Wishful Thinking [2430-2-3-Wed]

[Perrin]

Perrin looked out across the sea, sighing. Some day, he was going to get the courage to fly with Kah out to see the spaceport. It was something that had existed out there for his entire life, but with parents who didn't spend too much time in the affairs of humans, and his damn fear of the ocean, it was something that had always seemed just out of reach. More and more lately though, Perrin wanted to see it. He rarely saw Humans in the village, but when he did, he couldn't help but be struck with how much more like them he seemed. In fact, he was just like them if he covered up his stupid, useless wings with one of their human shirts. Except of course that their mode of transportation was strange and metal, and nothing as alive as Kah was.

He had never once fallen from Kah, but the great span of water between the spires of Amun Village and the spaceport was still too intimidating to dare try to travel. Maybe, just maybe, they could practice, he realized. He could get Kah to fly him out a ways, and then back again. And then the next day, maybe a little further. He was ready to at least try to conquer his fear, if he could finally get a chance to see the humans in their environment.

He picked up a rock and threw it into the sea, watching it plummet down and disappear beneath the waves with a shocking speed. He stared for a moment at the spot in the water that the rock was last seen, waves continuing on like nothing had ever disturbed them.

Who was he kidding? He was never getting out of the Village.

[Failyn]

Failyn was flying by Amun, headed out to one of the rock outcropping a few miles out, when she saw a boy standing near the water. He was throwing rocks in and watching them sink to the bottom. She happened to be flying low enough that she noticed his wings weren't like her....COULD HE SWIM??? THAT WOULD BE SO COOL!! She immediately landed by him.

"Can you swim?!" she asked excitedly. She'd love to see him swim...She wished she could go in the water. If she tried though, her wings would drag her under and she'd probably drown. Which, all in all, kind of makes the whole experience not worth it.

It occured to her it might have frightened this kid to just land and start talking to him when she had never seen him before in her life. Ever. She stuck out her hand.

"By the way...I'm Failyn. Nice to meet you."

[Perrin]

He picked up another rock, toying with it between his fingers before pulling back his arm to toss it. A voice suddenly erupted behind him, and he half jumped, half flailed to catch his balance near the edge of the cliff, dropping his rock in the process. Perrin grasped his chest trying to catch his breath as he slowly turned around to notice a blonde girl had landed behind him.

"Um." was all he could say for a moment, caught between trying to recover from being taken by surprise, and having no clue what to do when a random stranger started asking you questions out of nowhere. When he finally noticed she was holding out her hand, he shook it carefully. "Um... I'm Perrin. ...a-and no. I can't... can't really swim."

No need to tell her he was afraid of the water...

[Failyn]

Failyn had startled the kid...Oops. That obviously hadn't been her intent. But she knew his name now! It was Perrin. Perrin was a good name. She liked it. She liked a lot of names. Like Sapphira's. She had liked Sapphira's name too.

Her grin slid for a moment into a disappointed frown when he said he couldn't swim, but then turned almost instantly into a confused frown. He had the right wings to be able to go into the water. He certainly couldn't fly with them probably. (Yes, certainly and probably belong in the same sentence). Why wouldn't he enter the water? Did he not know it was okay?

"I like your name. Why don't you go in the water? You have the right wings. I don't."

Okay, the "I don't" was probably unnecessary. But when had what she said ever followed logic. Not that often, that was for sure.

In the distance she saw a sand castle, and her eyes grew big.

"Come on!! Let's go build a sand castle too! It's lots of fun, promise." Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed his hand and started pulling him towards where the other castle was made.

[Perrin]

Perrin was taken by surprise by her statement. No one had ever told him he had the right wings before. Not even his parents. Was it supposed to be a weird compliment? Or was she just trying to make him feel better? How could you even have the right wings if your wings couldn't fly? That was what wings were for. What was wrong with her??

He was about to ask her what she was talking about, but she was already off on another tangent, something about sand castles--what was a castle??--and suddenly he found himself yanked down the hill towards the sand at the water's edge. Immediately he felt panic kick in. "Um, wait... we... we could do that here, right? Does it have to be down there??"

[Failyn]

Failyn immediately froze at the worry in Perrin's voice. Then, realizing his worry wasn't any immediate danger, relaxed again."Um, wait... we... we could do that here, right? Does it have to be down there??" What did he mean? Hasn't he ever made a sand castle before? She thought everyone had done that...Not that she had actually seen a ton of people doing it. But she'd seen enough ones scattered at the beaches. Suddenly it occurred to her that she had never actually seen someone make it. Maybe it was all humans that made them. Was she being weird for a winged person? Oh well...they were still fun to make. He would love them!!

