here?        ” Elena’s heart— faster, but steady. Not from fear. Not really. From clarity. “        You said we’re the same. You were wrong. I choose to care.        ” ( And it is a choice. Every day. Every aching second. ) “        Even when it wrecks me.        ” She stared into her own eyes— no, not her own, not anymore — and searched for something to break. A flicker. A shift. But Katherine was ice and steel and empty, and Elena saw only herself, warped in a funhouse mirror. “      You're not a ghost I’m afraid of,        ” Elena said, not loud, not fierce— just true. “        You're just a girl who burned every bridge because crossing one meant admitting you still had something to lose.        ” She stepped back. Enough. Enough to breathe again. “        I’m not your shadow,        ” she finished, “        and I’m not your mirror, either.        ” / @ayarn liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !

[floriealis]

The hospital at night did not breathe like it did during the day. It exhaled. Long and slow and strange. Not a place of dying, no— a place of echo. Of ghosts pressed like fingerprints into linoleum. Of whispers caught in the corners, swirling with the hum of fluorescents too tired to stay bright. Izzie Stevens sat on the edge of a gurney that had not moved in days. Threadbare. Forgotten. Like her. Coffee — machine-birthed and copper-bitten — shivered in her grip. Tasted like regret and old metal. Her scrubs wore exhaustion like a badge. Her badge wore exhaustion sideways. She didn't care. Next to her: Alex. Spine to wall. Eyes half-dreaming. Limbs folded in that half-guarded, half-gone way of his. Not talking. Not not talking. Just breathing in tandem, like lungs learning a language together.

Her hands trembled. She watched them as though they were someone else’s. As though they might confess something if she stared long enough. It’s nothing, She told herself. Again. Again. Again. Fatigue. Dizzy spells. Thoughts unraveling like thread pulled too fast from a sleeve. Stress. Residency. Life. ( But then she saw Denny. Not metaphor. Not dream. Presence. A rupture in the real. ) Her gaze dragged upward— Alex, still folded into himself, a question without punctuation. Always defending something. Maybe just his own heart. Maybe hers. He hadn’t noticed. Or maybe he had. And decided not to say. ( He was always good at pretending silence was mercy. )

She hadn’t told him. Hadn’t told anyone. The hallucinations. The secret bloodwork. The voice in her head that wasn’t hers but sounded so familiar— Denny. Grief in his timbre. Doubt in his breath. A farewell in every vowel. Tears prickled behind her eyes. Premature grief. Premature everything. Alex rustled. Soft jacket, soft movement. It startled her like a gunshot anyway. Izzie, he said. Or didn’t. ( Maybe his bones said it. ) Their eyes met. Brief. Heavy. And she— smiled. The kind of smile you give when the world is collapsing inside your chest and you don’t want to ruin the silence. A smile like a bandage on a bullet wound.

“        You know,        ” she said. Quiet. Barely a sound. Just enough to crack the stillness. “        I used to think if I worked hard enough, I could fix everything. Save everyone.        ” A laugh. One note. Paper-thin. “        Turns out, that’s not how it works.        ” She didn’t know why she said it. ( Except she did. ) Because silence is a wound too, and hers was festering. And somewhere beneath skin and bone, a scream coiled: Tell him. Tell him the truth before it calcifies. Before it eats you whole. But she didn’t. Not yet. She just sat there— cup cooling, lungs syncing, watching the man who had become her center without her permission. And outside the window, the city blinked its sleepless eyes, unaware that something sacred was breaking softly. / @1stresponders liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !

[floriealis]

The moon was bruised that night— low-slung and sallow, like it had taken a hit and never fully healed. A smear behind cloud-skin. Below it: Miami. Neon bones. Electric nerves. A city dreaming in static and crime scene tape, louder at midnight than it ever dared to be at noon. Skye stood beneath a palm tree bent like an old question mark. Wind through fronds like fingers combing wet hair. And she? She was a ghost, maybe. Or something worse— something pretending not to be. She didn’t belong here. Not with the fluorescents. Not with the glass-walled absolutes. Not with the forensics who needed proof and the scientists who needed sequence. She was born in the pause between spells. Raised in ambiguity, fed on consequence, baptized not in fire but in blood that remembered names. And someone had written hers — her family’s — on a wall. In red. Enough to pull her from the Quarter, from the ghosts who whispered in French, from the bones of her brothers and the bitter lullabies of old magics. South, now. Swallowed by salt air. Watching a woman who smelled like magnolia and gunpowder catalogue the dead. 

