Break Away

It was the middle of the night when Azzurra quietly got up and slipped out of bed, looking back behind her to make sure Balthier was still sound asleep. The longer her heat went on the more insufferable it became and the more difficult it was to lay beside Balthier. She couldn't even fall asleep and ignore it and laying there wide awake was just maddening. On her way out the door she paused and looked at the little collection of supplies they kept in the bungalow—including a half empty bottle of wine that they had shared at some point with one of their dinners. She wasn't even all that keen on how she felt when she was drunk, but she almost just hoped that it would make her feel anything else than how she was feeling now.

She carried the bottle out to the beach, walking down a long the shore a little ways away from the bungalow before she settled down on a soft patch of sand. Pulling the cork from the bottle she started to sip the wine, taking a few drinks before sticking it down into the sand in front of her with a sigh. For so much of her life her own body had been fighting against her and keeping her trapped by her own sicknesses and now just as she was recovering and rebuilding herself her body was betraying her again. She knew it was just part of being a female, but it really just reminded her of the fact that her mother had never been around to teach her about these things. She had no idea what to expect going into it and had to figure this all out on her own.

Azzurra fidgeted with the bottle in front of her, taking another couple of drinks and watching the wine slowly disappear as it sent a warmth and a tingle though her body. At the very least it did accomplish what she had wanted and made her feel something else, but it backfired in the sense that it made her mind wander into places she was desperately trying to make it not go. The way Balthier held her, the feeling of his toned body on hers, how he could make her feel... It gnawed at her and tried to drag her back to the bungalow, but instead she got up, abandoning the now pretty much empty bottle in the sand, and walked inland though the island in the opposite direction. Crawling back into bed with Balthier when she was trying so desperately to untangle her logic from her emotions was exactly what she didn't want to do.

As she passed through the jungle of the island and wandered near the structure where Chimera and his family resided, she caught the scent of another wolf on the breeze and she glanced up from where her sapphire gaze was lingering on the ground in front of her. She spotted the pale man lingering outside of the compound and her steps began to slow. She had seen the striking man around the pack a couple of times, but she had never actually spoken to him. He wasn't nearly as big or muscled as Balthier, but he was still very handsome in his own way and she did really enjoy the bold colors that stood out against his white fur.

It struck her that if she truly ever wanted to try and untangle her life from Balthier's she needed to figure out if she even could. Was she too far gone to be attracted to anyone else? That couldn't be the case since she remembered how she felt when she was with Satira, but was that just a fluke? With the alcohol in her system it gave her enough motivation and bravery to turn her path toward him before she could second guess herself. Maybe this man she never met wasn't a good starting point for her self discovery, but at least she was somewhere she felt safe and comfortable and she didn't think that anyone here would be a danger to her at the very least. She gave him a smile as she approached him, giving him a friendly dip of her head in greeting. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Azzurra"