Whitewater Gorge Floating

The way she joins the conversation with a dismissive flick of her tail, she might've been talking about an obtrusive fly or an itch that couldn't quite be scratched. An initiation spar, he thinks to himself. He appraises the way she carries herself, competent and galvanised. Someone who thrived in the rat race of the world, who might feel more at home in the brutality of boot camp training than the langour of domestic life. 

When he thinks of a battlefield, he cannot help but think of Theo. Then of Ruth. He blinks and they're gone. 

"You seem like a capable soldier." He wouldn't be surprised if there were scars under her brown hair. Many people mistakenly thought that scars were a sign of clumsy fighting, of failed dodges. But when airplanes came back, riddled with bullets on their tail, fuselage, wings-- was it not a sign that they had been struck and survived?