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Cress wishes she were better at conversations. Maybe, if her parents had actually raised her… blah, blah, blah. Same old shit. If she’d been raised properly she wouldn’t be shy. If she wasn’t abandoned, maybe she would have the warrior’s spirit that both of her parents had possessed. Maybe, maybe, maybe. If, if, if. She lives in a perpetual state of maybes and what ifs. She needs to be able to stop using her parents’ disappearance as a crutch. So what if they abandoned her? It is not something she can change. It molded her to be stronger-willed. Naïve? Just a little. But that is not a weakness.
What she needs to do is face the facts. Fact: she is shy. Fact: she is not the best at conversations. Fact: she has not been capable of having many conversations in her lifetime. It could be that she is just destined to be shy and quiet. She could grow out of it completely. She just doesn’t know. With practice she will get better; this she knows for a fact. She cannot and does not blame her parents. Her shyness is not their fault and she does not think that it is. Blaming them would be like blaming the Valley for her homelessness. That is no one’s fault as well. It just sort of… happens.
‘It is alright,’ he says, and his gentle voice washes over her like a rolling wave. Instantly, almost reflexively, she relaxes. It is alright. Yes, yes, it must be alright. What’s the point of being so nervous all the time? Oh… right. It is not as if it is something she can control. Even if she wanted to be super chill all the time, is it even possible? No one can be relaxed all the time, but for now Cress is going to try.
He offer his name next. “Dalten,” she repeats, rolling his name off of her tongue. Hm. She likes his name. It is simple but at the same time it is different. She has heard a fair share of exotic names in her life—her father’s name is Oxytocin!—and yet she finds herself inexplicably drawn to simple names. Her name is Cress; it is simply but pretty. It seems to evoke a melody in its wake. Dalten is one of those names as well and she likes it. Maybe his name speaks of a song to him, too. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe she’s just really, really weird. Who cares about maybes anyways? She’s just decided not to, after all!
‘How are you?’ he asks of her, trying, like her, to come up with simple conversation. If only he knew! Her healing ensures that she is always well, and she tells him as much. “I am well,” she says, giggling at her little private joke. She pauses, deciding to let him in on it as well. “Actually, I am always well,” she admits, her tone a bit more serious. “I am a healer and I can heal myself of most wounds. If not all. So I am well—always well. I don’t even get sick.” He’d probably be kinda startled by that, but ah well. There is only one way to make friends, and that is to tell them all of your weird secrets. Right?
She’s new at this.
She offers him a smile before asking a question of her own. “So, where are you from? I was born in the Valley, but I don’t live there anymore.”
do you remember
when we learned how to fly?
infected.