[Log] of an angry!valeria.

[leadshot]

Who: Valeria (incisive) and Balthier (leadshot)
Status: Active & Closed
Style: Third-person Prose, Possibly Alternating Tenses
Where: Izanagi Shrine, Grass Country
When: Week 3, Day 7 - *Occurring not even half an hour THIS
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Possibly language and most definitely a mentally and emotionally shaken Ground Turk

Comments

[incisive]

Words.

(Is this...?)

Again, words.

(Yes, this is the second bullet fired at her today.)

This time, it's a different sort of bullet,
This time, with a different sort of make,

( Its purpose -- )

Fired at her, not into her,
His voice cuts through the air --

Makes its mark, grazes her cheek, drives a wedge in the tracks she is hell-bent upon running.

(( It is enough. ))

Valeria stands where she stood stopped by his words, by the sound of them and the sight of him there beneath the temple gate.

(How long has he been here? When he had he left the Strahl? Why --)

She can't remember, but then, Balthier is full of surprises. He has been full of surprises for as long as she has known him. (Two weeks? Three? It feels like more than that. It feels like three months. It feels like

[leadshot]

But instead of walking away, he walks towards her, taking each metronomic step heel-first. (He won't leave her. He won't compromise his mission--their mission--all because of something emotional. He saw this happen before with Konan and Pain; where one remembers the other but the other does not remember one. And so one is left alone and in shock, hugging their knees together and screaming.) But it will not be the start of a dreadful chain-reaction of god awakenings to smite them both down for intruding upon Their sacred grounds. Balthier is not about to give up what information they could've collected from the temple by a hume storming the gates and demanding answers for a question that has not even been defined yet

[incisive]

And her breath is still hitched from his utterance of that name.

('Itachi.')

She tenses further still and balls her gloved hands into tight little fists not because of his remark, but because she realizes after but a moment of thought (one step, just one) that she doesn't understand how he came to know that name, how he came to know it in such a short amount of time. It doesn't take her more than a minute (one step, just one) to realize that that can be explained, that that man's broadcast had debuted much earlier in the day, but Balthier's words, the very nature of his first statement, suggests that he is aware of her brief exchange with him not even half an hour ago. (She doesn't quite grasp why he would say such a thing about Itachi's appearance. Doesn't quite understand how or where that comes in...)

('How...?')

Valeria wants to ask, but the words catch in her throat and her voice is so quiet.

('When did you see that?')

The tension that grips her runs her muscles rigid. She cannot move.

(One step, now two,
She remembers to

[leadshot]

And there it is

[incisive]

Were it not for the expression upon his face and the look (so detached, so empty, so... professional) about those green, green eyes of his, Valeria would think this but another cruel trick visited upon her by the gods, that this man could not possibly be Balthier because Balthier does not get close (likethisnotlikethis) and Balthier does not say things (likethatnotlikethat) with any sort of somber tone about his voice because Balthier is not serious about anything but the mission. (Your mission, or have you forgotten that, too?) He is completely professional. (They are not friends; they are partners, nothing more and nothing less, and possess a mutual, unspoken understanding that this is how it is.) He does not allow the lines to blur like her vision continues to blur in the present for the tears still pooling in her eyes