Clockwork Butterflies

[plantbox]

Hello! This is a brief snippet of one very long story of mine set a country with floating islands and airships! c: I'd love to hear your comments.

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Currently they were crouched on a thin metal walk way, bodies tucked out of sight in the shadows and they listened to the movement of others below them.

In hands that were damp and clammy she held the gun, her breathing was steady as she could manage it. She shifted her weight slightly, from her left foot to her right foot, her body carefully positioned in a crouch that, had she been wearing a skirt, would have looked most unlady-like. Adrenaline was already making its way through her system and she could feel her legs shaking slightly. She allowed one of her eyes to close, she was taking as much control of this situation as possible. She felt the other near her, his body was close, she could feel the heat radiating off him.

He was murmuring to himself, the low tone of his voice was a comfort to her as she waited for them to be spotted, to be heard, for someone below them to look up at the wrong angle.

He leaned over to murmur softly in her ear that the movement below them was getting farther away, his breath sent a shiver down her spine and he was close enough that she could feel the stubble on his cheek brush against her skin. Her breathing quickened slightly, he didn’t seem to notice. She felt herself relax against him. It had become common place for her to do so over the past few days, she often slept slumped against him and vice versa. Though their beginning had not been greatest and it had been by chance, she had found herself growing fond of him. Perhaps even growing to love him.

Not that he would ever learn of this, to begin with how could she go about telling him? Would it be fair? In their line of work she doubted it would be, what if one or the other died? She didn’t know if she could properly move on from that idea.

But the way she felt when he was close to her was hard to ignore, a strange, warm feeling that forced its way through her in a way that was far from unpleasant, if anything she enjoyed it, welcomed it. She often wondered if she gave him the same intense butterflies that he gave her, wondered if he longed to be held by her the same way she longed to be held by him.

Her head buried in her own thoughts she had grown distracted and taken her eyes away from the ground below her, she was studying Felix instead of the ground. Unfortunately that had been their mistake.

Felix hadn’t been in the right angle to spy the other person, had Natalie been looking she might have seen it coming before the searing pain. But she hadn’t and the next thing she knew things were warm and sticky and red, in places things shouldn’t be warm and sticky and red and there were arms wrapped around her that she had only dreamed about.
He was talking to her, she realised, a smile made its way to her lips and she lifted a hand to his cheek and as she breathed she found that there were black spots developing in her vision. And slowly, through the strange numbness that had followed the pain and the clatter of the gun as it hit the floor and her body suddenly being hoisted up against him, her eyes closed.

[twinkletalon]

Oh hey nice story! Nice to see the fall in love but we're going to probably die cliche. I would like to see more of the airships and floating islands you mentioned in the beginning though.
The story telling in this expert was nicely paced, maybe a tad bit rushed. Just enough time for me to get attached to the main character and to shoot them with a gun.

[moonmaidens]

Oh, I'm loving the snippet! It would be amazing if you could post the chapters - I would definitely read them! Well, good luck!!