The guilt ate and rankled at her heart; the Time Mender watched as she interrupted his repose, his musings, for her silly inquiries and bestial nature. For a few, scarce moments, a little hope bristled in her core, yearning for the clouds to open up and swallow her whole, restore the concept of evasion and leave her reeling elsewhere, she’d been mistaken in her egocentric festering, she’d asked and taken too much of his time already – but the concern etched across his gaze made her feel ever more errant, offending, sinful, and her noble, regal head fell, incapable of looking at him any longer. She pursued the sentiments of escape with even more persuasion, of forging onward through the shadows and the mist, of beseeching and coveting rightful scorn upon her flesh, of tending to her imminent wounds alone as she’d done time and time before, of bending into the bracken and beckoning corruption with only her wiles, with only her potency. Daring had lent her strength and mercy in the flood of her goals and aspirations, but it failed her now, lost in his compassion and confusion, and she believed above all else that she didn’t deserve his presence. Wilted and withered all over again, dropped petals and ashamed blossoms, her pulse raced and her thoughts fused into a messy decree, flittering, hovering, languishing, and demanding, crawling with avaricious exploitations and the demand for deliverance, for ears to listen, for catalysts to crack, and for some reason she thought he would lend his guidance as he’d done before. Had he not knocked open her cage in the underground chambers, where only the memories of ice and caverns kept her dreams alive, she could have still been drowned in the denizens of upheaval, misguided, deluded, forgotten in the midst of panic and despair. (And what had she ever given him in return? Smiles? Grins? Laughter?) She felt like she was racking up an enormous debt to the gilded Thief, and this one would be one more she had no hope of repaying (because who was she to give him her troubles when he certainly had some of his own). The nymph nearly paced, frenetic, wild, frayed at the edges of her once exotic bliss, bestowing naught but reverence for a listener of her woes. Like the sea, like the waves, like the flames of an inferno, her tribulations spilled forth despite her misgivings, uttered towards the puffy, winsome ground, as inane as she felt. “I fear I’ve been foolhardy.”

She took and took, stole and squandered, absconded and pillaged the wares of his kindness, yearned to crawl away, back into some devouring crevasse where she could only be surrounded by her shame, remorse, and disgrace. Once the words flowed from her mouth, past her tongue, across her lips, they seemed unending and eternal, another sacrificial immolation caught in the brushfire of her inadequacies. “After we witnessed the strange event at the dance, I requested the Sun God’s assistance.” She recalled the feast of flames, the bright, vivid, presence of a deity, being in awe of his power, his prowess, wishing for her own means of safeguarding, of preservation, and the notion of a price slicing across her hide. Lena spoke only once more to the floor, deluded and sketching out the rough conjectures of her impending disaster, of being spurned and turned away by a dear friend, of uttering broken hallelujahs and stolen consecrations. “I wanted to make sure I had magic to protect others, in case something unfortunate happened…” Her voice broke off, cracked, frayed, strained, unraveled at the end, blighted with a touch of panic, a hindrance of alarm, anxiety, and apprehension, and as if she were warranted his derision, his contempt, his disdain for her idiotic actions, she raised her eyes to meet his, waiting for the first of many burns.


@[Roland]