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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | Melancholy embarks on her first swimming lesson with Baird. It's perfect. 6100~ words. Personal Plot. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Afternoon in the Golden Vale is… well, golden. A honeyed sunlight pours across the golden landscape, and motes of light hang suspended in the air. The tranquil surface of the pond below Melancholy's sunrise perch seems to glow from within, reflecting the afternoon in a sun-dazzled haze.
Bryn Baird is not yet at the pond itself; he is waiting near Melancholy's tree, seated comfortably on the boulder there, leaning back on his hands and gazing at the sky. He is wearing loose, longish dark blue swim trunks and a slouchy white t-shirt. His tattooed arms are on full display, black ink on sun-gold skin. Beside him on the boulder is a threadbare blanket, rolled neatly.
A ghostly figure emerges from the Shrine, alarming no one because she's a familiar sight by now. She wears a long purplish black bathing suit paired with a long, flowing skirt of the same mageweave based material tied at the waist, her usual boots, and a black laced parasol.
More unusually, though, she carries with her a black bag, wears a shark tooth necklace, and her hair is not chaotically pinned in a bun and secured by a black veiled hat — the deep black curls are left down, hanging to her waist, and she wears no veil at all. Her make up is relatively subdued, only the dark kohl around her eyes and lashes, and the plum lips that seem more stained the color than from lipstick put on top.
She walks confidently to her tree and boulders, although she slows considerably when she sees Bryn there. She puts a hand to her face, and presses on her cheeks with her palm and the back of her hand, before continuing, coming up on Bryn's left side, leaning down. "Here we are then," she says brightly. She's already reaching into her bag to pull out the usual picnic blanket.
Bryn is not precisely startled — he was expecting her, and his sharp gaze caught her in his periphery as she approached — but for a moment he just stares at her as though… he was not… expecting…. He blinks and sits up. "Hey," he says lightly, flashing a crooked smile. "Unveil'd Melancholy." For a moment, as his gray-blue gaze skims her, it seems like he might say something else… but instead he just rises to his feet to help her with the picnic blanket.
Up close she has more than her usual scent of the fel from the fel armor she always wears — there's also a strong scent of coconut, from the sun cream. She smiles back, as she sets her parasol to the side, and helps spread out the blanket in its habitual spot. Once it's down, she removes a towel — black, of course — and sets it on the blanket, before she braces a hand against the tree to start removing her boots, slipping them off one by one quickly and tossing them haphazardly next to the towel.
"Don't worry, the skirt comes off," she says, as if this might have been a reason for a hesitation. "It's detachable, so I can wear it in water, but not for purposeful lessons, of course."
That's about all the warning he gets before she takes a bracing breath and undoes the tie, avoiding looking at him as she slides it off, tossing it on top of the boots. As she said, her legs are uncovered (worse than trousers). Cressidha has designed a neat waistline with paneling tricks and a decorative center piece to draw the eye, and mimicked the style of the peplum style with a frilled hip to add a suggestion of more curves. Like a willow enchanted into life, all of her natural curves are lithe and graceful suggestions more than dramatic.
Worried is not an adjective for the fleeting expression that crosses Bryn's face when he hears the words the skirt comes off. Whatever that expression is, though, he stifles it almost immediately.
He has less success concealing a reaction when the skirt does, in fact, come off. He actually takes a step back, staring. For a second he is perilously close to saying… something he should not, and there is a brief peculiar moment when he appears to be suffocating en plein air.
The mysterious, silent asthma attack passes, and Bryn gazes steadily and seriously at Melancholy's face and only her face. She has definitely got a face wow look at that face. The silence has gone on perhaps two beats too long when he manages to say, extremely politely, "I like your… swimsuit."
Melancholy flushes a brighter red, her gaze roaming chaotically around the blanket, the rocks, the trees, landing on nothing for very long. She gives a small, breathy laugh as she smooths down the frills as if she can make them magically longer. "Thank you. Cressidha made it — sorry, you know that already. I said, before." She gestures vaguely at him with a marble pale hand. "I like your tattoos. I assume Cressidha didn't make them, but at this point I can't say I'd be surprised to find out she did." She pops a plum lipped smile and manages to look at him with the little joke.