Calleigh Duquesne. A name like a trigger. A rhythm in three syllables. People said it soft, behind glass, like it might shatter if spoken too loud. Skye had listened. Noticed. And now, here she stood. Watching. Not speaking. Their meeting had not been orchestrated. It was a collision. Blood like a question on asphalt. No footprints. No logic. No human explanation. Just Skye — hair like wind, eyes like prophecy — slipping into the periphery, too real to be ignored. She hadn’t been invited, not really. But she’d been seen. That was enough. Now: silence. Calleigh kneeling beside a shell casing like it was a relic. Hands steady. Hair tucked. Movements precise. Like she’d taught herself how to move without flinching, how to make grace out of aftermath. 

Skye watched. Felt something catch, not lust, no— recognition. Steel magnolia. That’s what they called her. Soft where she chose to be. Unbreakable where it mattered. And Skye— Skye knew the power in a beautiful mask. Knew how to wield softness like armor. Had worn it herself when her skin was ice and her family made legends from ruin. Her voice, when it came, was the sound ash makes as it falls. Almost nothing. But still, it lands. “        You ever wonder what’s left of a person after the bullet?        ” Not the gore. Not the science. “        The echo.        ” Not a question. Not really. Just a truth. A splinter. A leak in the dam she hadn’t meant to open. The streetlight bathed her in false gold. Made her glow. Made the scar on her wrist flicker, ghostlike. Almost gone. But not. Never really.

She looked at Calleigh. Really looked. Eyes like storm-water and ancient grief. Not empty. Just… full of echoes. “        There’s a pattern in all this,        ” she said, voice like the hush before thunder. “        Not one your machines will find. But it’s there. A melody under the noise.        ” A beat. “        Whoever did this isn’t just killing. They’re composing.        ” A silence, deliberate. Not for effect— just weight. “        I’ve seen that kind of madness before.        ” She didn’t explain. Didn’t unspool the centuries. The monsters. The magic. The ruin. Didn’t need to. Calleigh didn’t seem the type to be seduced by story. Only by what rang true. And Skye— Skye had nothing left but truth, scraped clean of illusion. The last thing she hadn’t drowned in regret.

“        I can help,        ” she said. A breath. “        If you’ll let me.        ” Then she turned her gaze away, a kindness. Gave space. Didn’t crowd. Just stood. Wild in the quiet way. Haunted but not hollow. A woman made of smoke and starlight. Of memories that bite and magic that hums just under the skin. Of storms survived. And maybe — maybe — a wish not yet buried. She didn’t move. Didn’t flee. Just stood still. Beside a woman who looked like a safe place in a world that wasn’t. And maybe that was enough. Maybe that was the start. / @cduquesne liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !

[floriealis]

Rain — thin as breath, sharp as memory — threaded its fingers through broken glass and the crooked harp strings of the frame. The greenhouse sighed, bones rusting, Spanish moss swaying like eavesdropping phantoms outside. Inside: smoke. Bitter rue, curling from Yvella Valéry’s fingertips like old regrets dressed in ritual. Wormwood still in the air. Rust. The taste of old blood on the tongue, if you dared to breathe too deep. She hadn’t been back long— just long enough to haunt the alleyways that once knew her name in whispers. Long enough to make the soil shiver beneath her boots. Not long enough for the ghosts to forget what she’d done. She stood before a stone basin— black water, still-but-not-still, a mirror that did not follow her lead. ( Reflections lie. Hers always have. )

“        I used to come here when I was a child,        ” she said, voice low, soft like velvet dragged across broken glass. “        This place was different then. Less rot. More belief.        ” A pause, a breath. “        My aunt said the plants would listen if you asked nicely.        ” A pause again. “        I never did.        ” Then she turned — slow as a spell half-cast — toward the girl ( the woman, the storm ), Davina Claire, resurrected witchling, High Priestess with thunder in her eyes. Too young, too powerful, too much— and all of it familiar. Yvella blinked, and saw herself in a younger body with different scars. Not the features, no. The posture. The spine. Straight like a blade forged in death, returned sharper. The covens whisper her name now, the way they once whispered Yvella’s— a warning hidden in awe.