"You have to be in the sand nearish the water." She pointed to the castle she saw on the beach. "See that one? You have to wet the sand to sculpt it. You can do it right by the water, but if you don't want to get wet we can find a big shell to carry it, okay? It'll be fun!" she repeated. It was so fun to make sandcastles. As long as you didn't get sand in your eyes...Failyn had done that once. It hurt, a lot. "Oh, be careful not to get sand in your eyes." She grinned at him, still excited.

[Perrin]

"Wait, I..." he couldn't figure out what to say after that, too focused on the water that was growing nearer. He could feel his heart racing as the anxiety hit in, beads of sweat forming across his forehead. All he could think about was how big the ocean was, how deep and wet, and filled with slimy, creepy monsters and--

He heard his mother scream just before he hit the ocean, and suddenly, he couldn't breathe. Water pushed in at him from all sides as he sank lower and lower. Something scaly brushed past his leg and he let out a frightened yelp only to take in a gulp of water. Flailing and sinking and making it all the more worse with every gasp for air that turned into another mouthful of seawater, and where where where were his parents to save him?? They always caught him. Always. Not this time... this time he was left alone...

Suddenly something grabbed hold of him, something with fingers and arms and up up up he was going up!! His head hurt and he felt like he was going to go to sleep very very soon. But suddenly the pressure changed and he realized there was air. Air! He was out of the water!! And there were his parents, reaching for him as he coughed up water and sputtered and took in deep breaths of clean fresh air. They had come for him after all! They had... no, wait. They weren't wet. They were in front of him. Something else was handing him up to them. What...

"Thank you, thank you!" his father repeated over and over to someone, and his mother cradled him in her arms and he coughed and blinked and tried to look at who had just been touching him. Finally he twisted in his mother's arms, despite her firm grasp on him, and the last thing he saw was a fin disappear under the water before he finally had enough air to burst into shrieking cries of terror at the whole ordeal...

Perrin broke free of Failyn's grasp. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I can't!!" His face burned with embarrassment as he tore back up the hill away from her. This was even worse than when someone tried to ask him to go for a fly. While it was all around awkward to tell him he couldn't fly, they generally understood it after taking a good look at his wings. But, to explain to someone why you didn't want to go to the beach? That was...

Pathetic, Perrin. You're pathetic.

[Failyn]

Failyn turned at the panic in the boy's face, but before she could say anything, he bolted away. Failyn's stomach dropped. What was wrong? Was it something she had done? She hadn't done anything wrong, had she? He had thought something was wrong from the beginning and she'd ignored it...He hadn't wanted to go so far away from where he had been. Maybe he had been waiting for someone important and she'd dragged him away.

Mentally, she kicked herself. Did she have to be so self-centered all the time? She never thought about what was good for other people, only what she wanted at the time. She had no business pulling Perrin away without even bothering to ask if he actually wanted to go.

Walking slowly, not wanting to startle him, she followed, and called out to him. "Hey Perrin?! I'm sorry! I should've asked if you wanted to come..."

She felt terrible...Why hadn't she listened before? She should have stopped immediately when he sounded worried about going farther. Now she had completely stressed out this poor kid. "This is why you don't have any friends," she reminded herself. Because you never think about other people. "I'm sorry..." she mumbled, though it was doubtful he could hear, and stopped. Perrin probably didn't want her following him. He was running away for a reason, after all.

[Perrin]

She was following him? Of course she was following him. She couldn't just leave him be to wallow in his own self pity, now could she? No, of course not. His embarrassment was something to be watched and prodded at by those trying to figure it out.

Oh well. He was away from the water anyway. At least, he was pretty sure he was. He hadn't really paid attention to where he ran, just that he'd run. He glanced around, finding a rather sizable boulder to take a seat on and catch his breath. He put his head in his hands as he tried to regain his composure.

He realized, suddenly, that Failyn hadn't appeared. He looked back up, glancing around. She must have stopped following him. Well, fine. I didn't want to talk about it anyway, he told himself.

[Failyn]

It didn't take long before Failyn realized that in following Perrin, she suddenly had no idea where she was at. Brilliant. She could fly, but if Perrin happened to see her that would seem horrible: She dragged him off from where he needed to be and then showed off by flying when she knew he can't. It wouldn't be a nice thing to do.

But she still didn't know which direction to go.

Failyn was going to have to bother the poor guy again. Feeling completely horrible, she followed in his direction. At least in was a nice day...Though, admittedly, it's normally a nice day. That wasn't really anything new.

