Poe had spent much--nearly all--of her life playing on the edges. On the brink of sanity, on the brink of discovery, the brink of both true and false love. She tipped there, felt the edge with her toes and looked out ahead of her to a dark sky and a darker sea, then behind at a wind-tousled and hushed landscape behind. Pebbles and dust rolled and tumbled down the steep cliff with even the subtle shift of weight, unused to sharing space there. There was familiarity there, on the tightrope that marked the in betweens, and with it came a comfort that was the closest thing she could yet call home in her years. It was all about not quite this, and not quite that, but pushing and pulling at both sides, turning the wobble into a dance and a fault line into a path. And so it was the land that spread out to either side that had become unstable to her, estranged and frightening in its encompassing, grounding nature. Whether it be family or pack, tradition or security—or be it the most untouched by her flippant, childish hands—love, she had veered away from it through the landscape of her life. Until that lost soul in demon’s cloth slipped into her subconscious and found his way through her cage of ribs, and took a strong, steady hold there. It could have been the perfect romance to suit her evolved design; a love and lover given life only in the death of night, while unbelievable and unspoken in the light. A balance of everything and nothing, leaving her just as untouchable and mythical as she strived for on her whims.
And yet, there she found herself, breathing in cold, salty air, watching pebbles disappear into the darkness below. Her body ached for sleep, or maybe from too much sleep, as it always did now. The storybook romances, the love-struck fools’ rambles told her that the ache was for him, not for her body. But there was much more to it than that—more to it than butterflies and caresses. There was the understanding that even her raucous inner child acknowledged that she had danced these ledges for far longer than one was meant to. It was a child’s world of make-believe, of monsters and fairies alike, moving only to the beat of a drum and the words of a poet. A non-reality that seemed far more appealing than that which so many lived in, that which appeared crisp and clean and devoid of denial on this sea-sprayed cliff’s edge. The ledge was getting smaller as more dirt and stones fell to the ocean, disappearing into darkness before they hit water. The time was close, and a move had to be made because this in between would not hold her for much longer. Life and solitude loomed behind her, death and love ahead, and her heart picked up its rhythm as she looked between them one final time.
The decision had been made long ago, the moment she had whispered three words to Hollow’s ghost. But the courage to push herself off of the precipice that she knew so well culminated only tonight. Her hair pirouetted around her face and neck while she nodded her chin between heartbeats, and she opened her arms to the wind and sky, the invisible partner that carried her through all of her dances on the edge. He had a face now, broad, pale hands, a lean, quick physique and shocking blue eyes. Eyes that you could fall right into, and drown in their depths. Poe cued the melody with a soft hum, and her body leaned into the empty expanse, trusting a lover’s arms to be there at the end. Body, heart and soul, Poe D’Angelo dove past the shadows, and into the crashing orchestra of waves below.
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