She stepped forward. Glass cracked beneath her heels. Dried herbs whispered beneath her weight. Magic pulled at her ribs, damp and distorted by old bones and older laws. New Orleans — the city of anchors and ghosts — still tried to leash her to soil and scream. She felt them watching. Her mother, maybe. Or the ones she silenced with too much ceremony. They never stayed quiet long. “        I’m not here to threaten you,        ” Yvella said, even though her name tasted like a threat. “        If I wanted your covens, they’d already be mine.        ” Then, sharper, cleaner: “        What I want is to know what kind of witch you’re going to be now that the dead have spat you back into the game.        ” She leaned — rusted table groaning like it remembered — brushing aside shriveled mugwort like a bad memory.

“        They say you died for love.        ” A half-laugh, dry as bone. “        Came back for it, too. That’s sweet.        ” ( Like poison sugar. ) “        Naïve, but sweet.        ” A flicker at her mouth— not a smile, not quite. “        I died for power. Came back for the rest.        ” Rain quickened above them, a percussion of gods drumming fingers on a tin sky. And quieter now, closer, like a secret: “        You feel it too, don’t you?        ” The hum beneath the stones. The off-key buzz of magic undone. The city, squirming in its skin. The spirits restless, thirsting for something they can’t name. “   New Orleans,        ” she whispered, “      has always had too many kings.        ” A pause. A beat like thunder thinking. “         And never enough queens.        ” Her eyes caught fire in the reflectionless dark. “        I think it’s time that changed.        ” / @ayarn liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !

[floriealis]

ANNE WITH AN E (2017 - 2019) | s01 ep01 'YOUR WILL SHALL DECIDE YOUR DESTINY'

[floriealis]

&. 𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐬 (𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬?) 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

(  various  dialogue  prompts  to  send  to  your  worst  enemy  (affectionate).  feel  free  to  change  how  you  seem  fit.  )

❛ oh great, it's you again. ❜

❛ you? kill me? that's funny. ❜

❛ for being someone you hate, i'm sure on your mind a lot. ❜

❛ you're the last person i wanted to see, actually. ❜

❛ do us both a favor. stay away from me. ❜

❛ you really are an asshole, you know that? ❜

❛ i'm the asshole? what does that make you then? ❜

❛ sometimes i think you must hate me. ❜

❛ i thought you said you never wanted to see me again. ❜

❛ if you want me to go, then you have to tell me to leave. ❜

❛ well, someone's cranky today. ❜

❛ well, someone needs to shut the fuck up. ❜

❛ just stay out of my way. ❜

❛ of all the idiots in the world, i'm stuck with you. ❜

❛ what is it you want this time? ❜

❛ sometimes i wonder if you're in love with me. ❜

❛ do you honestly think this is easy for me? ❜

❛ why would i ever want to be friends with you? ❜

❛ can we please just talk? ❜

❛ there is nothing for us to talk about. ❜

❛ you can yell at me later. just let me help you. ❜

❛ touch me, and you're dead. ❜

❛ oh, so now you care? ❜

❛ there is something deeply wrong with you. ❜

❛ i know i'm the last person you probably want to see, but... ❜

❛ you don't think we could be friends, do you? ❜

❛ i'm tired of fighting against you. ❜

❛ don't pretend you give a shit about me. ❜

❛ you're an idiot, but... i trust you. ❜

❛ oh, don't be cute. ❜

❛ wait, did you just say that i'm cute? ❜

❛ we're not good for each other. ❜

❛ if i say yes, will you shut up? ❜

❛ don't you have to be stupid somewhere else? ❜

❛ maybe we should kiss just to break the tension. ❜

❛ i'm sorry i can't turn off my feelings as easily as you. ❜

❛ maybe there's a universe out there where we're friends. ❜

❛ how can you be so smart yet so dumb at the same time? ❜

❛ don't think this changes anything between us. ❜

❛ you look ridiculous in that outfit, by the way. ❜

❛ if you die, i'll kill you. ❜

❛ is that a challenge? ❜

❛ ah, so you're not heartless after all. ❜

❛ i don't think i've ever seen you smile. ❜

❛ you never cared about me, so why now? ❜

❛ why didn't you kill me when you had the chance? ❜

❛ i don't even remember why we started fighting. ❜

❛ i don't have time for distractions right now. ❜

❛ you're not as bad as everyone says you are. ❜

❛ enemies make the best lovers, you know. ❜

[floriealis]

