The promise of crisp leaves, the cooling, soothing winds, the warmth stolen and hidden from the remnants of the earth only made the nymph more aware of the coming Orangemoon. So she danced with the swirling blades and fronds as their hopeful finale, laid her singsong ballads across their open arms, waltzed beneath their nimble, protective caresses, performed scales and arias into their collected boughs and along the soft soil, distracted herself from the haunting poignancy of their eventual quietus. She offered, she mended, she assuaged, but couldn’t stop the ensuing seasons, the crush and culmination as another era passed over their heads, gave life and took it as quickly, grasping, avaricious, gripping hands pulling and tumbling over the edges of the turbulent years. Perhaps it would do her well to forget the passing fringes of time, to forgo and consign them to the wretched oblivion, to the stretching, hushed convictions of war and bloodshed, to pretend that she never delved into the art. But sometimes, when she wandered, when she traversed, when she waltzed, she could see the droplets of ichor staining pressed into the earth, from her footfalls, from her petal soft daggers, dripping from her sword, seeping from her mouth, turning her hopes and aspirations, her croons and warbles into dirges, laments, requiems and trumpets of chaos. Other moments tumbled into reflections of what she’d lost and already pushed away, the whimsy, the fanciful sentiments, because she’d manned guns, she’d spit fire, she’d seen smoke, she’d battled monsters, she’d brutalized those defending their homes, and carried each sin with every elegant motion, every refined movement of grace and poise. Regality and nobility sundered, stained, turning from the golden wisp of bracts into the feverish, molten crimson of a fallen sylph. She’d been too altered to turn back the hands of time and whittle away the edges of her lost convictions.

Only when a strange scent wafted into her nares did she proceed to leave her fairy sanctuary, her grove, her copse of shelter, where the world didn’t consume and ravage her aching soul. Curiosity and the need for diversions emboldened and empowered kitsune and songbird, directed and pleaded for salvation, for amusement, in the hostile wake of dreaded awakenings – two souls followed another’s homecoming, tracing, sketching, outlining the dread and forcing it away from their perilous sauntering, beatific and ethereal again. She recognized only one from the depths of the valley, golden and bladed, Illynx, and narrowing her stare as Imogen glided into long, wavering grass, captured the small frame of a foal. Had she been enticed from the Threshold, promised the conviction of adulthood in the grandeur, in the opulence, (in the danger, in the treachery) of the Aurora Basin? Was she made of strength, endurance, fortitude, lost at a young age to the mysteries and enigmas of Helovia? Both beings advanced, nymph combining elegance and benediction with a welcoming, genuine smile, ivory fox fixating on childish intrigue by chirping their arrival and roaming towards the babe’s gangly legs. A nod of Lena’s head was extended to the individuals, and the alluring, beguiling intrigue of her voice pervaded the surroundings, ditties, melodies and twitters to brandish receptions and well-wishes. “Hello, little one. I’m Lena.” Her grin enlightened, curled further into her benevolent lips. “This is Imogen.” The kitsune responded in kind, gave a hearty chatter and chirrup, went to bend between the valley’s wholesome grass and Illynx’s front feet. The Nurse dipped her head closer to the filly, glimmered and gleamed of prosperous hope, even in the passing moments where she couldn’t feel any still clinging to her soul. “Who are you?”