The Demon Sword: Sorataki

Chapter 26: Lightning Thief

The shuffling of sheets done by something that was beyond her own person pulled Natalie's slumbering subconscious back from the depths of rest. Coming to she is met with the bright but distant ray of the sun breaking through the bedroom window making her eyes squint in reflex. 

She is pulled further into the now by the warm sensation of another body resting alongside her own. Her still foggy eyes slowly began to pour in with conscious and sense of self, now recollecting her surroundings she leans her head up to scan the small frame leaning up beside her.

Being greeted with the back of Zoey in her silk cream pyjamas she could not help but smile at the sweet sight that beheld her. Gathering that she must have rolled out of her bed to climbed into hers some way into the night she gently pats her head whilst looking at her peaceful face. A doting sensation washed over her persona.

It was the dawn of a new morning according to the sun's low hung but climbing rays.

Brushing her hand over Zoey's plush cheek she very carefully removed herself from her vicinity as to not wake her. Stepping out of bed she tip-toes towards the bedroom door where she opened it allowing it to steadily creek until it left a big enough gap for her to squeeze, though.

Taking in one last look at the sleeping Zoey basked under the crack of sunrise her troubled mood lightened up a little, a new habit she was quickly finding herself resorting to as of late. This sense of calming was not just exclusive to Zoey however, from the moment she stepped onto the land she has felt nothing but at peace with surroundings, the constant looming sense of danger felt a world away under the land of Aqua Falls.

Perhaps it was the reason why she found sleep catch her off guard like it did... and maybe it was the reason why she found her innermost though so loud, so troubling, now that things have become peaceful to her conflicted mind had nothing to compete with.

With this stir of emotions weighing her down, she rubbed the nape of her shoulder, instinctively trying to rub away the burden that arched her. Opting to take that bath she failed to get the night before Natalie slips out of the room and into the bathroom.

Her eyelids tired and heavy although she just awoken. Scrubbing herself down she stands under the attached shower head. With her head bowing towards the floor she looks down at her feet both distant and conflicted, she looks at the gushing water washing over her face drain away into the sink taking away with it all the dirt that latched onto her flesh over time.

She imagined the water washing away her heavy heart. Clearing off all the things that stir conflict within her soul and watch it all drain away into the plug hole. But alas, the human heart did not work like that, and so, as her body is cleansed and she turned off the shower and stepped out of the bathtub to grab a towel, she must continue to carry the weight.

Only wearing her under clothes and a towel over her head steps back into Zoey's bedroom more dazed and drained than when she left it. Slumping herself up on the mattress she sits down with her arms resting on her half bent knees. She lets her head hang low; the hanging towel on her for head tunnelled her vision to the bed sheets.

There she gathered her fractured thoughts, her unease of the surreal peace that she has been experiencing them. The pain of feeling something that she had long lost tore at her soul. Being in a homely environment and around a family drained her being as much as it pulled back fond memories.

She's just not used to this kind of life, not anymore. So far gone from the life she was living now, a part of herself she forgot how to connect with, a piece of her locked away to keep moving forward.

So use to keeping her feelings in check, constantly betraying her base needs, it all just piled up on her. More than ever she wanted to talk to someone, someone who can understand her pent up feelings. She craved the ear of Sophie, who in the short span she has been with feels as though she'd bonded with in ways that time alone struggled to comprehend.