Good Morning, Sunshine

Actually enjoying human company

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Getting distance between yourself and your problems will help you solve them.
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Stay behind me!, ordered Jaromir.

I wasn't planning on doing anything else anyway. Always keep the armed creature between yourself and the danger. Even if the person was a woman (Jaromir assured me that she definitely was, at least biologically. He trusted his nose there), she could still be dangerous. I mean, Nat most certainly could kill me if she felt like it. And genders really don't say anything about the degree of deathliness.

Stop thinking, damn it! , hissed my tiger friend and then he was just ... gone. Not mentally. He was still there. No, I'm talking physically.

One second he'd been in front of me and then he was no where to be seen.

I'm over here in the shadow, pup. Move your arse!, he groaned. I followed my instinct and actually bumped into J who was pressing against the wall of a house where it was especially dark.

I could feel that he wished for Amy instead of me. Because she had been better at walking quietly, better at hiding and moving and all the things. Less of a nuisance. Better at looking after herself. More like Nat. And he missed this Amy. That was why he kept watching the widow train. And he didn't mean harm, he was just being honest. Plus sometimes our mind does things we don't want it to. Thinks the wrong thoughts.

I didn't want to take it personally because now was not the right time and I knew that I still had a place in J's heart and that he still loved me and wanted me around but ... I did take it personally. Because that was how psyche worked. It doesn't ask for permission, it just does things.

So I concentrated on what Jaromir's senses were telling him.

The woman was closer now. Of course, she hadn't stopped moving just because I was close to existential dread again. Her smell had grown stronger, too, the wind still in J's favor.

She didn't smell like smoke. At least not like cigarette smoke. So she hadn't been out for a cigarette. Maybe she had a secret lover?

I could feel Jaromir's anger well up again. Because I was thinking again. I tried to stop thinking.

The strange part to her odour was still there and still couldn't be named, no matter how long J let the smell rest in his nose and mouth. It was a powerful smell, one taht didn't feel natural because it was too violent but exactly like nature incarnate at the same time. It was odd.

Now another sense picked up on her.

Jaromir could see her now, rather clearly.

The tension left my body, I exhaled loudly and Jaromir, too, relaxed a bit. But he stayed on edge still, ready to tear and bite and hurt.

That's who we came to see, then, he thought but I could sense that he wanted to say something else. Something more meaningful. He wanted to apologise for what he'd felt and thought just seconds ago.

It's okay, really, I told him, his eyes fixed on the approaching figure of the ancient one.

I felt too excited to care about what had happened earlier.

This was what I had wanted to happen and yet here I stood, my stomach revolting (good thing I hadn't eaten in a while), my throat too dry for words, my heart racing and my breathing picking up.