Baird looks briefly blank. Tattoos? Why are — oh, right, he has got those. He manages a lopsided smile in return. "Well. I can see why she has her reputation," he says, and his light tone is almost natural now. He is a grown man. He is recovering. He has seen a great many bare legs in his lifetime, and these are just — oh, nope. Don't do that. Don't look again. His gaze, for possibly the first time in their acquaintance, slides away from Melancholy. "It's very… yeah."
There should probably have been an adjective there.
"So," he says. "Good afternoon to swim."
She claps her hands together — which actually makes a sharper sound now that she isn't wearing any gloves. She's still pinkish, but not from the sun, and she seems determined to ignore it. "I'm ready to be a demented gazelle," she tells him blithely. She wiggles her feet — her toenails match her dark purple fingernails. "Do you already have a boulder in mind?"
Baird has so many things in mind.
"A boulder. Yeah," he says, and then turns to scan the pond as though he's never actually seen it before. "We're going to go around there to the west — on the left, below the hills — and the rocks along the bank there. We're not going to start with jumping in, because water deep enough to jump into safely is too deep for you to stand up in, and you probably want to be able to put your feet down at first. That okay?"
"Oh, I leave myself entirely in your hands," she says as she lets her hands fly open in an illustrative gesture with a plum lipped smile. "I have no idea what I'm doing, which is exactly why I have a teacher. I promise I will listen and follow all instructions." She stares at him expectantly for no more than a second, bouncing lightly on her toes. "Shall we then?"
"Yeah," says Baird. "C'mon this way." He turns to make his way down the little slope and around the southwestern bank of the pond.
The area he's chosen does possess some arguably fine jumping-boulders at its far end, but he stops before that, at a place where a low boulder slopes down gradually into the bright, clear water. Water lilies float along the opposite bank, and a school of tiny minnows goes flashing by in the sunlight.
Baird stops on the rocky edge to strip off his t-shirt and drop it casually in the grass. It is entirely unselfconscious, and the unbroken consistency of his sun-gold tan says that shirtlessness is an accustomed state. His build is lean and athletic, arms and back smoothly muscled by hard labor.
In addition to the rope tattoo around his right wrist and the crossed cannons on his left hand, he has a black-inked kraken wrapped around his left forearm, and an anchor on his right bicep wearing a banner that reads, A SHIP IN A HARBOR IS SAFE. When he turns away, a larger tattoo is revealed on his back. Set between his shoulderblades is the image of a ship; a crescent moon hangs above its mast, and it rides a scrolling sea set in an inverted triangular frame. In small block print down one side of the triangle and up the other, it reads, I AM THE CAPTAIN OF MY SOUL.
Melancholy, following in her habitual position slightly behind and to the left, admires the view(s), putting both hands on her pinkish cheeks in silence until she reads the words on the back. She gasps audibly, and laughs with delight. "'I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul!' What a treat!" Too long of a pause. "Of a tattoo." Whew.
Baird looks over his shoulder and flashes his habitual grin at her. "Thanks."
He wades out confidently into the water, scattering sunlight in ripples. This part of the pond is bowl-shaped: The slope leading in is fairly steep, but then the bottom gradually evens out, so that he's soon standing in an open area of waist-deep water. He turns back to wait for Melancholy.
Melancholy is inching her way to the water, cautiously — as if it might bite — and the first touch of it elicits a shocked, oh! "It's cold!" she exclaims, looking from the water to Bryn like maybe he knows a secret technique she doesn't for making it not cold, and she's somehow missed this step (she was watching closely!). She fusses for only a second before she keeps creeping delicately into the water, taking tiny mincing steps to try and catch up, making little mmph noises as she descends deeper into the water.
He's smiling at her. "It's all right," he tells her. "The faster you get in it, the faster you adjust." To demonstrate, he drops abruptly, ducking beneath the surface. He comes up again blinking and wipes a hand down his face, then shakes his head and pushes his wet hair back with both hands. He flashes his grin, blinking wet lashes. "See? Now it's perfect."
For a moment, it seems like he's managed to do the opposite of hurrying her along, because she's stopped completely, staring at him, not unlike a startled gazelle. She watches a water drop trail down from his hair to his shoulder, and then abruptly away as she nods vigorously.
