I have been presented another buffoon, though this one is at least brawny and well enough in the present to keep me on my guard around him. My eyes threaten to roll as he repeats his eagerness to help thrice, a mental reminder flashing silver and bright within my mind that it is I who have invited him into my ruminations, to strike at my rancorous mind with his idiocy.

He took his first step nearer my mane, and I raise my head in and turn my face away in expectations for him to begin the assemblage of the sling. Instead, he only breathes on my skin, a hot and moist touch that causes the flesh to crawl and my muzzle to snap back over in his direction with a perhaps to harsh glare in response to his ineptitudes.

"Well?" I ask sharply, gesturing with darkened lips towards the locks I wished to form a hammock of sorts before realizing that he perhaps didn’t even understand the basis of weaving or knot tying.

I sigh, heavy, sorrowful.

Why, dearest dreams of mine, have you led me to this land? To hide in a hole, bombarded by fools? Not a damn one of them are my sister, not even those who wear wings. I have come here to be alone.

I wish to have come to the land from which Quilyan has come, a place where men are civil and the populace learned. I miss my Elysia, the black bell taking on a note to its song that is sweet and inviting, and I am bitter towards everyone I have met until this point in this putrescent kingdom for tempting my heart into those dark waters so quickly.

I had wanted to burn it down, to drain it empty and void of all life – and now, in ways, I longed for it.

It forces me to have to collect myself, though thankfully, it should appear as if I am just pondering how to direct him in the task.

I am good at directing others in the arts of hair braiding and decorative finess; I was a princess, after all, and all slaves are born with heads like hollow jars until you fill them. What more is this man then a slave, if he does not know how to aid me without verbal direction? What more are any of these men, then, if I am to set my hopes on the numerical ratios that have been presented to me thus far?

This is a place of fools and pompous morons, where the winged have forfeited their birth rights and the women have fallen beneath the hooves of men, all fire and blunt force with no intellect or tact as should be required of those who lead.

"Grasp the longest strand," I begin in my directions after having composed myself well enough to speak without shouting, thankfully wise enough for us both, "and those along either side of it. Push the others over the other side of my neck, for the moment. We will return to them later." Holding as still as I might once I have returned my gaze to the fore and lifted my crown as high as it will rise, I tuck my wings tightly to me so they will not interfere with his work. Thankfully, he is not so small as my last handmaiden, and can easily reach the crest of my nape without a stone to stand on for additional height. "Grasp the left strand and place it atop the center, and hold them in place while you rest the rightmost strand over those. Repeat the process until the whole lock is braided."

Realizing quite suddenly that I had no bindings, I flick my lion’s tail in his direction in a gesture that suggests he might grab some of the strands from it to tie the ends. "When you can overlap the locks no more, bind them with some of the hair from my tail. I unfortunately didn’t plan to find the egg so as to gather other means of ties."

Cealestis