Poe knew intimacy, the physical as well as the emotional, with a number of souls that had crossed her long path. She had an open mind and a reckless spirit that allowed it, time and time again, but only under the condition that she should disappear before it took hold of her heart, like a fairy tale that must run into the horizon before the midnight bells. For this, she had never known an exclusive love before, never seen someone's eyes and words so focused on her, and despite her deeply ingrained nature telling her to look elsewhere, anywhere but there, stop their slipping into each other--she found her breath dissipate from her lungs and her gaze widen and embrace his. But she couldn't find words. Her vocabulary did not hold any that could give a valid, encompassing reply--because it was not so simple as I Love You Too. Hollow was a dead man, these looks and touches had been stifled when they could have meant something, and Poe was a coward in the face of love. But she knew and felt strength in movement and touch, and fell into their embrace when the words simply would not come. She fell into him. Her head moved to his at the same pace that her hands slid up his arms, ruffling paths through the cinnamon fur, stopping when her lips found his and gripping there. Soft and firm, she felt the rush of a very delayed gratification from a kiss that she had secretly wanted since she placed the crown on his head in a hazily lit room surrounded by a dust mote ballet. Her skin tightened around her muscles and fur stood on end as she fell deeper into the kiss, deeper into Hollow--too deep, she vaguely realized in too short of a moment. With a small gasp of surprise, Poe opened her eyes to the dull glow of a dying fire, viewed from her side on the floor. She quickly, sleepily forced herself upright to look across her shoulder to the bed on the opposite side of the room, finding what seemed like a gapingly empty space on its end. Like a velvet curtain, her heavy, damp bangs slid out from behind her jaw bone to veil her view of what no longer was, likely hadn't really been, and she slumped back down onto the hardwood floor, face tucking into folded arms. |