"Oh, of course, yes, that's… I'll do," she tells him as she increases her pace to get into the water, wincing, and wobbling more than a little, unused to the odd drag of walking through water up to her knees and then thighs. She looks very likely to simply fall forward straight into the water in an attempt to dunk herself in.
Baird steps closer with a hand outstretched to meet her, just in case. "You're okay. It's okay. Take your own time, not trying to rush you."
Melancholy takes his hand delicately with some relief, smiling at him, and then drops down into the water in an abrupt sit to dunk herself down to her shoulders with a meep! and tips her head back to get her hair.
As she dips back to wet her hair, Baird asks with some interest, "Is that a shark's tooth?"
(It may not be the shark's tooth that first drew his attention downward when she leaned back, but hey, look! There's a shark's tooth!)
Melancholy lifts her head and rises up, a faint visible shimmer of the fel armor on the swimming suit. She looks down at the shark tooth, and picks it up with her fingers, turning it over it with a long nail. "Oh, yes! I bought it for a luckydo, just in case it did work. 'Shark's Tooth of Bona Fide Fluidic Mobility.' It's supposed to allow me to 'move through the seas with the greatest of ease,'" she recites with a touch of sing-song to the rhyming. "I don't know that I think it actually works, and this isn't the sea, but I thought what was the harm, and if it did make me lucky in the water, wouldn't that be a trick."
"'Bona Fide Fluidic Mobility,'" Baird repeats thoughtfully. "I dunno. Sailors believe weirder things. I guess if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, the only harm's what you spent on it. How's the water feel now?"
"Cold." She laughs though, and gives him the wrong handed knuckle salute, but mostly because her correct hand is occupied.
"Okay," she says, still sounding like someone who doesn't usually use it. Her hair sticks to her in a long sheet past her hips without the curls. "Now that I'm all wet, what do I do?"
Baird opens his mouth, closes it, clears his throat. "Okay, come out here a little farther. Good. What happens if you take your feet off the bottom? Keep hanging on to my hand if you need."
Melancholy follows him into the deeper water and keeps hold of his hand, as she tries to take her feet off the bottom by leaning forwards, over his arm.
"Yeah," he encourages. "You can brace on me if you need to, to start. The trick is to get you floating, but sometimes it's hard to relax enough to float on your own unless you know someone's got you." He shifts to move beside her, still lending his hand and arm for her to lean across; he reaches over her with his other arm to fit his hand to her waist, gently steadying and buoying her. "Feet up, try to lie forward and let your legs come up on their own. I've got you."
The water is cold. It's fine.
Melancholy inhales when he touches her waist. But she leans forward further, bracing against him as she tries to follow instructions. Lie forward, let her legs come up on their own. She holds her breath, maybe instinctually, as she does. Her legs leave the bottom and float softly upwards.
"Oh," she says on a slight exhale.
"Oh," he echoes, and flashes a smile. "Yeah. Look at you. Okay, keep relaxed. Don't hold your breath yet if you can help it. We've got your head up out of the water, and holding your breath will tense you up." His hand comes off her waist so that she's only braced over his arm now. "Legs up, breathe, relax."
She turns her head to smile at him with a laugh, and then closes her eyes. He can feel how on an exhale, she softens completely, easing her grip on him. Relaxing comes easily to Melancholy Grimlocke, at least with certain conditions.
"There you go," he says softly. "You're perfect. Doing perfect." Nailed it. "Okay. I'm going to start walking, and you come along with me holding on my arm and kick with your legs a little, to keep them up and propel you forward. You know what I'm talking about?"
She opens her eyes, looks up at him. "I might? I've seen people swimming before, with the splashing behind, right?"
"Yeah." He nods encouragingly. "Let's try?" He begins to move through the water, drawing her along with him over the brace of his arm.
"Okay." She knows that it's a splashing thing, so she splashes. She kicks like she's trying to shoo very disagreeable lizards below the water, one after the other, but it doesn't take her long to pick up a rhythm for it, a musician's preference for a steady cadence and count. She laughs again, looking up at him, as she crashes through the water.
