Ankyra Sound Deliver us

he envied her confidence, the rapid way her temerity course through her like the surging welt of a spring. if only he could encapsulate that enviable mettle and poise it as his own.

he remained spineless as the jellies he often avoided on the coast, and when she fluttered to him with warm self-assurance he felt the last of his nerve wither away. she cowed him in many ways and he, lacking the fiber to combat it, would quickly divert his ineptitude by trying, as any child did, to divert the attention elsewhere.

but this time he found no cutting insult or cold rebuke, and his tongue lapsed dryly at empty air.

"i.. i.. same." he finished lamely, still rooted tensely to the spot. "um, howar you?" he winced inwardly at the affect his tenseness had on his articulation, hoping plainly she would not sense it.