But yeah, I’m sure there are a lot of people who relate deeply to Taylor’s narration here.

To those who do: I’m so sorry you have to live with anxiety pulling you down. It sucks and I hope things get better for you.

Tattletale was at the back, steering the thing.  It seemed counter-intuitive, with the boat going the opposite direction she pushed or pulled the stick.  Still, she seemed competent at it.

Yeah, but that’s probably just something you gotta get used to. I have a clock that goes backwards in my bedroom, and after a few years of that, I have no trouble with it most of the time.

Better than Grue, which I found slightly amusing.

Hehe.

Y’know, I wonder what would happen if Rachel got to steer.

From time to time, I was finding myself in a strange emotional state.  As I stayed alert for it, I was able to catch those moments, try to pick them apart for what they were.  The high-end motor whirred and the boat bounced over the waves, the wind and water getting in my hair, all while we headed into the most ridiculously dangerous and unpredictable situation we’d been in for weeks.

Thrill, perhaps?

It was one of those moments; I felt almost calm.

…huh.

A sense of calm like “this is how it’s supposed to be”?

It’s also the calm before the storm, but how much that factors into Taylor’s emotions is unclear.

For a year and a half, I’d spent almost all of my time in a state of constant anxiety.  Anxiety about schoolwork, my teachers, my peers, my dad, my mom’s death, my body, my clothes, trying to hold conversations without embarrassing myself, and about the bullies and what they would do next.

Like father like daughter.

It’s not much fun living like this, I’m sure.

Everything had been tainted by the constant worries and the fact that I’d constantly been preparing for the worst case scenarios and maybe even setting up self-fulfilling prophecies in the process.  I’d spent every waking moment immersed in it.

And now she’s calm as opposed to anxious. That’s good! Like Leviathan prevented her from truly enjoying flying, the anxiety did the exact same thing with other enjoyable activities and made her an overall unhappy person. Right now, she’s finally in a state where she can actually enjoy what’s going on, as dangerous as it may be.

Let’s hope Taylor stays in that state for a while, for her sake.

The puppy was cute.  It was skittish, especially around people, which seemed a little odd.

Oh! It’s the wolf pupy!

It wasn’t the kind of dog I’d expect Bitch to favor.  Too young, not vicious or intimidating in appearance.  On the other hand, skittish as it was, it had an aggressive streak.

In short, it’s behaving like a young wolf.

It constantly hounded Bentley, nipping at his flanks, then spooking and running away the second the bulldog looked at him.  It had made for a fair amount of noise when we’d been getting the boats into the water.  One for Bitch, her dogs and Grue, one for the rest of our group.

D’aw.

Our boats weren’t out on the ocean.  We traveled through the area downtown where Leviathan had collapsed a section of the city.  It was now more or less an artificial lake.

Ooh, Lake Heroic! Weren’t there some ruins sticking up around the middle where some people lived, essentially using the lake as a moat? Those would be a fairly decent meeting spot. Especially since they’d have a good range of clear sight to see any incoming Slaughterhouse members and most of their members can’t fly. Then again, it’d also be difficult to evacuate.

The water was fairly still, lapping gently against the ruined roads and collapsed buildings that surrounded the crater, but with the speed these boats were capable of going, even waves a half-foot high made us ramp slightly off one and then crash down onto the next with a sudden spray.

I’ve gone rafting once, so this just sounds fun to me. Maybe not the best introduction to being out on the water, though.