He grins down at her. "Perfect," he says again. "Fun?"
"Fun," she agrees.
She has the look of someone who could do this all day, being slowly dragged through the water, kicking invisible sauroks. Her hair spreads out behind her like a dark, black lily pad of a cape, her legs flashing like minnows in the water. "I'm pretending I'm kicking sauroks below me," she tells him blithely, but already a little breathlessly.
Baird laughs. "That's perfect," he says. "Keep those lizards down. How would I say — pardon me — 'fucking' if I am being polite? Like 'those fucking lizards.' Pardon me again."
"If you're being polite?" She laughs louder, and her kicking slows, but she picks it back up. "You mean like 'cinnamon peach?' That's 'forking' like 'mutter forking.' Or 'fussing' like 'you fussing hunt.'" She wiggles a little. "You can just say it, though. Without the pardons. It's old. When I was little. I used to repeat everything. My older siblings said. So, Mom and Dad insisted. After an incident where we had company. And I came in. Two? Or three? Years old. Dragging a doll by a ribbon. Going, 'oh damn it, oh fucking damn it.'" She mimics a younger version of herself, a babytalk pitch and imperfect pronunciation.
Baird laughs again, delighted. "Dragging a doll by a ribbon. I bet you were fucking precious." He shifts his hold. "I'm going to put my arm under you, like… your midsection. I'll hold you up, so keep relaxed, but I want you to add in moving your arms to keep your head and shoulders up while you kick. Just paddling is good for now, nothing fancy." He pauses. "Do you mind? If I put my arm under you? I should have asked earlier, before I put a hand on you."
She slows in her kicking, drifting a bit more. "Oh, that's — no, no, that's fine. I was only a bit startled. I'm not used to being touched, in a general way. I did say I'd leave myself in your hands. Literally, and figuratively. I feel much more comfortable with you holding onto me. So, you may. Yes."
"Okay," he says, and withdraws his arm from her grip to slide it underneath her ribs. "So I've got you, and I'll keep you up. You work on arms and legs together." He pauses and then adds with that mild, neutral curiosity, "What do you mean you're not used to being touched?"
She fumbles with the water for a moment, until she achieves a sort of underwater slap fight version of a paddle. Immediately, she loses what little breath she'd managed to catch. "What? Oh, well. That's — outside of my family, no one does, really. And that's. Hugs from Mom and Dad. Sometimes. But the others are all. Out of the house. So, it's not often. Theris, sometimes, with a gentleman's hand to help. That sort of infrequent thing. Other than that, most of time. People avoid it. Even ordinary gentleman. I tend to have a certain effect." The six-foot-tall ghostly widow at a funeral here for your soul effect.
Baird is silent for a moment, puzzled. It is possible that he agrees Melancholy has a Certain Effect; it is possible that he feels it is the opposite of the one described. "Okay," he says at last. "Sorry if that was… a forward question." Another pause. "Lot of ordinary gentlemen must be… fussing hunts. No wonder Lady Cressidha's going with Sil."
Melancholy's laugh peals out, strongly enough that she flails in her swimming and has to slow down to just laugh, and then catch her breath. For a moment, as she laughs, she starts to put a hand up to cover her mouth — and then puts it back in the water instead. "Well. Cressidha's an Aspenwood," she says when she can speak again. "And so beautiful. She could have anyone she wants. Which is why I think it's so wonderful. That she's courting. Who she wants."
She paddles along, doing her best to keep up her water saurok kicking and slapping, breathing harder and harder. "If you do ever ask something. Too forward, or too personal. I'll say, and not answer. That's what I usually do. But, you don't ever seem to ask for a terrible reason. You're not saying something in a question. Or asking to make me say something you can be cruel to. You're just insatiably curious, aren't you? You'd read everyone like a book, if you could, I think."
Baird is grinning down at her. The arm cradling her ribs holds steady, supporting her during the brief fit of flailing. "I would," he agrees. "Was just talking about that last night with Mrs. Shine and Aszera. About biographies, and how I probably like reading 'em because I like meeting people." His smile fades, his winter-sky gaze steady on her face. "Some I'd rather read than others, though."
He looks ahead again, as if abruptly on the alert for unexpected obstacles in the peaceful pond. "So why can't you court whoever you want?"
