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

his threnodial heartsong hit its lowest notes and she saw the disappointment, or whatever plaintive emotion, claim the estate of his features. her own expression was groomed to its regular apathy, eyes unmoving as the slug on the side of her cave became more greedy and discontent with his cranny.

wanting more of her, more from her? always—!  always wanting more! he was truly a man in her eyes now, for that alone. 

"why wouldnt i?" 

"because i specifically told you not to. you disrespect me, even now!" she gusted, seeking to buffet her words against him like he was the one that wantoned in the wind atop the rock shelf, wooing death with pacing soles. the nightgowned woman edged back even more, poised only by the grace of how long the bend of her heels could endure her weight at the stone's verge.

woe riley, trying to make an honest woman and wifey out of a gorgon; she, the un-get-at-able junk trinket he saw for a ruby when she was only some false jewel sitting on a pawn shop's mantle. not precious, not rare, and most certainly never of estimable worth, not in a condition that was so very used.

he was unsettled by this, she thought, by her agency to say i don't want it. empowered, was that what she felt? for the assertion to leave her mouth and not be undone by some hell-broth coaxed down her throat.

yet, even so, the creance that tied lucidity to the gauntlets of her mind came loose, trying to fly her away into the darkest eyries of her mind that she did not want to visit. 

she skirted the talons of those usurping memories and bled her gaze over him, reading the agitation he penned onto the vellum he bared to her now. she curiously plagiarized his semblance, lashing her tail, tooling her ears around to no purpose in a mimicking, feigning way— trying on the intriguing behaviors of an emotion on him she couldn't name.

riley's tongue plied at words, pausing and lurching, effortful; a mind at work trying to read between lines that didn't exist. there was no context for the situation for him to make sense of, no book of esme in any library for him to find. how would he reconcile that within himself ... all the more so, could he ever? she could not very well pull down the pedestal he'd placed her upon. the blueprints of his heartbreak were drawn up by him alone, 

and esme could not concieve of any notion of leading him on. it was not in her nature, this taking of responsibility for the consequences of her ad-libbed carryings-on; much less to at least have the grace to repent of it now to this boy-to-man who'd scried her so fancifully in some fibbing pool. 

she could think of no other reason for his persistence to espouse her. it preyed on her mind— the tiring quarry.

esme rocked off her heels and turned to follow his gesture as he put forth some rivalry between himself and the ledge, sloping to peer towards the bottom. a pall of mist obscured the depth of the fall and sharp outcroppings of rockshard along the face of the cliff descended into its midst, insinuating a most dignified plummet.

he continued to talk. she gazed into quietus.

the thespian talents of his mien were wasted on an inattentive audience. the verselet of fresh heartbreak, a chapter unnoticeable yet inscribed so plainly across his face,

but esme was absorbed in the distraction of what it might feel like to answer the call. her guts were spilled into the upturned palms of rathe impulse and she could not take her eyes away from their concentration on the plunge. her mind, on its lowest ebb, wanted nothing more than to release inhibition

and her body, heedless of her consciousness to it, listed precariously as the ground seemed to loom up in her vision, vignetting her focus to the importunings of such destructive impulse. "mired in such emotion. you mistake me terribly," she asserted, a voice eclipsed in shadows of some distant reverie; flat, distracted.

spring-operated muscles flexed under her skin. "i. feel. nothing."

suddenly, she turned her head to face him, throwing back her head to laugh breathlessly. "my mother called me a cunt, isn't that touching? all heart, that woman." her eyes sparked like flintlock. "i only called her a whore. tangentially." it was a valid question i asked. her flame guttered gaze drifted back towards the drop. "one less cunt in the world could be a pity, or perhaps a boon. i've yet to decide which would inconvenience her more."