Blame Black Tango---written after reading Go Not Gently, then Abarat in quick sucession. Mood: Philosophical. Music: Crosstown Traffic, by Jimi Hendrix.

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Should Be Cold

By kinokokichigai

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It's freezing up here, this cold tower nearly freezing my blood---or, it would be, if I weren't trying to convince a strange-eyed, gawky girl that I'm not--- hey, she's gone out a door on the roof. Well, of course she would do it, after seeing that little grotesquerie.

She'll freeze her pale arse off up here, and I'm glad for my cloak, and why didn't she think about going out there? I could have made her wa—and I'll stop that train of thought, because my lips are tingling, but still, she could have at least chosen a different door because that leads out onto one of the steeper roofs. The wind on the roof is whipping her dark hair as I throw the door open.

She's shivering, and I'm lying to myself if I tell myself that it's not partly from fear, and the girl---Candy---and my mouth is calling out to her, the name tart-sweet on my lips, like a not-quite ripe smyrion fruit, and I'm wondering whether I'll choke on that name like my sister did on a pit. Cough, hack, here's another nightmare feeding.

It's in circles that she's running, and I've given up with sweet-talking her; it's not like I was ever good at it anyway, now that she's seen my rage and hurt and let's get the mind focused on the task at hand, please. She's frozen, and I, being the gentleman that I was bred to be, offer her my cloak, watching her eyes widen as I appear in front of her.

Am I really that horrible? Don't answer, and the silence goes to the Commexo Kid for 25 paterzem.

I need to get that ladder removed, but I'm climbing up after her anyways, calling after her—telling her she's crazy, but I don't offer her the fact that she'd be relatively normal compared to me and my nightmares, but what sort of person would go climbing up a ladder when their fingers are numb?---and then I tell her to give up, and think, will her to fall into my arms and then we can both fallfallfall until splat we hit the ground---except not quite, I'd like us both to be alive, and my mind is running on a multi-track path.

Now, she's near the top of the ladder, and I think she might be thinking about harming me in some way, but I ask her what she's thinking anyways. She's running now, oh, she tripped, what fun, and tumble-twist-turn, she's hanging on to a pipe with her blue fingers.

What a view! The sky. You. The drop. I could practically push you from here.

And oh damn that's a glyph and there's a jump and she's on the glyph now, and I want to crash the idiotic-looking thing, all shimmering rainbows in my angry sight. So I do.

It drops beautifully, like a pretty-colored rock in a swirling white sea. But right now, all I can think about is how much I hate that girl and maybe it's so much that I think I may love her, but I want her to die a broken death so I can laugh at her for leaving me so lonely-cold-lonely-damned all in my mind.

But as I run down to the front of the building, I know that she should be cold, so why do I feel a chill?