A blade, molten and forged from the credence of strife, summoned the songbird by the baying of blackbirds, by heralded flames and infernal hues. Panic ensued through the blessings of spring, sweeping away the wings of serenity, birdsong and twirling tranquility, leading her down the long alleyways of fir and pine, reaching out to pluck away the lacerations and lesions left upon a comrade. Seized and possessed by the wicked, wild frenzy, the untamed outcry of injustice slung through the thickets, through the murk, through the ice and snow, beast and fairy were suddenly woven into the elements, sharp, incised, amongst doldrums of boughs and ash, taken from the fledges and hedges, begging for salvation in the silent intake of breath, in the haggard warp of their fleeting feet. Emboldened, stretched beyond measures of whimsy or dance, reaching for the longest strides mustered, for the earth to give way to their swift motions, to arrive in time for restoration, renewal, unaware, ignorant of what could be found – but for her to be requested, cited, someone’s soul had been overturned, close, to the sweeping of grim tendrils, to blood, to ichor, to suffering and woe. Her barrel twisted in the way she often dreaded the sliding eels and distorted entrails of vile, villainous pursuits, grasped and took hold, and she attempted to shove them away, swallow the vicious, haunting, poignant bile away, capture the tone, the gravity, of the situation. As the land unfolded before them, as the glaciers rose and the arches unveiled the unsettled party, patriots and leaders lined before fallen brethren, her heart nearly stopped.

A grisly image, ghastly, despondent, mottled and stained her illustrious, refined brow. Recognition, an instant familiarity with the crushed ivory pressed into the lush grass, beat a heavy drum against her ears, and she wasn’t sure whether she gasped, cried, or drew only the silent remnants of shock – merely proceeded in overwhelming, overbearing, hushed aptitude. She’d seen her friends wounded before, had joined them in the hedonistic fervor, had christened and anointed them with the pulse, the beat, of her enchantments so they wouldn’t need to face the next day in the same pain, but she loathed to see them warped, slighted, broken barbs and remnants. She didn’t pry, she didn’t query, she didn’t ask (all that work had been done), and simply stared at her friend as she traced, sketched closer, glancing, encompassing, embracing a creature who never deserved such punishment. Her stare refused to gesture to the wounds, because no matter how deep, how vicious, how inhumane and brutal she promised to absolve all of them (even if she sunk to her knees and could only hymn from a shattered whisper). The nymph lowered her frame towards them both, extended her regal head towards the child, the babe, then beloved, sweet Arah, and pledged sonnets, croons, warbles, harmonies, into their essences. Poured and lacquered from her mouth, sweet nuptials of mellifluous melody, courted and contorted to shroud, to heal, to mend, in great, gilded plumes, a circlet of heaven, a tiara of divinity. Unceasing, eternal, everlasting, the hums, the songs, the ditties, the strains, restored, reinvigorated, pulsed over lacerations and burns, reminded the beautiful hide of what it had once been before such tortures had inflicted its texture, its satin, its lace. And all the while, threatening to poison the rapture, the reverie, were the questions brewing in her mind: Why? Who? How? When? And then, the sanguine wiles clenched into hot knives and the bitter, rancorous touch loomed within her core: would they seek vengeance for such actions?