Noctisardor Bypass my throat is a beehive pitched in the river

awkward florence is... awkward?

It takes a moment for the woman to realize the mistake, hoarding all the blame even though she’d let the embrace go on a little longer than she should. Florence shakes her head, trying to ward away the words being spoken too fast. Even if embarrassment takes place on her features, she can’t help but to see something else there. Disappointment, maybe, or the absence of the hope she’d noted before she’d been crashed into.

“I could—” Florence fights the new lump forming in her throat. The idea flew to her lips well before she’d been able to process it and she only strains a smile to lighten up the situation. As if she could brush it off as no big deal and shed the embarrassment she figured they both felt: “I could pretend, if you wanted?”

The suggestion confuses the girl and why it graced the tip of her tongue, why she offered to be someone else for a stranger. A joke? Her brows knit together before she shakes her head, an awkward chuckle trying to break the new apprehension Florence puts between them.