Sawtooth Spire a silver whisper, take flight and steal into my mouth

he blurted, she kept her finesse. "the who?" esme asked, not reaching very far into their history to infer the name of his (former) pack ... cult ... menage a trois. whatever. had he told her the name of it, even? as per usual, esme was focused on esme things and any inforrmation being fed to her that didn't benefit her or interest her was practically useless. 

either way, a few pulsings later she did muse on something riley had once told her about being called cloying names by its leader, donovan. "mmmm, the peaches guy," she remembered with a stepford smile, canting her head askance to speculate on why he might do just that— leave the pack he once sought to influence her towards. she raised her gaze to riley suddenly, holding his eyes with neither brightness nor admiration for his accomplishment. 

esme was as much a dead-end for riley as esme was for esme. 

a wind buffeted her and she stutter-stepped, "the name describes the phenomenon, really. you've never looked down from a cliff and felt the inexplicable urge to jump?" she wondered aloud, staring over the lip of the jutting stone, feeling the impulse surge in her breast like some huge swell of a wave. "there's nothing abnormal about it. self-preservation overrides these fickle little glitches in our brains, tells us not to do it," she informed, "well. most of the time." the pads of her toes palpated the stonework's edge, but don't you ever just wonder— 

"you leave these saints, do whatever it is you do inbetween, now you've come and found me. 'coincidental', considering i told you to forget about me. seems a bit ... intentional? hm?"

it'd been weeks since their last meet, and she was beginning to think he had the sense to ignore his own call of the void and preserve himself. instead, riley jumped.