Blink

Then: Run On

The cliff, as you might have expected, caused me to shudder. I was uncomfortable in two ways, partially because I was thoroughly reliving my last experience involving one, and also, the view was beautiful.

"Why?" I asked Celia quietly. Smiling slightly. "Why is everything on this island so god damn pretty?"

She laughed, gesturing a delicate hand out over the endless sky. "It might look nice, but it gets a lot less exciting when you have no one to talk to ever except your stupid twin brother."

"He's not stupid," I said, just as James tripped over his own feet running towards us. How convenient. "He's just... Challenged. On occasion."

"Whatever euphemisms make you happy," Celia grinned, with eyebrow included, and it took on an almost inappropriately suggestive quality. She was smiling more now, as if the view in front of us had loosened the iron barrier withholding her visible satisfaction.

"Guys!" called James, panting as he ran up the hill towards us. We both scowled at him. "What did I say now?" he demanded in annoyance, completely bewildered by the enigmas that he has come to know as females.

"Guys?" Celia said, rolling her eyes so hard it must have hurt. "Really? I know it's an expression, but still. Sexist."

"Uh, sorry," he muttered grumpily, not sounding sorry at all, but glancing sharply at me to check if I was offended nevertheless. I knew enough now to be certain he didn't care about insulting Celia. "Anyways," James continued pointedly, "I was just about to say, get off your high horses, and come down to where I was. There's an awesome ledge where we can sit, with a bench and everything." My gaze followed his pointing finger down the grassy hill, where Sir James the second stood balefully, fastened to a pitifully small tree.

"Melle?" asked Celia. "You want to?"

"Sure," I said. It wasn't too closed to the edge, after all, and it wasn't like I had actually fallen last time. All I had to do now was not jump.

Celia nudged her horse, who obligingly trotted forwards from a standstill. Arrow (who I was beginning to discover was a bit of a follower) clip-clopped alongside her. I tried desperately to keep my eyes from clenching closed as we started down the incline, as that probably wouldn't make holding on to the reins any easier. The hill ended choppily fifty feet in front of us, the grass dissolving into mist and sky and clouds. We stopped, simultaneously, when James nodded with a jerk of his chin. "Look," he said, smiling. He was always smiling, doling them out generously to everyone without a second thought. I couldn't decide if I liked it or not.

Tearing my gaze away from his grin, I breathed, "Cool." This time, James's happiness actually seemed justified. Around the corner of the cliff, which we had now descended below (attaching the horses to the pitiful tree on our way), there was a small, suspended overhang. It was coupled with a miniature wooden bench, that looked over a rocky bay, and the.... The.... "What?" I cried disbelievingly. "Where's the water?"

James grabbed my arm with surprising force, pulling me out onto the overhang and plonked me onto the bench. "What do you mean?" he asked, with overly sufficient amounts of 'duh'. "The tide went out."

"Way out." Celia startles me, coming up silently behind us.

My mouth had dropped open and locked into place. Below me, there was no ocean, only sand or mud or something and miles and miles and miles of it, until the ocean bed met the horizon. "But... There's no water. Literally! What the actual fuc-"

Celia laughed an interruption. "Didn't you, I don't know, read a brochure or something before you came? Or figure out from the fact that you were supposed walk back to land that there wouldn't be any water?"