<blockquote><p><span><strong>IF THE FIRE'S OUT, BABY</strong><br />For Kylie's Maenu. My writing is so weird today I'm sorry azdfghgfsagh</span></p><p><strong>HOW YOU GONNA KEEP ME WARM?</strong><br />She had always suspected that real life was elsewhere, somewhere beyond the shopping districts and suburbs, off the highway, over the fields and oceans--that there was somewhere left unfulfilled by stock options and primetime programming and cutting-edge digital technology. And so, she hid between the words 'desire' and 'aspirations', lurking somewhere beneath the limitations of what was felt to be possible and permissible, and found a menial job. Triskellion was just one of thousands in Dominura, hiding in the scattered dust, secretly reading hastily scribbled notes from bygone days when freedoms were fought for and won. She was in the business of starting fires. After the eclipse, she had nowhere to go, nothing to do. By day and night she meandered like the other bits of trash that drifted up and down the boulevards. Filching from merchants, begging for bits of food, relieving themselves in public without concern for decency or hygiene.<br /><br />The first time she stole a pair of shoes, she was so conditioned to her place at the bottom of the social ladder she stole the cheapest ones in the store. A year later, and she was accustomed to dining on the finest organic cuisine, products intended for only the wealthiest shoppers: why not grab the most expensive items, if she was risking the same charges? She thought of herself as being at war, but it was a private war--her against two million of them. <br /><br />Tri didn't think of herself as opposing the oppressive economy--for her, it was much more specific. She wanted to escape the conveyor belt that brought piles of dirty plates into the dish room, and the stench of industrial cleaner mingled with rancid grease, and the nights she woke up scraping filth off phantom dishes in her sleep. If delinquency didn't enable her to escape all that entirely, at least it carved out a little territory apart from it. She was done with her shift for the night, but she wasn't tired. Having folded away her grease-stained apron into a canvas rucksack, 'Skelli laid belly-down on a stretch of grass, watching the late-night city workers across the street. To live in the city was to be persistently amazed at the worlds squirreled inside one another, like those lines of wire and fresh water and steam and outgoing sewage and whatever else cohabited the same holes that workmen periodically wrenched open to the streetlamps and to the passing, disturbed glances of civilians. There was the faint hum of construction, an undertone of muffled voices. She just watched with bright, wide eyes.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>i know it’s a lie</em></strong><br />I like it, made me feel like writing as soon as I finished reading it :]<br /><strong><em>i want it to be true</em></strong></p></blockquote> <p>It felt like running away. Each time it felt like the first time. Like the first dash into the unknowable night when the rest of her family was sleeping. When the truth had become just as unbearable as the lies. Not looking back, not wanting to show her fears but unable to hold her head high. And just like the first time she would leave without knowing her destination.</p> <p>Part time escapism was what she was practicing. Whenever she had more than two days of work off in a row she would take off out of the city for anywhere else on the planet. Boat, train, teleporter (on the days when they were trustworthy), anything that would put distance between her and what she was calling home. It had become too comfortable and she was afraid of falling into some kind of patterned life style. Something mundane and robotic. It was a weight that was starting to pin her down, lead growing in her gut, fixing her to the ground. Flightless. So now she did everything she could to escape it. Not sure what she was searching for, not even sure if “searching” was the right word for it. No miraculous discovery waiting to be found out at the edges of the world. No truth except for the truth that she created for herself.</p> <p>That was how she ended up in Dominura tonight. She didn’t know what time it was, it didn’t matter. She was growing tired of living by the glowing numbers on a mechanical machine. It was dark out, that was all she needed to know. It was time for the shift change, for most ‘dragons to go home for the night and the others to take to the streets. Working in a bar led to have take on a rather nocturnal life, she had come to see sunrise as the start of her pui instead of the end.</p> <p>With a small bag of “essentials” (her essentials were rather different from the average traveler) swung over her shoulder she walked the city streets. Taking time to soak in the bright lights of the active part of the city she began to wonder off the beaten track. Dominura had some beautifully organized green spaces, but at night these green spaces became shrouded by the dark night sky, lit only by the glow of faint street lights. The nearby city workers crashed into the silence that Mae would have been otherwise enjoying so she moved past them, further into the small park before throwing herself down on a bench. Ina smooth motion so pulled a cigarette from her pocket and a lighter from the other, click flash and her yellow face was lit for a second before being engulfed by the night once again. Inhaling deeply she peered out at the grass field that now surrounded her, the glint of mysterious eyes catching her attention.</p>
<blockquote><p>Triskellion had buried her heart beneath six feet of regret and aching hurt, but under all that dirt the ghosts were stirring again and getting closer to the surface. Still, she contained them: if she were ever to let that lump of gristle see the light again without the cooperation and approval of her body and brain, it would be burnt to ash. <br /><br />There was someone watching her.<br /><br />Her stare turned hungry and dark--her eyes filthy chalices filled to the jagged brim with blood <span>(<em>thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anoitest my head with oil; my cup runneth over</em>)</span><span>. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, blades of grass pricking at her through a thin wifebeater. There was a girl two yards away from her, her face illuminated momentarily by a wash of orange: finely-chiseled features, beautiful cheekbones--yellowyellowyellow with that blue lick of a 'hawk. <em>The holiest of thighs in jeans black as grease, jack o’lantern smile below malachite eyes.</em> She stood now, thrust her hands into her front pockets, stretching out one wing--first, two feet of glossy black touched with purple and green; then three feet, four, five, six--and then the other before folding them tightly against her back. There was no hesitation in her movements as she strided towards the thill: broad shoulders back, a haughtier-then-thou smirk plastered over her mug and a swaggering strut. Tri was stinging ash and asbestos, but the perfume wafting off the lukuo's skin was sugar to flavor the turpentine. Did she see the pitbull fury in her warmonger eyes? <em>I</em></span><span><em>’ll throw down your bulldog front</em>.<br /><br /></span>She stood inches in front of Maeanu now, looking down at her unabashedly, and said: <strong>"hey, pretty."</strong></p></blockquote>
<p>Caught in the act. The tables turned as the eyes became fixed on her. She knew it was proper social form to look away by now but she had never been one for normal conventions. So her stare remain fixed and unforgiving. It was too late to run and she was too exhausted from all the running that had come before. Maybe this was the end of the line. It made sense, a figure in the night, wings that arced towards the heavens. Those were her kryptonite. Their grandeur and strength. She wanted to reach out and touch them. To steal them for her own, right off the back of the demon in her view.</p> <p>In the quick moment that it took for the androgynous figure to walk over Mae exhaled, sending curls of smoke out from between her jackal teeth. The smoke wafted up to the figure nearly standing over her now, before they dissipated into the air between them. Weightless and free. Everything about tonight was starting to feel like the blue sky glimpsed through prison bars.</p> <p><em>hey, pretty.</em></p> <p>Indeed, the tables had turned. Her partially open mouth flicked up at the edges, turning into a cocky smirk. She leaned back on the bench, extending her cigarette free arm along the back of it. Backlit by a stray lamp the strange stood like a pale ghost in front of her, making Mae wonder if all of this was even real.</p> <p><strong>“Hey.” </strong>She returned. Lifting up her hand she offered the smoking cigarette as a peace token. Feeling like it had been the signal sent out into the dark that had sent these motions into action. Or the spark that was going to start the fire.</p>