The light goes out of her face to that distant, melancholic expression, her swimming slowing in tandem with it. And then she lifts her head as she deliberately flicks the look off her face and pulls up a smile in its place. "I wouldn't like to talk about that right now," she tells him blithely. She picks up her swimming pace again. "Do all your tattoos have secret meanings? Like the crossed cannons? Or are some pictures of things you like?"
"Some of both," Baird tells her, moving easily with the change in subject. "The rope is another like the cannons. Tells people I started out as a deckhand. The kraken is because I was aboard the Wind-wise the year Captain Fallon made his name. We captured eight ships that year. Most captains are happy to take one or two prizes a year. Eight was… some kind of record. I didn't really get it at the time, I was pretty new to it all, but in Kul Tiras they went wild over him. Some kind of celebrity. All of us who were part of it got kraken tattoos. If you see other fellows on the Blanche with krakens, it means they were with us back then.
“The other two — the anchor and the one on my back — are just ones I like, though the ship in the portrait is actually the Wind-wise herself."
Melancholy cranes her head around to look at the tattoos again, at least the ones she can see. Maybe she sneaks a look or two at other things that aren't tattoos. "Where's the Wind-wise now? Is it here in Pandaria the Lady Blanche?"
"No, she's back in Fallon Harbor. Up here it's the Blanche, the Swift, and the Tidewitch. If I let go of you, you think you can keep yourself up and keep going?"
"Oh, I don't know," Melancholy says honestly. She slows significantly, but it becomes clear she isn't giving up — she's concentrating to cast water breathing on herself, little bubbles appearing briefly around her head. She picks up speed again and aims a plum lipped smile at him. "Okay. I'm ready to try."
Baird nods. "Okay. And remember, it's not deep. If you start to lose it, you can just put your feet down." He flashes her a smile. "And I'm going to stay right here, so I can always grab you if it looks like you need it. But you won't." He draws his arm out from beneath her and steps back.
She makes an uncertain oh at the shift of her weight in the water, but she instinctually paddles harder trying to achieve more lift in the water. And then keeps going forward, on her own. There she goes, awkwardly, but faster than she seems like she should be able to go — the water breathing enchantment granting her magical speed (or maybe it's the shark tooth?). She laughs as she goes.
"I'm swimming!" she yells at him, as if he might not see this for himself, having looked away at the trees or something. She wiggles as she paddles, adding a bit of chaos to her trajectory, but she's clearly happy.
"You're swimming," he laughs back at her. "Like an otter." (Like perhaps a gravely injured otter, but he leaves that part out.) "Fast, too! You're a natural. How's it feel?"
"Magical!" she shouts with a laugh. "Fast! Because of the water. Breathing! It's an enchantment!" She splashes a bit more wildly, trying to keep herself up. "Tired!" She's not stopping though, as she keeps going.
"Put your feet down if you need to," he reminds her, and then ducks beneath the water and swims easily, gliding beneath the surface to join her. He surfaces at her side with a grin and rakes his wet hair back again. He does not swim like a gravely injured otter. Bryn Baird is an adult man who would not stoop to showing off for a girl, but sometimes a man can't help but be good at something in the presence of a girl, you know?
She does stop, to put her feet down, panting heavily and concentrating again. Little bubbles form up around Bryn's face, and he can feel something take hold, and his own natural speed picks up another notch. Water zoomies! She watches him as she tries to catch her breath back, flushed, and partially glowing from the paleness in the bright afternoon light, and partially from success.
"'The waters know their own and draw / The brook that springs in yonder height; / So flows the good with equal law / Unto the soul of pure delight,'" she recites.
"'Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high / Can keep my own away from me,'" Baird tells her, a steady-eyed reply. (He skips the bit about the tidal wave.) Then he leans back and with a quick twist of his body, slides beneath the water again.
He resurfaces at a distance. "Shit," he says with a laugh. "That's amazing. The spell."
She claps, and laughs loudly. "It's a treat, right?" she calls to him. Half out of the water, she starts shivering, hugging herself tightly, still watching him, still not quite getting her breath back.
