Not On The Surface

The water was cooling and relaxing as she floated and tried to let her thoughts clear. She wasn't very successful at that, not that she ever was, but she did try. She tried to remind herself of all of the things that were right and positive in their lives. They lived in a pack they liked on this beautiful island, all of their basic needs of food and shelter were easily met here, and health wise she had never been better. They had each other and they had really been the only constants in either of their lives for as long as she could remember. If there was so much going right and so much to be grateful for, why could she only think about the things that made her uncomfortable or didn't sit right with her? On one side of things she wished that she could just look past those things so that she could be happy the way she had been back when she was still naive about the way things were. On the other side she wished she was actually brave enough to do something about it instead of just following along while Balthier pretended everything was fine.

As she slowly drifted away, she heard a soft swish through the water and in a moment Balthier was swimming up beside her. She slowed till she was mostly just wading water so that she could look at him as he spoke and asked her if she was alright. Immediately a small smile fell into place on her lips. The pretending and the hiding came second nature now while she did anything to alleviate his concerns so that he wouldn't have to see her own. Every time they fought or had some sort of disagreement it felt like her whole world would slip away with nothing else there to catch her so she avoided it no matter how much that voice in the back of her mind was screaming for her to tell him. Yeah, I'm alright. Just... You know... Stuff with hormones and my heat and stuff," she insisted, waving off anything he might have noticed. Maybe if she could at least have some kind of relief form the physical, primal desires then it would at least clear one foggy part of her mind, but the possibilities and consequences of that right now made her too nervous to give in to it.

"Azzurra & Balthier"