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“Where are we going again?” Luz asks, looking around the beautiful town. Even living in the boiling isles, she still hasn’t seen anything quite as magnificent as this. She expects to have that same thought about a lot of things here. It feels like every place she visits is more spectacular than the last.
“Is where we’re going really important?” Hunter snaps, irritated. His eyes keep darting around, so he’s definitely looking for a specific place. Suddenly, Hunter feels an odd sensation on his arm. It felt like… a little prick. He wonders if it could be a bug, until he hears Luz wince.
“Are you okay?” He asks, suddenly feeling a harsher prick. He sees a drop of acid rain land on Luz as she tries to rub the area to soothe the burn. He looks around and noticed people hurriedly running under any type of shelter they could find. He grabbed Luz’s hand and sprinted under the nearest safety he could find.
He sees Luz glancing down and notices their hands intertwined. He blushes before quickly pulling away, turning to look back out to hide his rosy cheeks so she wouldn’t notice.
Luz looks around, and noticed they’re surrounded by flowers of all kinds. “Hey, is this a flower shop?” She asks, picking a red flower with much bigger thorns that usual. She guesses this is the boiling isles version of a rose?
“I don’t know,” Hunter answers, looking around and seeing the same thing she does, “I guess”. He notices Luz picking more of them from their stands. “What are you doing? This is a shop. Are you going to pay for those?” He asked, genuinely confused as to what she was doing.
“I’ll put them back once I’m done. I’m just trying to pass the time, that’s all.” She answered, as she intricately arranged the flowers in her hands, grabbing some more as she went along.
Soon, she had what looked like some type of headwear made of flowers, and handed it to Hunter. He looked down at it, eyebrows scrunched up as he tilted the strange piece.
“It’s called a flower crown.” Luz giggled, grabbing it and putting it on his head. “Why?” He asked, adjusting it to try and keep the thorns away from his skin. “Because it looks pretty!” She giggled, starting the process of making another one.
He looked just outside the canopy they found themselves under and saw a forming acid rain puddle. Looking into it, he saw the floral crown he’d been gifted. It’s such an odd thing to be given, yet for some reason, looking at it gives him butterflies in his stomach.
Feeling the blush creep upon his features, he quickly turns away and sees Luz just finishing it. She looked incredibly focused, not wanting to permanently damage the roses. He looked at the way her eyebrows scrunched up, her tongue just barely stuck out of her mouth, her fingers slowly, carefully placing the stems into each other to finally create another crown. After determining it was done, she proudly put the crown on her head, smiling.
“So, what’s the purpose of this anyway? Are we going to play pretend now?” He joked, not realizing what Pandora’s box he just opened. Luz’s eyes jolted wide as she stood still for a couple seconds. “YES. What roles should we play? No- Wait. I just decided. I’ll be the crowned princess of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world called… The boiling isles. And you’ll be a brave knight, hoping to take my hand in marriage!” She explained, waving her hands around trying to build a story.
He smiled, hearing her explain her story, until she mentioned marriage. His eyes shot open, a blush appearing on his face more obvious than it ever. “I’m… Trying to take your hand in marriage?” He repeated, desperately hoping he heard it wrong.
“Oh… Yeah… B-But it’s all just pretend. That’s the point obviously.” Luz awkwardly laughed, rubbing the back of her neck. “Yeah. Of course.” He agreed, joining in on the awkward laughter.
“So Anyways, before we start, you need to understand the lore. I just thought about all of it less than a minute ago so it might be a bit confusing, but we can just add on until it all makes sense,” She began explaining. The two sat on the floor as Hunter listened to her explain everything.