Water flew like glass shards around me. I was enveloped is a shroud of twinkling teardrops of water as I plummeted earthbound. For a few glorious moments I was flying farther outwards than down, then gravity caught up to me. The cold water embraced me, seemingly hugging me a little too tight as I felt out of breath. Surfacing, I gazed upwards waiting… A few moments passed before Kacir threw herself with a swan dive from behind the waterfall. The water danced around her in insane spirals. I was dumbstruck with the beauty of her flight.

How had we gotten here? While she made her descent into the water, decades passed in my mind, realizations that had been politely tapping me on the shoulder now stared me in the face. How had I gotten here, I mean I had always wanted to find someone, but how could fate be so ironic as to give someone just when I was at my worst?

Suicide consumed my thoughts daily, I felt like parting my own flesh to free my pain and demons within… Kacir gracefully parted the water nearby, soon after pursued by a torrent of water. Here I was with a person I barely knew, and the reason for her silence around me, was that she had her own demons.

Our dives had freed us from the caves, but no we were in a deep ravine with limestone cliffs rising high on either side. Shrubs and small trees, among other various evergreen plants, were scattered throughout the rough sides of the cliffs.

Hanging on for dear life, they made their homes in the living stone. Even the dim sunlight formed a sharp contrast towards the top of the cliffs, it was early morning. Kacir surfaced beside me with a slight intake of breath.

“I should smack you for that.” She calmly told me with a smirk,

I laughed, it echoed eerily along the faces of rock.

“That would be a first; I would like to see you wake up enough to try.” This she received with a half-hearted glare,

“You’d best watch yourself.” Keeping one of my now rare smiles, I let the current take me. This place was truly beautiful with the water’s reflection dancing against the pale earth. As Kacir shot past me in the water, I waited for her to surface before shouting to her

“You might want to take it easy, I have the feeling we have a long ways to go yet.”

After about ten to fifteen minutes of drifting, boredom began to sink in, so being fairly devious, I silently slipped under. Kacir was drifting with her eyes closed, and her whiskers out of the water a little ways downstream. Underwater it was still very dark, getting only the now increasing amount of reflected light from the ravine walls.

The movement of many large fish near the bottom sparked a slight twinge of hunger, but I had something to do. Using my whiskers to feel the slightest movement in the water, I felt Kacir as I approached her under the water.

She was slowly kicking her feet. Her white cloak clinged tightly to her over the dark garment she wore beneath, which looked unlike any material, I had ever seen before. I decided that I would ask her about it later and proceeded with my prank.

Cautiously reaching out with my right hand, I waited until my fingers were inches from her ankle before… I noticed she was shivering from the frigid water… All desire to tug her under left me, and I allowed myself to drift somewhat downstream before surfacing silently. Looking skyward, I secretly urged the sun to rise above the faces of rock, so it could warm her.

“Are you cold?” I tried to toss at Kacir non-chalantly,

“Why, are you?”

“A little bit.” I lied, the temperature of the water didn’t bother me, but I didn’t want to pressure Kacir into lying in order to seem tough.

“Yeah, same here. Why, what were you thinking?” her fur clumped from the water, she looked more defeated, and a lot smaller than usual.

“Want to speed things up a bit by swimming downstream? I mean we don’t have to wear ourselves out, but it would probably help warm us up.” I offered.

A grin dawned upon her face…

“A race?”

I couldn’t help but give a wicked grin in return.

“Sure, why not?”