Melinda smiled— not the teeth-bared, light-soaked kind. No, this one was made of hush. Made of maybe-laters and half-swallowed truths, a smile that bent like breath fogging glass. One part thank you, two parts I’m sorry, a whisper of don’t look too close. Andrea knew— she always knew. Knew where the seams split under the skin, even when Melinda patched them over with sarcasm and steadiness and hands that didn't shake until the room was empty. The teacup made a sound like memory when she set it down. Soft. Ceramic brushing glass like a sigh against time. Her fingers didn’t leave it. Old porcelain, delicate. Fragile like moments, like grief. Ghosts could hide in objects, she’d decided. Ghosts could chip themselves into things when no one was watching.

“        You’re getting too good at this,        ” she said— not to the cup. Not quite. “        Reading the static. Cracking the quiet.        ” Her thumb found a chip that hadn’t existed until it did. Or maybe it had always been there. Funny, how damage wears an invisibility cloak until the light hits it sideways. “        They’re mellow.        ” Pause. Rewind. Try again. “        I think.        ” Words came like puzzle pieces from a box with no lid— pieces that didn’t always click. “        They feel… shy. Like they weren’t supposed to be here, but now they are, and they’re too polite to haunt properly.        ” Laughter, papery-thin. Folded too many times. Nearly transparent. “        That’s the trick, isn’t it?        ” Softer now. “        It’s not the loud ones. The screamers, the slammers, the ‘look at me’ poltergeist tantrums— those you can fix. Give them a name, a memory, a doorway... But the quiet ones?        ” She let the words drift like dust motes. “        They become wallpaper. They don’t shout. They settle. They wait.        ” And she— she saw them. Always. Even when she begged not to.

Tap, tap, tap. Fingers on the counter. A rhythm. A tether. Don’t float. Stay here. Stay here. “        Sometimes I think… what if I just didn’t? Didn’t open the door. Didn’t listen. Let one ghost slip away into the static.        ” Then she looked up, and the world slowed to meet her eyes. Clear, quiet impact. An anchor made of Andrea. “        Maybe they’d find their way,        ” she said. “        Maybe not. But I remember what it’s like to be the lost one. To scream into silence so long you forget how your voice sounds.        ” The cup spun again in her hands. Beautiful still. More so, maybe, because of the flaw. Like something still surviving the breaking. “        That’s them, Dre. Static souls. Half-erased. Echoes waiting for someone to remember the shape they used to be.        ” Her voice cracked like thin ice then stitched itself back together with practiced hands.

“        I’ll call if I need backup. Or bubble wrap.        ” A smirk— sharp-edged, worn soft at the corners. Armor disguised as humor. Look, I’m fine. Laugh. It helps. But the truth sat quiet, curled at the bottom of her breath: Tired. Tired of liminal spaces and invisible griefs. Tired of carrying the weight of unfinished stories like ghosts pulling on her sleeves. But Andrea— Andrea didn’t just see the ghosts. She saw her. And that? That was the closest thing to sacred Melinda had ever known.

it's the usual dance, their almost daily habit – first, she catches a glimpse of her best friend frozen in the moment, distracted, drawn in by a presence hidden from your average antique shop co-owner's eye, but there nonetheless. this is when she knows to check in. as subtle as the changes in melinda's demeanor can be, years of friendship tend to equip you with the ability to point them out – sense the tension as if it is your own. it's never a question of whether there's someone from beyond the veil trying to reach out. it's a question of what kind of feeling they evoke. are they confused or are they angry ? are they a cool morning breeze or a sharp shard of glass carelessly launching itself at her best friend ? the truth is, either way, she gets the shivers every time. not sharing in melinda's gift means never knowing for certain what they're dealing with. as good a judge of character andrea is among the living, it's a skill that doesn't serve her in this type of situation. if everything's fine, she'll have to take mel's word for it each time. even if it is with a grain of salt.

