Soft murmurs and rampant disbelief, the cloistered, spellbinding shells and shackles of seasons lost and time missing, mislaid, strayed and irretrievable, and Lena watched as her returned friend solidified the tragedy, the strange animosity, coiled over her. While the Mender had faced adversity, brandished teeth and fangs and violence over the tender nuances of treachery and iniquity, she’d never had anything stolen from her, pieces and hours of her life simply plucked away from her bones, separated from companions, from reality, from everything she cherished and loved. The world carried on despite many cruelties, and the sweeping hands of life always reminded them they could be replaced, forgotten, absconded and mocked, ridiculed with tedious anthems and unjustified barbarity: she wouldn’t note about the blinding unfairness of Larkspur’s fate, but she’d stand beside her, attempt to repair the vile damage discarding snippets and shards of her strength, her prowess, her existence. The sylph extended every inch, every sliver, every splinter of her beneficence, curled it fondly between the darkened groves of the grotto, traced and sketched it neatly through quiet, nearly inaudible song, lilting, poignant bird trills and warbles, like a mantle, like a cloak, over the heaving tides of Larkspur’s shoulders. Melodic, harmonious candles in the unearthly reflection of the mirror, the villain and the hero, drifted and collected, lingered and tinseled, carried powerful notes and stanzas, caught in the listless abyss, piercing through the scarring tribulations. “You don’t have to be anymore. What can I do to help?” The answer was singularly pronounced in the slide of the blue femme’s shoulder, the poignant glances towards the light, a beacon, a herald, a bountiful omen waiting for them, pulling their hearts towards the bending fragments of sun and away from the eerie tension of the looking glass; Alices’ clawing towards the surface. The fay’s stare followed the motion, executed movement, a dance, a waltz pushing past the midnight, trenchant gallows, the glowing, uncanny shield of a God’s impish work, leading them out of the trap and back into the wiles of the Basin’s all-encompassing peaks and summits. Quietly, peacefully, trying desperately to not disturb the tense anomalies surrounding the maiden, too overwhelmed, too affected by the disastrous qualms of hands and powers not her own, she expanded her song into the ice, into the rapture, into the reverie, of the valley before them, skirting and gliding along the rime and frost. “What would you like to do?” Did she long to see a particular area, to glance at every center of their home, or to merely rest in its protective hold, no longer tethered to the shattered remnants of a heinous reflection?