Breach is confident enough in her own abilities that it doesn’t take her long to lose any sense of embarrassment in front of Maze. She grins, her face streaked with her dirt, her neck slick with sweat. “I reach a limit, I feel like,” she explains, not yet lifting off of the ground. “It’s like I can only shift so many times and then if I try again, I can’t hold on it. I just slip and fall back into my regular body.”
She considers, thinking.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mom do that.”
She reasons it’s just because her mom is older and the though quickly passes. She is certain that, in time, she won’t fall out of her shifts nearly as often as she does now. Already, her shifts grow longer and easier for her. It’s only a matter of time until she learns her limits, stretches them, until they hardly exist.
Finally lifting herself, she shakes until dust plumes off of her thin body.
“On land? Probably the tiger.” Another grin. It is obvious, she thinks, and almost certainly because she always felt the most connected with her mother when she wore that frame, but she doesn’t think too deeply about it. “But I prefer to be in the air.” Her gaze flicks to where the ocean lies, beyond the horizon. “And I think I’d like swimming more, but I haven’t tried that too much before.”
A shrug as she trains her eyes back on the other girl.
“What about you? What’s your favorite?”
I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in