Author's Note
In this story the music played a game on me.
I usually listen to music when I write, because it helps me to remain "in touch" with the feelings I try to elicit from the story.
But this is the only case, so far, that the music itself played a part in deciding where the story was heading.
More explaination at the end, I promise.
And if you want to know which music was so powerful to actually make me change the ending, is this: Come una Sentenza, by Ennio Morricone.
You can find it here[add "youtube" to the link] (.com/watch?v=EKC66NmjNH8) and if you want to have an hint of how I was feeling during the production, my advice is to listen to it while you read.
As always,
buona lettura.
And review, or I'll unleash the bees.
Falling to Love
It all ends when the hoverpod jerks in the wind, Kimmie stumbles and her foot slides past the border, her body arching back, her arms still open in the fighting posture, her eyes wide in shock and fear.
It erases her smile, it erases my smirk.
All that remains is my panic, the grip on my heart, the pain at the sides of my mouth when I open it wide into a scream, silent just because my body is quicker than my brain.
One, two steps and I toss the buffoon aside, sending him to collide with Drakken; I jump on the border of the hovercraft and, with no regard for that little detail that we are flying at six thousand feet, I launch myself into the open air and the welcoming embrace of gravity.
The little part of my brain that is not numb from fear actually manages to extend my arms and legs into a diving position, my fingers stretched to offer as little as possible resistance to the air when they reach for that orange and black form that writhes in the air, a couple of feet before me.
Under me.
Comeoncomeoncomeon.
Pumpkin sees me, at last. If possible, her eyes open even wider in shock, seeing her nemesis trying desperately to reach her; I cannot hear nothing in the rumble of the air around my ears, not even the beats of my gripped heart, and tears are starting to left trails around my cheeks in the wind pressure, but somehow I know that she understands.
The girl beneath me starts to open her arms and legs, trying to offer the maximum resistance possible to the air, while her body rolls in the wind, her hair moving like a flame.
All the while I try to stretch my body into a perfect straight line, gaining inches and inches, the only sight in my eyes that of those fluttering limbs, nearer and nearer.
Comeoncomeoncomeon!
I stretch my arms even further, until they start to ache and I believe that they are going to dislocate, but my trembling fingers still cannot touch hers... still cannot...
Pumpkin!
I don't know if it's a thought or a cry, but when finally my green glove touches, grabs and... grips! Grips around her gray own one... soon followed by the other hand, I have the feeling that in that word there's the essence of three years of fighting, of chasing, of hate and of spite, distilled and bottled up in the gaze that the olive eyes of Kimmie are sending back to me.
Three years of rivalry are rumbling in the sky with the moan of the air around our ears.
Three years of respect are rolling in the wind like our own bodies, whipped by the air that tries to get a stable grip on our embraced forms almost desperately as I try to not let go my own on Kimmie.
And, for me, three years, two months, six days and a couple of hours of something else at all, the only thing that I could try to take a grip on, to maintain steady while the world around us rolls and crumbles, mixing earth and sky.
The only thing I manage to maintain steady in this moment; the look of my eyes into those of Princess, the focus of every image I want to remember while the terrain is getting nearer and nearer by the second.
And into my numb head the only thing that wins the fear of dying is that I'm going to do it into Pumpkin's arms, around me not in the throes of fighting, but in...
Oh.
The only other thing my head is capable to register in this moment, is that Kim's eyes are watering, that her grip is even stronger, and that the ghost of a sad smile is arching her mouth's corners. Her scent is a mix of sweat, of fear, of...
She moves her head toward me, closes her beautiful green eyes, and puts her trembling lips on my own.
And suddenly even the wind is silent.
The rolling sky, the stumbling earth are erased by darkness while my eyes slowly close.
All the blood in my body is gathered around my lips, around Pumpkin's, around those of my archenemy; here and now, there's place only for her and me.
All the world is left behind.
It's just too late for anything else, even for three years of hate, even for the noise of the too slowly approaching hoverpod; even for death.
Baaw!
Sad, isn'it?
I had planned a totally different ending for this little one-shot, but when I reached the kissing scene, the music pushed me to just let it end - in every possible sense (you may have noticed that I abused of that word, but, hey, it's Shego's Point of View!).
It's sad, but I find it sweet.
I mean.
Rule number Fourteen of Shaggley's The Good Writer's Guide: When the end is reached, a character always have a gain and a loss.
I was having a little problem with this rule of mine while I was approaching the kiss scene: there was going to be only the gaining (KiGo, what a sweet gaining!) but how about the loss?
So I decided to turn a heartening story into a sad one, but I'm sure I gained a much more strong emotion for the reader - and the writer as well - at the end of the story.
I'm proud of how this little thing came out.
And I swear - this scene was originally implemented into that big, epic KiGo project of mine, of which Falling to Love was pallend to let you have a glimpse; so, when I'll write it, I'll choose another ending.
Arrivederci!
