She have grown cognisant and receptive, enlightened against the twisting catenary of the Labyrinth as she is aware of the contours of her own flesh, the maps and lacerations and blemishes that have grown upon milky sinew as the mountains that rise as goosebumps upon the surface of Loorien— the most minuscule, infinitesimal note trembling and ricocheting across well crafted masonry and gravel corridors, flame kissed backbones that chase one another as veins within the secondary layers of crusted earth. The Nightingale has discovered, conquested outside the realm of salvation dual times, the cries of damnation littering as the cawing voices of morning crows, a cacophony of hellish desires, of those infected with the vile seed of the daemons, and both times she has returned once more to salvation in trepidation and desperation, for what must they do to rid the cruelties from their people? What sacrifice must be made (for no gift of the divines is without sacrifice), what claret must be spilt? She is willing, despairing, and yet the thump of a frame against the stone floor of the entrance into the golden gates screeches it's anxious meanderings into her flesh, the nightmares of a canidae dome upon a equine's bodice, the lanky ship of a babe not yet old enough to truly be parted from his dam attempting to swallow her in a gaping mouth, sharp teeth and blood stains upon alabaster and star enwrapped bosom.

And yet the Nightingale comes, as though the silence beckons her forth with red leashed collar towards her inevitable end, waning, waxing longing for the education and insight in which to grasp strings upon, for she shall sound the first warning cries if it is the necessities the situation shall call upon her— and so emancipated in ghastly apparel she dances among the haunted hallways, the clack of hooves upon tiled flooring, the flickering violence within vivid indigo, long-lashed pearls pressing against taut cheeks, and when she finds the obscure bodice lain upon the earth before her, she stops.

There is something achingly familiar about the vermilion kissed flesh, the gleaming glass crown raising from her dome, the faintly pulsing heart within her draping cloak, but her Jester would not be lying upon the floor, silhouetted in the light of the hearth, frail and limp as a newborn babe, unless..
"Jester?"

Tremulous lyrics escape in a chorus of sound upon (hopefully) live harks, bile rising within her throat, a short, affectionate nickname in which was gifted upon her dome eons ago. A tentative step towards her unmoving frame. She cannot see beneath the thick, obsidian tendrils of mane and tail that cover her as feathered down.
"We have.. awaited your return, my Queen. Are you.. well?"




--

Bad muse is bad. Apologies.