Trumpets of messengers: canaries strung and carillons sung, cautious and sinuous, unwinding fans of the reserved and callous schemes roaming outside their walls. Like honored guests at regal halls, they’d served as sirens and beacons, lights beyond the daggered monoliths and crawling barbs, then drifted back towards their own columns and pillars. She settled into a languid, listless pace, roamed beside knights and blades, wondered if she bore her own scythe for the minstrels and sages, or wove a gilded timepiece in her heart, swore it upon oaths and kindred spirits who’d been burned and scalded on villainous conduct. Had she played her part, regaled and ruminated, sang and withered, or were there more heathen raptures awaiting them in the wings, nefarious and stubborn, prevailing and demonic? Would she be able to swing another gallows harpsichord into the decaying fortifications of the malevolent, of the malicious, of the abhorrent, absconding and roaming over ruins? Or would she be another whittled, empty hand, baying and swaying on the waves of the enigmas, battling her own quandaries as ruffians carved their way into more games, more acts, more stages? With the Regime’s cards shown, would another rise from their ashes, embers, coals, and lay to waste one more inferno, swallowing, conquering, devouring the endless kingdoms and sovereigns? Amidst all these thoughts, she wandered in pace, kitsune and nymph, christened small talk with various inflections, singsong patterns tossed into the mix, as if the adventure had been finished, quieting and polished, serene and tranquil, while the bounty of her mind worked in persevering apprehension, coiling and curling. Home, however, enlightened her face back into sanguine statures, lifted the edges of her lips into laureate smiles and jubilant measures, frost-laden tips of summits and mountains beckoning the final pieces of repose into her blood – when Illynx’s query roamed into her sentiments.

A portion of Lena grew hesitant at the bewitching aim of the GildedBlade’s grin, the slide of the Lady’s voice combing through the rigor of her spine, the glimmer in her eyes, pointed, like a cutlass, towards Roland’s figure. For a moment or two, a weary gale billowed through her mind, because the world was ever changing, ever turbulent, and some small portion of her wondered if another soul was to be jettisoned and harpooned out of her life for an inconspicuous reason (the Impersonator had never done wrong – and surely Illynx knew of how long he’d been in her employ). Had Roland mismanaged a mission somehow? Had they been unknowingly thwarted? Had he a limited timeframe to enact an orchestrated menace? And for all the questions spinning about her head, she believed none of them could resonate anything untoward; he’d been loyal, she had faith in his every regard. Forced into silent speculation, her eyes wandered from beast to beast, conjuring what she hoped to be improbabilities and mere fallacies amongst the specious wake, awaiting for some tense moment in which declarations were made and her reactions would have to resonate from composure, from calmness, not the quick, sudden, swift, valorous streak residing in her heart and soul.