The nymph listened to the layered quandaries, the lacquered questions, and understood the curiosity of Jorogumo, of wanting, of coveting, information and ideas from the blades of petals, or the softened, luxurious tomes of sages, from the quivering nettles upon sliding boughs or shuddering leaves wishing for one last dance. Hers was seemingly never sated or abated, washed over and gleaned with new facts and notions, but in her time, in the rapture and education of seasons, she’d learned not to always voice hers. Only on rare occasions did she pry the intrigues from her mouth, give them song, give them life, and even then, they were never harsh in nature. The child’s was much the same, longing to be granted details and particulars upon facets she’d likely never seen (a notion that sent Imogen preening, dancing along the junctures of rime and frost, a strange, bizarre conjecture of beauty and wonder for the eyes of a babe), and Lena was not a creature to ignore the precious meanderings of youthful indulgences. While she contained her secrets, her clandestine oeuvres, Imogen could never be a private affair; she waltzed, trembled, courted and dove into each and every sight the sylph paraded and embellished, together, fox and unicorn, sprite and fey, sprite and fairy. They were two halves of a whole, balanced, for all the strife Lena wore along her heart, Imogen polished it with her ivory sentiments, and for all the boldness the vixen provided, the Nurse amended audacity with a keen, rapturous spirit, a composed, lithe soul. Without one another, the sienna was unsure of where they’d be (she, lost down in the ramparts of a ruined city, with only the ashen memories of past years to comfort her, and kitsune, an egg forlorn and abandoned, forsaken until the next life?). Her smile, unfaltering, curled deeper into the threads of her lips as she postured the answer to the filly’s query. “She is my companion. We are bonded together.” How to explain it further? That they were woven, deep down into each others’ souls, one full of splendor, the other full of mischief? That without the other, they could perish; sing their last sweet song before collapsing into despair, torment and agony? Instead, she captured the further embellishments of Jorogumo, all of the ponderings given rapture and deliverance; a dulcet laugh escaped her mouth and she tilted her cranium towards Illynx, awarding the Lady opportunity to answer the rest of the bounty.