Too far-gone, the kitsune smirked and patrolled the water’s edge, finding a warm stone to rest upon and revel in all her glory, all her sanctity and potential ruin. While she was yet to become an abomination, the powers were tucked neatly into her folded, ivory prowess, and unlike Lena, she had no reservations about showcasing the brilliant display of splashing embers and deadly force; given the right opportunity, she’d harpoon, lance, and scatter their way into legends and mythos. She, like so many surreptitious beings, allowed the secrets to dance and scatter through her eyes, pierce and shackle and fetter their way towards Roland, who seemed a master of specious things, and shared the precious armaments between furtive friends.

Meanwhile, the nymph was too absorbed and enthralled by the handsome croons of Roland’s laughter, the playful ambience heightened away from waning horrors, to be dismayed or disappointed by the vixen’s plotting of world domination. She rose and fell like the gentle waves, a humble, benevolent smile cresting over her lips, riveted and occupied by the subtle, whimsical changes between the shifting breeze and the charismatic play of his humor. The Songbird didn’t possess the abashment to blush when she was caught staring at him, continuing to admire the rapture of his being, the reverie of his presence and existence. She had no other words to describe his aura, his tangibility, his poise, without crediting finer works of art, brandishing statues, tapestries, and portraits, riddled in opulence, in grandeur, in oeuvre foundations and sumptuousness. He was grand for far too many reasons, and the lithe, slender femme was tempted to describe, to chronicle and detail every single amount of significance, from unburdening her cumbersome fetters, unlocking her gilded cage, allowing her the most wonderful, zealous, fervent freedoms, to being free of judgment. He was worth revering, praising, and commending, and she’d bestow him the regard at every point imaginable – eyes glittering, possessed and seized by the ardent croons. Even when he joked, displaying some idle strokes of vanity, she adhered to it, glided on mellifluous wings and proffered her widest grin. “You’ve always looked magnificent.” It ended on a whimsical chirp, a serene glow, and only thereafter did a faint, rosy hue muddle her complexion, and she quickly looked away, towards the ripples in the lake, the passing birds in the wide, open sky, running her gaze slowly back towards him in a hesitant outreach, then hastening it all away on warm, hallowed giggles.

But her questions had flickered and sparked their way down through the rabbit-hole, and as she listened to his response, bright, curious, inquisitive, nurtured by the mere ruminations of his apparition, the dawning reality, the singsong veracity, only curled another roll of apprehension in her soul. Perhaps this had been the moment she’d been dreading for some time, relishing in all his finer aspects, dreaming in colors of gold and crimson and champagne, drinking in the vivid spark of his life and essence, because eventually he would wander, he would stray, and she, too resolute, too persevering, would stay in the icy empire, forsaken. Her heart clenched in minute figures, Imogen shuffled from her monolith, and her features remained so utterly composed, tranquilly fixating on the horizon as she captured all the nuances, all the phrases, but wasn’t enticed to bare her thoughts on the answers. She wouldn’t be selfish, she’d already committed those actions a thousand times in his glances and stares, she wouldn’t ask him to stay, and she wouldn’t drown in the wake of unsaid quandaries or beckoning tribulations. He had ideas, he had notions, he had snares for the future, and she would proffer him every opportunity to chase after those dreams of glory, of ambitions, of aspirations. Maybe she’d been grasping and snagging at borrowed time, and it was only fair to give him back to the nomadic, Gypsy strides, the wandering, wayfaring parallels. Lena drew her eyes back to him on an inaudible smile, on a brilliant smile masking all of these untold sentiments, seemingly basking in delight when all the while it felt like something was being ripped away from her. “Then I hope for your prosperity.” Grinding one more beatific chirp, one more benevolent murmur, she granted him another lingering promise. “Let me know if I can help.”


@[Roland]