This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Mendacity, insurrection, false virtues, empty conversations, timeless speciousness capitalized and amended its chiseled shards, sculpting and molding the cataclysmic venue further down the road of sanctimony. Somewhere, amidst the doldrums, amidst the melancholy, amidst Imogen’s battling spirit, amidst the strange, terrorizing factions and tension, justice was being served and vengeance was being layered, but her mind was too conflicted, too absorbed, in the tyranny, in the flames, to puzzle or put together the pieces of their mistakes and errors. Instead, Lena's ruminations became mere punctures, pinions, of pain, of horror, of abominations pummeled and exploding upon her frame: because in her final act of defiance towards an unknown heathen, she’d brought the wrath of Hell upon them.

Premonitions and apprehensions surged to fruition. She could almost see the Sun God’s snicker behind her eyes, she could almost hear his seething tones and darkening whispers, she could almost hear his laugh; repayment for a trivial pursuit, for a dying cause. The Songbird wasn’t quick enough to scatter away from the brilliant, blinding embers, like a moth, she simply watched as they closed in, engulfed her in the luminescent, bellicose shards of molten, infernal wrath. For one, singular, fleeting moment, she could’ve appreciated the beauty, the treachery, the disastrous wake, but the sudden, shocking, blistering bouts of agony cloistered and surrounded her, and with no way to cease the torture, she opened her mouth in an unholy scream. Pierced, punctured, burned, she would’ve melted into the shoal and sand, clung to the unholy bits of anarchy, had the fire, had the dragons, had the world not seem destined to exploit her delusions and miscalculations, the funneling, voracious hypocrisy alive and well, beating across her back, scalding her skin. Her legs buckled, her limbs quaked, and her crisp, sultry frame fell to the dunes, swallowed and consumed in the throes of bedlam, in the throes of anguish, until she didn’t know whose bellows and howls erupted and flooded her skull. Her tiara, her sylph crown, her delicate, intangible nymph wrappings, ensnared and held by the inferno, tilted ever so slightly to witness the flames tangling and unfurling towards Roland, and because some part of her was vicious, because some part of her was unholy, she threw herself further into the pit of devastation.

Even surrounded in acrimony, her perseverance failed to yield. Perhaps it was the only thing driving her in the scorching song, in the heathen halls, in the shackles and shards. Maybe it was the one remaining swing of humanity crossing over her mind, away from the echoes of her own cries, away from the churning tribulation of her own fallacies. She’d asked him to come with her. She’d been scared. She’d been frightened. She’d selfishly deigned his presence to comfort her, and even if the regions of condemnation threatened to take her into their midst, she’d wouldn’t allow them to court him into their reach. In the hallowed reaches of her soul, she wished she’d never asked the gilded Thief to join her, because then he wouldn’t be subjected to this torment, because then she would’ve been alone, burned and tossed into the sea, and no one else would have suffered but her. She could have been lost and scattered, and he would have been safe, sound, well. The maiden’s selfishness had damned them both, and it broke the lively, lovely portions of her heart. You deserve this, the realm crooned, but he doesn’t, she answered.

Her strength waned, but not her resolution, not her determination. A burning goddess, an infernal deity, a forgotten sacrifice wiling its will, a smoldering immolation rising from the ashes, she pushed away from the sand, seared across the ground, blistered and charred the remnants of peace, of repose, of regret, and placed herself directly in the path of the draconic flames. She reached and stretched, extended and grasped, entrenched herself before the golden stallion, the beloved compatriot, could be swallowed by the tenors of torture. Only when the edges of its inhumane, unrelenting qualities had savored its final breath, did she close her eyes and collapse at Roland’s feet: her final worship of his generous soul.

@[Roland]
- For Sun God quest. ^_^ Thank you Aud!]