soft, though inquisitive browns catch warm sunlight as the broom in her hands comes to a halt, forearm resting right on top of it while she waits. those two words don't sound quite right. 'i'm fine' is never really enough to put her mind at ease. & luckily, she doesn't have to ask for the translation. " yeah, i think i'll pass on ruining the good ceramics. maybe i'll use something tucked away in storage instead. " she leans into the joke for a moment, the grin across her face slowly losing its edge. " mel... " she starts gently, broom placed aside as she takes a few steps closer. " as much as i'd love it if you could get your hands on a remote & turn off the ghost channel, we both know that's not how it works. " though she agrees with one thing : it would be nice if the spirits stopped hijacking her partner during work hours. " you're in the business of helping people find peace. as much as these things freak me out sometimes, it doesn't change the fact that what you do is extremely meaningful. " a note of pride in her voice, almost as loud as the sympathy in her eyes. " so, our new friend... mean or mellow ? just tell me if i need to take the fragile stuff out of here. "

[floriealis]

Sky Bright noticed him the way you notice the weight of air before a storm. Not with the eyes, no— not really. With the skin. With the breath. With the space between her and the world suddenly rearranged. Stillness. But not performative. Not the kind that says look at me. No, this stillness wore itself, a coat soaked in seven layers of rain, dripping silence down his sleeves. She had seen auras before— bright things, erratic things, neon and nervous, pop-rock fizz and static sugar. But his— his was a lake, deep underground, steel-grey and cold to the touch unless you knew how to stare. ( Not everyone knows how to stare. She did. Unfortunately. ) She hadn’t meant to see. Not really. She’d learned to look away, learned that peeking into people made the world louder, messier, more. And the world already screamed. But his presence— it hummed. Off-kilter. Sharp along the edges.

Curiosity, at first. Then: soft ache. Recognition without context. A déjà vu in slow motion. They were paired— student group, something academic, something forgettable. Narrative structure in media. Stories about stories. How fitting. They didn’t talk. Not at first. Silence braided between them, not awkward but alive. Breathing. Waiting. And Sky— Sky watched him the way one watches the ghost of a melody in a room you used to love. Like her hands remembered chords her mouth didn’t. Words happened, eventually. An afternoon faded into grey. Café-scented in cinnamon and damp wood. Books like small, cluttered altars between them. “        You like to draw, right?        ” ( She didn’t look at him. Of course she didn’t. )  Her fingers danced with the zipper on her guitar case. Her voice was casual— but made of paper. Thin. Rippable. He looked up. She didn’t wait.

“        You tap your pencil when you think. You shade the edges of your pages. Not doodles. Not noise. Lines. Lines like someone who sees shape before it’s real.        ” She didn’t say it— didn’t need to:  I see you. Her parents saw in color. She heard in music. They bled into canvas. She bled into sound. She looked, finally— just once. Aura: shifted. Just slightly. Steel-grey stirred by ghost wind. And beneath it— rust. Old pain. Something red that dried too slow. She didn’t ask. Didn’t name it. Naming ghosts makes them stay longer. Instead: “        My parents are artists,        ” she said, words unspooling like yarn off a too-small spool. “        Turpentine and canvases and permanent mess.        ” Beat. “        I hated it. Thought I didn’t fit. Then I found music. Turns out I just needed a different kind of canvas.        ” Rain tapped like a metronome on the glass.

And then— the bleeding: “        Sometimes I think we all find the right way to bleed.        ” There it was. Too much. Too sharp. But she didn’t reel it in. Didn’t take it back with her mouth. Only with the quiet cradling of her teacup. And then, softer: “        I don’t usually talk like this.        ” A pause. “        Sorry if it’s weird.        ” But the truth? There was something about his silence. It wasn’t hollow. It was crowded. Some people scream. Some people compose. And others— others carry their grief like a shadow stitched into the soft space between ribs. She knew. She’d lived in that silence before. And maybe — just maybe — if she played something loud enough he’d hum back, eventually. / @sequine liked for a starter ﹥ 「 ♡ 」 !