Calm, Reserved for Selta & Alataniel

Alataniel waded through the water, her speed rising as she came closer to the shore. "Well, I guess tht I'm not going to see the reef today." Alataniel said to herself in a low, angry tone. Now her quickly moving legs were making large splashes as she forced her way through the water, her skirt making things proceedingly difficult. "Finally. Took long enough to get out of this f*cking stuff..." Alataniel said spitefully as her feet touched the slightly wet, brown sand. "Gods damn it..." She mumbled softly, walking over to her boots and bodice.

She would have sat down, but even an angry, incredibly embarassed Alataniel knows better than to sit in the sand when you're soaking wet. She really didn't need something like that right now. Alataniel bent down and grabbed her bodice before straightening up and struggling to get it on, over her very wet shirt. Once she had managed to get it over her shoulders, she adjusted her hair slightly, and then bent down to grab her boots.

Alataniel had already managed to tie one of her boots, and was currently struggling to keep her balance as she attempted to put the other on as Selta called after her. "Why not?" Alataniel asked him, her voice a bit mean and nasty. Realizing that it really wasn't his fault, and he didn't deserve to be yelled at, Alataniel softened her voice and made it a bit kinder. "Why shouldn't I just leave now?"

"Why shouldn't she leave?" he muttered to himself, pausing for some answer. He glanced to the side and then heavenward, getting absolutely nothing. There had to be a reason beyond the fact he was suddenly turning suicidal... that wasn't an actual reason, was it? His brain made him? It wasn't his choice? None of those were good reasons- simply the situation.

"Um... um... um...," he said vaguely, rushing on shore and sitting down on the sand, never being one to care about the state of his clothes. Swimming probably wasn't wise. "There's a reason.... erm..." he continued trying to think this one out.

"Oh, right, um... What just happened? I'm confused, can you explain why you freaked out like that?" he said finally, deciding that was the only answer he could think of.

Alataniel rolled her eyes as Selta struggled to think of a reason that she should stay. After a few more moments of hobbling around, Alataniel got her boot on. Kneeling in the sand, she struggled to tie it with her wet fingers. She was just getting very frustrated when she got the knots done, and she smiled in spite of herself. In her defense, when you're that down on yourself, even the tiny little accomplishments give you a reason to smile. When you don't think that you can do anything right, tying your shoe is a great acheivement! It just doesn't make any sense to someone who isn't in your position.

Alataniel snapped her head around to stare at Selta, an incredulous look on her face. "What? Doesn't it seem slightly, I dunno... obvious?" She asked, shaking her head slightly to clear it before blinking and standing up. "Um... let's see... My privacy is one thing that I hold dear, and to have someone, anyone, see that is a huge blow to my self-confidence. I didn't even know that my shirt was see-through if you hadn't told me, but in order for you to know, and based on what I've learned about you so far, you probably didn't tell me right away. Therefore, there was a time when I had no idea that that part of me was visible. It's absolutely mortifying and slightly scary to know that you can't even keep track of what's going on with your body. That's how I reacted. In my specific case, I started rambling about nothing and beating myself up for it." Alataniel shrugged. "Other girls would react differently, I suppose."

"Oh, I didn't know that... I don't know how that stuff actually works or anything. See, I thought you knew- I just don't like seeing that stuff... um..." Selta paused, thinking for a moment before hastily added "And I didn't! Nothing! At all! Honest! I saw your backandmadesuretomakesureIdidn'tseeanythingelsedearGoddon'thurtme." the boy added the end very quickly and with a vaguely defensive gesture so as to ward off any pain that he expected to follow very quickly.

"Um, yeah, and, um, hmm..." he paused for a long moment, trying to think of what to say. He tried to remember what she said. Self confidence... he knew nothing about that. How other girls would react... still didn't know. From her statements and his knowledge of people in general he couldn't think of anything else.
"I guess, with your comment about not knowing what's going on with your body, you aren't one of the people who finds cuts and such that they didn't feel and don't remember getting..." he mumbled vaguely, scratching his hair vaguely, not sure what else to say.

Alataniel looked up at him in an unamused way as he stuttered and panicked. She was quite serious-looking, but not intimidating or mean. She just waited for him to finish cowering before her so that she could whack him on the head, or something. It took her a short moment, but a moment none-the-less, to figure out what he had said in that last jambled bit of incoherent rambling sounds that were probably words. Once took on a defensive position, she raised her eyebrow and chuckled softly. "I believe you. If you actually had seen anything, you'd probably either be too egotistical to realize how much danger you're in, or very smart, and about three miles away already. As you appear to be nervous and insisting that you didn't look, it counts against you, but you're a shy and nervous kind of person, so I'll take your word for it. Congradulations, you're still alive." Alataniel said, smiling kindly.

A few short moments later, she burst out laughing in a relatively nice way, which was hard, considering that she was partially laughing at Selta. "I'm just kidding. I'd probably punch or slap a guy who did it on purpose and then didn't ever tell me, but I'd never kill anyone unless they did that. You're fine." She smiled sweetly. "Sorry if I scared you, though."

