The Edge of Safety

The night air is cold and damp. Thin tendrils of sea mist are making their sinuous way from the dark marshes into the lamp-lit bright of tree-lined Downtown. The smooth marble and alabaster of the main boulevard gives way to the rough hewn granite blocks of dockside, the road now lined with tall straight masts, each one bearing a small marker light that shines with a halo in the thickening mist. Chandlers, warehouses and taverns stand in uniform symetry, each lit with a bright gas flame, precicely located above each doorway. Even Dockside is an ordered, sanitised place in this clean crisp city. Dal Haven, my birthplace, my prison. I cannot breathe, she suffocates and stiffles me, she takes away my breath lest it carries forth a cry for help, for freedom. All that comes out is a sigh. I feel my throat tighten, my heart beat pounds in my ears as the blood surges through me with hot vigour. I am sweating, my face hot and my palms damp.

There is a noose about my neck, that tightens when I strain. It pulls me up short with a jolt and brings me to heal. I am a whipped dog, a cur to His authority. I have only ever known life with it, from my first memories, this binding that keeps me both under His protecion and at His command. It takes some doing, slipping this leash, more biting than a leather noose, more restictive than a shackle and chain. I feel it tightening but I breathe deep and summon all my strength, keep walking, my eyes fixed on the dark horizon where the sleepy eyes of a dragon twinkle dimly above the low mist. Tears sting my eyes, I cannot breathe, my heart pounds, my step falters, but this time I am resiliant. I throw my head back and scream a curse to the thin sliver of moon that watches me and I suck in a deep lungfull of salty air, and I cast that cursed noose from my chaffed and blistered neck.

I stand at the edge of safety, staring into a dark void that offers nothing but uncertainty.

A dark figure stands on the deck of a small skiff, his face illuminated briefly as he draws on an old pipe. He beckons me aboard as another dark shape unhitches the painter rope ready to push off. The mists engulf us as we slide quietly out on a slack tide.

I do not look back.
 

Seeking Solis

We all have to start somewhere. Solis is my 'somewhere'. I don't know what draws me to her, its an enigma to me. All that I know, have known, I leave behind, for Her. All my life she has sat brooding on the horizon, staring across the great Dal estuary, her many eyes glowing dull and wan through the mists and swirling fogs, enticing me, calling me, drawing me in. Tonight, I am Seeking Solis.