"'Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, / the clear gray icy water,'" she recites clearly (like the water), looking at him, and then half glancing over her shoulder behind her where the vale and its broad trunked trees stretch up towards the sky. They aren't fir trees, but close enough for a local goth. "'Back, behind us / the dignified tall firs begin.'"
He stands up fully in the water to stare at her, his delight unfeigned and undisguised. "You read it?"
"Well, it's one of mine. I'm in it," she explains with a smile, shivering in place, and ignoring the cold. "I don't have the whole of it. But the parts that repeat I remember, and the ending — which I liked, about knowledge — and my part. 'Up on the little slope behind the houses, / set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass, / is an ancient wooden capstan, / cracked, with two long bleached handles / and some melancholy stains, like dried blood, / where the ironwork has rusted.'"
"It does have you in it. Your name, anyway. I don't know that I would associate you with any kind of stains. You liked it, though?" He wades back toward her. "You warm enough?"
"Oh, I'm cold. But, I'm a lot of things in poems," she says. "There are several 'Odes to Melancholy', poems 'To Melancholy,' and then 'The Triumph of Melancholy,' 'The Fields of Melancholy and Chearfulness,' and — " She laughs again. "'The Pleasures of Melancholy.' Which has a 'Where thoughtful Melancholy loves to muse/ Her favorite midnight haunts. The laughing scenes / of purple Spring, where all the wanton train.'" As was prophesied in the ancient Pandaren scrolls.
Baird flashes his smile again. "'The end of spring…'" he quotes, but does not complete the line. "Come here. One more thing." He stops beside her and offers out his arm. "Lean back. On my arm. Just lie back."
She turns in place, and leans back in a clear trust fall sort of way, eyes closed, and her arms crossed over her chest.
Baird catches her and holds her up firmly. "Uncross your arms," he tells her. "Let them float at your sides. Lift your legs up again. My arm's just here for the practice, for support. You just relax."
She uncrosses her arms, shivering a little harder, and reverses her system before of leaning back further and further as she lifts her feet off the bottom, relaxing into the water. "Oh, the water's warmer," she says. Well, in comparison.
"Yeah," he says. "This time of year. The water holds the day's warmth longer than the air does. It's the air that'll make you cold. Just relax, and breathe, and stretch out." His arm under her shoulders is the gentlest cradle, not so much holding her up as simply there to prevent her from sinking. "Just float."
She lets her arms float out next to her, legs gently separate naturally, as she holds her head tipped up and keeps her eyes closed. Her hair fans out around her in the water, rising up towards the surface like a spreading darkness.
She has a smile curving her lips, and she bounces her nails against the water, breathing slowly as she floats.
"You," Baird tells her quietly, "are doing perfect. Look at you. And you see what I mean, about how your body just wants to float naturally? You just have to let go and let yourself." Very carefully, he withdraws his arm from beneath her, slowly enough not to disturb the water. He doesn't move away from her side.
At first, she only breathes and floats on her own, and then her eyes fly open uncertainly, as she looks for him — relief on her face when she realizes he didn't go anywhere. She smiles uncertainly at him, as she reaches shyly out to his hand with her own, to hold onto.
He takes her hand readily, smiling down at her, his pale gaze steady. "I'm right here," he says. "But look at how well you're doing. You don't need me." He pauses. "We'll make a demented gazelle of you yet."
She laughs a little dark bell. And then her smile droops, and her grip tightens on his hand, as she frowns in concentration. There's a sharp note in the air — sulfur and brimstone — and something encloses over a piece of him: a soulstone.
Once it's taken hold, Melancholy sighs, and closes her eyes again, floating on the water. "From the grass and orchards of youth, to the waters," she muses.
Baird is looking at her, faintly nonplussed. "Did that… was that a soulstone?" he asks cautiously, uncertainly.
"Mmhm," she answers, eyes still closed and her face serene.
A little silence spreads out across the surface of the pond. At length, Baird says, "Okay. Thank you, Melancholy." He still sounds puzzled.
There is another silence, underlined by the faint lapping sound of the water, the distant song of a cricket. Then he says, "Hey, Melancholy? Thanks. For coming out with me."
