Am I Already Dead

Azzurra had begun to turn away from him to start walking back to her own bungalow when she suddenly felt his paw on her foreleg, forcing her to stop and look back at him again. Her ears folded back with uncertainty and distrust as the contact ate at the confident facade and and the defenses she had made for herself, allowing a bit more of the turbulent emotions she was hiding peek through. His gaze was as difficult to read as always, but there was a semi familiar longing there that for some reason she hadn't expected to see. She couldn't understand that want in his expression after how they had fought and how they had left one another and that caught her off guard enough that as he stated how he would never be happy without her and started to pull her in and lean down to her for a kiss that she didn't react immediately. She hesitated and his lips met hers for a moment, but she jerked back as soon as her mind caught up with the present.

She pulled out of his hold and stumbled back a couple of steps from him, looking up at him with hurt and disbelief. "No," she told him with a hard shake of her head, her jaw tight as she forced herself to keep her emotions in check. One of them had to be able to be aware of themselves and it certainly wasn't going to be him. "You're going to have to figure out how to be. I can't keep sacrificing myself for you." No matter how he tried to twist this or put the guilt on her she knew that just wasn't the case any more and she was too worn down by all of this to keep trying to make him see what was really going on. She turned away from him then and started walking down the beach, unwilling to entertain him and his delusion any longer.

"Azzurra"