Not What You’d Think

The days since Balthier stormed off had been longer and more draining than she had even anticipated, but mostly because of the uncertainty of where he had gone and how long he would be gone. She didn’t feel as helpless and hopeless as she had the first time that he had walked away from her like this. She was mostly able to continue on with her day in some sibilance of normalcy, albeit with far more worry and anxiety. She kept expecting him to show up out of the blue and pick back up on the anger he had left on or for him to somehow figure out it was Erys she had slept with and take it out on him.

Instead, as she was laying in bed half asleep, a sound from the doorway started to pull her awake. Before she could fully shake the sleep that kept her groggy, whoever it was slammed into the shelving along one wall and made her jolt awake, jumping with a startled gasp and panting lightly while her heart raced from the sudden rush of adrenaline. Her sapphire gaze landed on the stumbling form of her brother and she watched in stunned silence as he staggered over to the bed and collapsed with his back to her.

As if his actions didn’t give it away, she could heavily smell the wine on him and she could tell that he had consumed a lot of it as well. She shifted to one side of the bed away from him nervously, frowning as she tried to consider what to do. She had thought about moving into a different bungalow in his absence, but hadn’t managed to do it before now and now she slightly regretted it. She thought she could probably slip out while he was in this state, probably without him even noticing, but the way he was struggling to even move without running into something made her worried and a little afraid to leave him alone. She still loved him as her brother despite everything else and didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

"Balthier?” she asked quietly, reaching over to gently tap his shoulder. "Are you alright?” It was a dumb question to ask since there was clear evidence of the opposite, but she didn’t know what else to say.

"Azzurra"