She opens her eyes, light and golden as the vale in the afternoon sun, and now she's the puzzled one. "Well, you're welcome, but it's me who should be thanking you," she says. "You're the one giving up your afternoon to teach me how to swim, instead of anything else you might have done, of going to the Seat of Knowledge, or with Azsera, or reading a book, or anything you might like."
She glances at her hand on his, and her fingers twitch. Seemingly apropos of nothing she adds, "I told Lena about Alice today. She stopped by a few hours ago."
"I'm glad," he says. "She's a good lady. And it's good you're not carrying that around all on your own anymore. I'm sorry you had to for so long. " He is still looking nonplussed though. "What makes you think I'd rather be reading a book than here? Or getting my ass kicked by Aszera?"
She tappity taps the water with her other hand. "Well, I don't know about rather — I think if you'd have rather done, you probably would have said so, and put it off. But it's a task, a favor you're doing for me, and I'm not doing anything for you," she says, genuinely believing that to be true. "Not today, at least. But it's fair, because then I'll teach you how to ride a bicycle."
She pauses though, reflecting on that, a thoughtful pout to her lips as she looks up at the sky. "Although, I wouldn't call that a task, like cleaning up or putting away laundry is a task. I'll enjoy it, and I'd like spending the time with you, and it will be fun for me, too. I'm looking forward to it."
"Hey," says Baird. "You know what? This is not a task, like cleaning a gun or splicing rope is a task. I like spending the time with you, and it's more fun than anything else I could've done this afternoon, and I am having a hell of a good time. And I am also looking forward to learning to ride a bike. Not just because I want to learn to ride a bike — I do — but also because I get to spend more time with you. When nothing's trying to kill us." He pauses. "Sorry if that's awkward."
She shakes her head, the movement sending ripples of her hair in the water. "No, it's not awkward." She gives him a plum lipped smile. "I like it, too. And also when nothing's trying to kill us — those are two separate preferences." Her gaze, though, starts jumping around, and her cold marble cheeks grow pink, as she glances over their surroundings, maybe without quite seeing them.
"I was — well, Lena and I were talking, earlier. Ever since the Shattering, it's been difficult to have a place that feels safe," she says, a little haltingly, as she lightly scratches against his hand with her nail — and abruptly stops with a, "Sorry." She licks her lips. "The fel armor helps, because I can tell myself that I'm not unprepared wholly for the next time. But, the only time I've felt safe — that is, when I do feel safe, it's because. It's when I know you're watching over me — looking out for me. It's. Nice." You know, Bryn. The strong vocabulary word nice.
He regards her steadily and intently for a time. "Well," he says at last. "First, I will say that I'm sorry. About it being hard to feel safe. Second, though, I am honored to hear that I can help. I know you won't always need it, because I know what Mrs. Shine can do and I see how fast you're coming along doing the same stuff. But as long as I can look out for you, I'm glad to." After a pause he adds, "Though I can't say I did the best job of it the last couple of days. I promise I'll do better, too."
She blinks up at him. "Oh, you mean — in the fights with the mogu? That's not quite what I mean. In those situations, I am in danger. I don't know that if I felt safe that I would act properly, if I'd lose a sense of vigilance or grow complacent, dependent on you entirely. It wouldn't be fair to you at all, if I acted like that. I do feel safer, because I know you're looking out for me, and if I make a mistake or miss a timing, it isn't the end of things. Same with Lena there, I know she's watching. Even Cressidha has told me she's watching for me in the field, knowing how inexperienced I am."
She shakes her head again, her hair brushing around her shoulders. "No, I mean like now, or at the dawn. When it's quiet, and it should be safe, but it doesn't ever feel like it, unless you're there. Or when the cold, dark deep inside pulls me down, I — " She glances to his hand, a soft unsure look in her eyes. And then she pops up a smile. "Do you think I could swim to the shore if I tried?"
"I absolutely do," he tells her. "I'll remind you that if it turns out you're too tired, you can always just put your feet down. But I don't think you'll need it. You can definitely swim to shore."
"Okay." She flails a little, using his hand to anchor her while she gets her feet back down, and then tipped the other way, starting up her flutter saurok-kicking motor. "I'm going to try. Watch me."
"I am watching you," he assures her.
She lets go of his hand.