"By the way..." Alataniel said, continuing as she stood up straight and looked down at her abdomen to tie up her bodice. "I do get cuts like that all the time. It's really annoying to know that something or someone has made an attack on your body, and you didn't even notice, much less figure out what or who did it. Oh well, it happens a lot to ignorant people like me." She finished, shrugging as she carefully laced the string through the bodice, keeping the cord relatively tight as she progressed.

"Egotistical?" he asked vaguely, deciding that he really ought to grab his boots and edge away after her dialogue about the situation and not really sure what to do about it. Why would he be egotistical if he'd seen anything? Of course, he still didn't realize the problem that came from being able to see that general part of anatomy on anyone- and this included girls. Shaking his head he decided to let it go before his brain cracked too completely.

"Wait... so you're tolerant of getting physical pain and not knowing how when something that you'd only notice if you stared at your chest on a regular basis causes you to go into conniptions?" The boy inquired after her comment about getting cuts she didn't know the source of. This made even less sense- although that might be the point. He had often heard that girls were irrational... mostly from Julius and this was quickly followed by it being pointed out that Julius was the last person who should speak of rationality.

Alataniel smiled as she looked away towards the ocean, recalling something. "You'd be surprised at how mean and stupid some guys can be. Self-confidence is nice. But once you go around assuming that the girls around you are automatically stricken with love at their first sight of you... It gets a bit annoying." She said, chuckling just a bit before looking at Selta again.

Alataniel paused for a moment to consider his words and formulate a response. "Well, if by tolerant, you mean not getting angry or incredibly frustrated, then sure, I'm tolerant of finding injuries on my person and not knowing how or when they got there." She waited for him to finish talking before smiling good-naturedly and chuckling slightly. "I'm a very complicated and confusing and occasionally incredibly random person. Don't try to understand the inner-workings of my brain... Even I don't know what I'm thinking sometimes." Alataniel finished, looking at the ocean once more, still smiling, thouh the expression was slowly fading from her face.

Selta paused for a very long time after her comment. His first thoughts were about why she was assuming someone would want to look at her body. Then he ruled out that these were liable to bring physical harm to his person. But on the other hand, she apparently had enough self esteem to not mind and after all-s he had said that she didn’t understand how her brain worked, so it was likely that she would find it amusing or not as insulting as someone else might.

“So guys assume naturally that girls are in love with them- and girls assume naturally that guys want to look at them? Doesn’t either one realize that they aren’t in the least bit attractive and it’s in everyone’s best interest for them to try and draw attention away from themselves?” Selta asked finally, still confused.
“I mean- part of the reason I didn’t get why you were so upset is because I didn’t want to look. I wouldn’t want to see that, I don’t hate myself enough.”

He also considered replying to her comment about her logic or lack there of, but decided that his brain would explode as a result and that would just be too messy to bother with.

Alataniel listened intently to the first few phrases that came out of Selta's mouth. After the first sentence, however, her formerly cheerful facial expression steadily changed to a more neutral, uncaring one. By the end of his tyrade, her eyes were glossed over and shiny; the beginnings of tears nearly brimming over. She exhaled deeply when he stopped talking, trying to pretend that she wasn't incredibly upset. Alataniel had never been insulted in such a cruel way, so she really didn't know how to respond. If she had been gifted with barely any self esteem at all, she would have shrugged and agreed with him, not letting the insult affect her at all. However, Alataniel had a very healthy level of confidence, and she liked herself enough to be outgoing and social. As a result, she took his insult quite to heart. 'So that's what people actually think of me...' Alataniel thought, her heart sinking further as she realized that Selta wouldn't lie about something like that. "Well, sometimes people overestimate themselves." Alataniel said, her voice badly betraying her emotions, though she tried very hard to hide it. '[darn]it.." She cursed mentally. Alataniel hadn't wanted Selta to know that she was upset. "Yeah.. I have to go now. I'll see you later. Bye." She said, forcing herself to give Selta a kind smile before turning around and walking away quickly. Alataniel held her head up high for a few steps, but after a couple of feet, it dropped down and she looked more at the sand than anything else. She held her hands together in front of her, absently running the sharp nail of her right index finger over her skin, which was creating a small furrow in it surprisingly quickly. Alataniel didn't want much right now... The only think she could think to ask the gods for was to please disappear right now and show up somewhere else, away from here.

'I will never understand humans,' he thought vaguely to himself, shrugging as she ran off. He wasn't really sure what had just happened, didn't even know if it was bad. It looked like she was about to cry, but he really wasn't sure why. Maybe she had remembered something or the conversation brought up a bad memory. It was the only thing he figured, he couldn't imagine it was his fault. From what he could tell- he didn't matter enough for anyone to care about what he said enough for them to have that reaction.

"Which isn't to say that I don't hate myself more than enough," he murmured vaguely, picking up his boots and starting to walk back to the pier somewhat absentmindedly. If he ever ran into Alataniel again he'd have to ask her why she ran off and apologize if he did bring reopen some old wounds. Not that that would be too likely, Selta didn't plan on running into anyone for a while.