Sometimes the truth was a bitter, acidic pill to swallow, drowning and bestowing, proffering and ruining, releasing havoc, unleashing subterfuge, beckoning gospel interludes, fanning burning sincerity. The Mender had been on the receiving, searing end of many of these befuddling, confusing, sagacious claims, and was forced to either blossom, bloom, from their understandings, or become a muddled, worthless character, never reaching beyond the ills of actuality. She watched as clarity, as sense, transformed over the colt’s features: transforming raw candor into unsung veracity. A dead mother, a dead son, murdered then revived, a plunging course of spells and phrases, a femme capable of reviving the fallen, the deceased, a child wrapped and ensconced in his dam’s love even when she knew it could take her far, far, far away from everything she cherished. Lena’s heart clenched and her head bowed for the femme who’d given her life for her child’s, the one standing before her, all obsidian and fire, draped and drenched in confusion and validity, transformed from killed to living. She allowed a snippet of breath to unfold from her frame, basking and murmuring in the summer haze, yearning to reach out to comfort him, watching tears fill the fringe of his gaze. The Songbird pressed closer, inclining her soft maw towards his, eager and ready to offer her consolation, her solace, her serenity and repose, to ease the overwhelming sense of loss, or the powerful lament, dirge, requiem he’d already placed upon himself. Her aria was gentle, light, soft, and dulcet, crooning into the bewitching tales and beguiling snippets (she had so many questions, but none of them were appropriate for the moment; wiles of immortality, of fountains of youth, of enduring lifespans for years, decades, and eons), whispering into the portal of Basin finesse and Tallsun vestiges. “Your mother loved you dearly.” The sylph paused, Imogen rustling a little beyond her front limbs, entangling several of her tails along her legs, as if providing a sense of comfort Lena was unaware she needed. “You must make the most out of this second life, for her sake. She would want to see you succeed.” Though the nymph, the fairy, the fey, knew little of his desires, of his aspirations, of his ambitions, he couldn’t take his dam’s sacrifice as a means and measure to melancholy, to persisting, enduring sadness; she was certain the matriarch would have yearned for her son to triumph over everything he craved.

@[Öde]