and fair maidens are as fair maidens be

Flora won't deny it: she absolutely does go in for silly men who get themselves in over their heads without hardly trying, by their very nature; who stop up at all manner of turns of phrase and trip over themselves to flatter a lady. Who are not literally impotent but who perpetually appear such, even as Flora knows that she herself has not appeared so since she was twenty-three, or thereabouts, and that's been quite some time ago, now, hasn't it?

And Triton is quite convinced of his own good looks. Crow's feet, salt and pepper... Well, there are worse ways to age, aren't there? Addam had had gray hair from the start.

(Alright, yes, yes - it's gray hair in a ponytail that she's after, isn't it?)

Yes, Flora goes in for men. She doesn't mind it; hasn't internalized biphobia about it or anything, and it's a different sort of attraction, too. Women are wonderful creatures, companions, beauty and grace or ruggedness and danger, or any other combination thereof. If ever Flora has to perform, it's when she's with a woman, because she's a little proud, secretly, and a little insecure, even more secretly yet.

Men, however...well, men are just adorable, aren't they? Quite silly. Quite handsome, and chivalrous, and strong, and protective. Quite sensitive. Quite philosophical. Flora hasn't the time nor energy now to engage in a full-scale inspection of the binaries enforced by her being bisexual and looking for such traits in the partners she peruses, but it is funny how much difference a little facial hair can make, isn't it?

As she's gotten older, too, Flora has found it easier to dote on the gentlemen she may find herself surrounded by, and not only to be doted upon. Thinking after their stressors, understanding their rage, making a point of special treats, flattering their egos with a little scandalous talk, being spontaneous but never quite running circles around them.

(Are they pets, to her? Surely not.)

We speak in the plural, don't we? But Flora has long departed her two lifelong, long-lived loves, and now in Aionios as less of a reincarnation than a ghost, she finds her memories suffused with sunset color and the idea that maybe she, too, deserves companionship, again, now.

Triton is not so addled that she would manipulate his enthuiastic attitude. But how does one suggest such a thing?

Maybe it's back to acting a pretty little thing again. If she even remembers how.

(As if she could ever forget.)

Classy and understated, no?

No, he's not. Everything about Triton is quite big, from his sentiments to his silhouette.

And every day he's back, resting, from bandying about with Ouroboros, he looms a little larger still, even as his back hunches. So Flora pauses her work with Monica (she can't help it, she's so shipshape as an administrator) and spends some time with the old salty seadog, listening to his meandering, nonsensical stories and poking in with a few of her own.

"Did he know it was you, calling, then?"

"Not hardly! 'e made a point to go 'round to every other sailor and ask 'em if they thought he was bein' a pain in the you-know-what, and me the only one who'd tell 'im, look, John, ye do call an awful lot. Just so desperate to talk to any one. Damn shame."

Flora sighs. "I'm a little bit that way myself."

"Oh, sure," Triton scratches his nose and makes an emphatic point in one somewhat-efficient motion, "but ye're easy to talk to. No one'd mind seein' the lady Flora turn up on their Iris, just askin' for a chat."

Ah, that so? "You flatter me. I'm so far removed from all the conflict, all the impetus. Of course I'll disappear when Aionios does. I was never here to begin with."

A forlorn look crosses Triton's face - and that, of all things, isn't something you tend to see often, on him. The closest he gets, usually, is a bit of perturbation as he scratches his head, trying to tease out a memory.

Could he really be that upset at the thought of Flora disappearing? At the thought that she's just as much an apparition as any other foggy production of his Moebius mind?

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean to worry you."

"Aye, well, but the cap'n does have the capacity to get so, from time t' time." Leaning over and slightly back, he presses a kiss to the corner of her jawbone, where the wispy baby hairs of once upon a time have long on turned wiry and gray. "No life's long enough for a true man o' the sea. But if I got to meet ye..."

He doesn't mind hallucinating, as it were? Ah, well, but it's just as he said. Seeing Flora in his mind's eye, just as pink-toned as all the rest, is more 'n enough for the great, late Cap'n Triton.