A/N: Rambly little ditty, I know. But really, it fit too well in with the (modified) Poe quotes to NOT be written. I own nothing here. Ember belongs to Nick.
Ah, distinctly I remember--it was in the bleak December
And the lonely dying Ember wrought her ghost upon the floor....
During the beginning of that dreary autumn--that was when she had really started to appreciate her old, banged-up Walkman. Her family hadn't been particularly well off; she'd only had a few CD's left from when she was younger, and none of them were in great shape. Her favorite song, she still remembered, was track number 13. It skipped precisely three times, always during the chorus. She hadn't really cared when she first got it, not back when she'd had books to read and friends to talk to. But later, when all those things had left, when unmerciful disaster had come and gone, she regretted each and every CD scratch, regretted not keeping the music in mint condition.
It was really all she had left, after all.
Except her guitar. Yeah, she'd had a guitar. It was worn, ungainly, and needed to be restrung, but it was her own, bought and paid for with painstakingly-earned babysitting money.
It was around Christmastime that she'd started actually plucking out her own melodies. She'd write by the moonlight that streamed through her open window, past her rustling purple curtains, leaving her shadow floating on her wooden floor and summoning up a chill in the bedroom. She'd wearily sat for hours with nothing more than her guitar, a pencil, and paper, getting her sorrow on sheet paper. And her anger. Her anger was always there, an ever-present muse, a constant in life.
And in death.
Ember didn't like to talk about how she'd died. She wasn't afraid, or in denial. It was just one of those things that she liked to keep wrapped up tight inside herself, something to fuel her feelings during a --ahem--"performance," something to cling to on those lonely nights when even her nigh-impermeable ectoplasmic body would soak up the chill of the desolate Ghost Zone.
It was always too quiet. She hated the unbroken stillness, she hated the cold. But she was never someone to sulk in the shadows, really, no matter how much she felt like it.
She burned the cold, she rocked the silence out loud.
It was funny, really. A long time ago, music was her haven away from life.
Now, it was the only thing that truly made her feel alive.