Snippet #2514960

Tallyho was just about done. Harper went down the cliff like a roach being traumatically knocked off of a wall—his hairy legs wriggling with desperation and antennae zooming about in counter rotations as he rolled around on his back desperate to find his footing. Then he went limp. Then he wasn’t coming up.
She and Dorian were perched at the cliff side and between the two of them Dorian was more than likely going to be the one to save him. In fact, he had to be the one to go save him because even if Tallyho could swim, she probably wouldn’t.
Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe she was just selfish. But Tallyho actually got someone to help her with this on their own free will and Harper…. basically stole her ticket down the falls. Not only was the June month warrior drowning, but he had the audacity to drown after countless mornings hogging the central fountain for “swims”.
Then Dorian just jumped. Tallyho understood why, but she couldn’t help but feel more than a little peeved. With the March warrior gone, Tallyho wordlessly stepped away from the cliff and went back to her tree. There was bad news and good news.
If she had to be pushed she’d have to spend the night in the woods with the others regardless. But! If she had to be pushed she’d more than likely just drown and die, which, for her headache’s sake, sounded like a pretty good deal.
“What am I doing?” she hummed. She was disgusted. Disgusted by the churning in her stomach. By Harper. Her newfound reliance on others. Where did it all come from anyway? She didn’t need them. She could do it on her own, right? Right?
The jump was far, but not that far. And Tallyho wasn’t going to let a little girl jump in without being harmed yet come out with her own scars. Emotional or not. Tallyho thought quietly. She dragged her finger in the dirt and drew pictures.
Haru wouldn’t just let her die. Even if she couldn’t swim. She glanced over at the redhead. He didn’t really seem like he was in that big of a rush to throw people overboard. He just stood around silently, waiting for someone else to take the plate.
The blonde stood up, her downcast expression seeming more pensive than depressed, or angry, or whatever. She began a slow pace towards the cliff but she hoped that someone else would opt in to take the dive before her so that she would have a chance to reconsider and change her mind. Alas she was already at the cliff side. Note, not close enough to where her toes were dangling over the edge like Ryou’s but just damn close enough for her not to have a heart attack.
She was unsure of what to do with her body. She began by pinching her nose. She stopped when she remembered that none of the others had gone in that way. Perhaps it was a bad practice? She pivoted back and forth from one foot to the other trying to imagine herself jumping. She concluded that she would never make a jump as long as Kat’s. She wondered if she could keep her body in control so that she wouldn’t be tossed any old way by the incoming wind intensity. She had lean muscle but she wasn’t strong enough to do that. She turned her back to the water and wondered if falling backwards would get her killed. It might but she couldn’t find any other way to successfully jump in without being hyper conscious about how far out she was jumping, etc.
She briefly made eye contact with Haru who popped his brows up for a brief second. He was asking if she was going to go down that way. She pressed her lips thin and adverted her eyes as she relaxed her posture. She was telling him yes.
This wasn’t the place for Haru to instruct her on her form. The fact that she was going in alone was a miracle. But he felt that it would have done her good to know that falling face first would have been better. But it facing the other way was what it took for her to take the leap? Well… that was good enough for him. Before he knew it she was over the edge. Her fall probably seemed the least dramatic. She was stiff and looked like a mannequin who had simply been tipped over by a careless shopper in New York. She was silent too.
But that certainly wasn’t by choice. Tallyho would have preferred to scream just to remind herself that she was still alive. But in the midst of her fall she ended up turning over so that she was face up instead of upside down. Now she was facing the cliff’s wall and the red rocks were plummeting past her. She couldn’t scream because so much air wanted to find its way into her body. It was trying to make up for every breath she missed upstairs on the edge. Then there was water. A sudden burning sensation ran into her nose and by then she learned to stop inhaling. She swung her arms and legs but it wasn’t very coordinated. She wasn’t kicking hard enough or parting her arms fast enough. She thought of failed swimming lessons from her childhood. The white blonde of mother’s hair and the way her underskirt stuck to her white, white thighs and hips as she pulled herself out of the ocean.
Tallyho kicked harder. She didn’t need saving because she was going to save herself. She could feel her body pushing forward in the water! She was teaching herself how to swim. She could not feel her fingers. Her eyes were still closed; she did not dare open them for fear that she might sink like a stone. And she did feel like a stone—like she was being pulled up by a stone. Or maybe down. She did not know. She did not dare open her eyes.
From behind her eyelids she could see that light was approaching. Everything was bright red like her mother’s lips. Swimming was becoming easier. It was nothing really—just lightly waving arms and legs until she felt safe again. Everything became cold and she could feel the sand in her toes, someone’s arm latched to her waist, and fingers laced into her’s. She was still being pulled forward. She thought she was still swimming kept her legs limp, her shins dreamily skidding into seashell encrusted mud. Suddenly she was settled on something dry and hot.
“Open your eyes,” a voice said. And Tallyho did. She knew that she was safe now. It was Kat kneeling next to her with her unchanging expression.
“Did I swim?” Tallyho asked her voice was hoarse and throat sore.
“No.” Kat said.
Tallyho let out a soft defeated grunt and she did not try to get up. Instead she laid there with her head turned, fingers, toes and right cheek stuffed in the sand with her back exposed to the sun.