She figured she should try and make her wings appear as small as possible. Making your wings as small as possible was, in a way, of showing the other person you are of a lower class than them (or, as in this case, of a severe apology). Thing was...Perrin's wings were fairly small. They were good for the water yes, but it was bordering on painful for Failyn to draw her wings in so much. But she'd do it. She wanted Perrin to know she felt bad.

She did come upon Perrin after a few minutes. He was sitting on a rock. She was coming up on him from the side - which was a good thing. He wouldn't see her in time to run away again, and she wouldn't startle him by coming up from behind.

"Uh, Perrin...Please don't run away! I wanted to apologize..." she explained quickly. "I, uh, I'm reallyreallyreally sorry. I should have asked if you were busy or even wanted to before dragging you off. I...I'm really sorry. Not that I really expect your forgiveness, I must seem like a real jerk because I've never even seen you before and I immediately dragged you off....But I really didn't mean to bother you." That was a bit longer and more ramble-y than she had meant it, but she had meant all of it earnestly, so she hoped he'd at least except the apology.

[Perrin]

He heard her voice once more, and he sighed in annoyance. She was going to drag him down there again, and he would have another panic attack and it would all be anothe--

Oh. She was apologizing. He glanced in her direction, intrigued as she headed towards him, rambling off how sorry she was and that she didn't mean to bother him, so on and so forth. He felt a little guilty now that he'd inwardly assumed she was going to just annoy him again. It took some courage to admit a mistake, especially to a stranger.

He sighed, giving his face a rub before standing up. It would be best if he told her, as embarrassing as it was. "No... it's um... it's not your fault that much. It sounds really stupid but..." How to put it? Well, may as well lay it out there as simple as possible. "I'm really afraid of the ocean. Like... really badly."

[Failyn]

Now Failyn felt really bad. She had lead Perrin to something he was deathly afraid of? She was such a horrible person for doing that to somebody. She would have hated it if it looked like someone was going to lead her straight into a cage or something....Her shoulders drooped as the weight of what she had done sunk in.

But...Sound stupid? Why would it be stupid to fear the ocean? It was deep and dark and unknown and could kill you. Failyn would probably be afraid of the ocean too, except for the fact that it fascinated her so. Of course, his wings were the right ones to go in the water, they wouldn't drown him. But still....She could imagine someone hating the idea of the vast cold that people called the ocean.

"I'm so sorry, Perrin." Failyn was mildly suprised she remembered his name. "But...Why would would you think the ocean's a stupid thing to be afraid of? It sounds pretty reasonable to me...I've heard humans are afraid of things like spiders. Much less scary than the ocean, and no one faults them for that."

[Perrin]

Perrin just shrugged, folding his arms so he was hugging himself. "I dunno... it's just... no one else is that afraid of it. I mean, like... I know Winged can go in the water, but that doesn't stop everyone else from going down to it, sitting by it, and even touching it... everyone else doesn't go in it because they know they can't fly in it, not because they're scared of it..."

He stared at the ground, kicking a rock with his toe. He still felt embarrassed, no matter how much she said it wasn't embarrassing. Also, spiders were gross, so he wasn't quite sure how that comparison worked. At least in his brain. "I just... I fell in when I was really little. It was the worst thing ever."

[Failyn]

Okay, so Failyn couldn't exactly relate with the bad memory equaling avoidance thing. She had seen the body of a dead gryphin when she was four and she still played with them. And that had been absolutely horrifying and depressing. (As much as a four year old can be horrified and depressed, that is). But she was still pretty adament on wanting him to feel better. And she felt better when she was playing.

"Well...we could play a game where we don't go near the water? We could play tag! That would be fun, right?" She gave Perrin a hopeful smile, half hoping to play, and half hoping for him to feel better.

People always have problems figuring out exactly how old Failyn is, before she tells them anyway. What kind of seventeen-year-old (because she DID look about that age) fixes problems by playing tag? No one had bothered to ask her this before, but if they had, she'd probably have pointed out that she was happy, almost always, so apparently the theory had worked. And then she would excitedly suggest they try it. But alas...It hadn't happened.

[Perrin]

"Oh... uh, yeah... that would work," Perrin nodded, relieved that she turned out to be okay with his issues, instead of the usual reaction of trying to solve them. Nothing worked less than people trying to force him near the water so that he could 'get used to it'. If he was going to ease himself near the water, it was going to be of his own free will, thank you very much.

"I'm pretty good at checkers," he offered. At least, he was pretty good against his parents. He hadn't really played it with anyone else before. If he could have played it with Kah, he would have, but games of logic weren't really for Griffins, who mostly just enjoyed being chased when playing.