“You are worthless,” the bay mare spat between hisses and sibilates, snaking her head towards the child like a vicious, vehement serpent, close enough to spill toxic breath over the babe’s downy head. “Worthless and weak.” Her brows furrowed while the filly shook, turning away the rubble and ruin of a scion, lost, a candle’s flame waning and withering, down to the last pools of wax. “What a waste.” Then she was gone, back into the mist and fog, leaving the Lilliputian statue reeling in the loss of warmth, quivering and shuddering in her bed of wildflowers.

She’d see her mother again and again, crossing over battle lines, leaving more marks and scars, glancing at her from the forest edge, promising, hoping, praying she’d never be like the monster demon, felling her enemies left and right, thinking naught of bedlam, of disaster and ruin.

Time altered in a fixed crescendo of confusion, bewilderment, and panic. The Songbird awakened, alone, gasping, struggling to breathe, choking back bile closing over her throat, thrashing her beguiled limbs amidst a nest of undergrowth, beckoning for peace, for serenity, for repose. She recognized nothing, and closed her eyes, willing herself back into stormy resistance, into mired fortitude, into rancorous, composed perseverance. Behind her lids only greeted the most persistent of nightmares, granting no relief, and when she reopened her gaze, her mind felt rusty, befuddled, irrationally slow and dull. In a listless sort of haze, she struggled to stand, maneuvering her front limbs from underneath her chest, but her shoulders, like the rest of her frame, felt muddled and foggy, resisting her membrane’s powerful commands. She shook her head in prolonged gestures, swaying back and forth on the restless breeze, on the silent whirl of autumn, on the strange sounds of trickling, falling water, a bizarre notion because the Basin didn’t have any beautiful, glorious waterfalls; only the wonderful notions of the Hidden Falls did, because she remembered it from their trip in armistice and extensions of festivals – the agony struck again, and the nymph fell back into her bed of shackles and ferns, unconscious.

Imogen chirped, wild and frenzied. Lena reached out for her, attempted to coax tranquility back into the chaotic situation, scrambling while her body shook, trembled, and quivered; muted fright flooding over her senses, unsure if it was the kitsune’s or her own. The vixen scrambled alongside the frost-covered Arch, bleating out tremendous roars and malevolent curses, wicked and demonic; a vision of Ares in fox form. Will get help! Will go to Basin! Lena is strong. Will be back! Will hunt down inky thing! Then gone, gone, gone, like her mother, like her father, and the femme closed her eyes on the fringes of tears, before she was consumed in a black, abysmal fog.

The hours wiled away, closing and snapping over her frame, and like clockwork, as the sun crested the daylight knolls, the fairy roused again, pulled away from the spiritless murk, listening to the ringing sounds of a battle thundering nearby.

Reality sunk like a stone, punishing and puncturing over her spine, across her neck, down over the ridge of her ears, pressing against the Time God’s feather, whirring and sparking and quivering in the dawn’s bristling light. She grew rigid, and sank further into moss and pebbles, apprehension clouding over her senses, veracity rasping, clawing, and clenching along her skin, nurturing all the fears she’d ever had until they were blistering, scorching thorns, pricking and poking and lacerating her insides. She should’ve been out in the sun, chasing after her brethren, providing them with endless songs and junctures, relieving their pain, their anguish, as they fought for an ally’s wish. That had been her plan, after all, seizing the restless ambitions and munitions of a stalwart, gallant heart, reaching out if after they’d said it wasn’t necessary, even when they said they didn’t need her there – perhaps it’d been wrong to believe herself wanted.

She’d only caused more trouble.

The sylph raised her head, pricking her ears to the sights and sounds of ghostly armaments, imagining her icy kin breaking past defenses and conquering foes, while she was chained and fettered nearby, in the wood, unable to get to them, to see them. She remembered the edges of the Arch, pressing firmly into their glacial walls, into their heinous, dangerous outcrops, not worried about her late arrival, just determined, resolute, and adamant, eager to unleash her potency so her companions could continue in their abhorrent crusades, and then the sudden appearance of bundled herbs appearing at her feet, the ever-overwhelming curiosity entangled in her mind, the vivid plumes nestled in their heinous wake, and finally the earth-shattering seizure of her limbs, the crash to the ground…

The femme, no longer bright, no longer effervescent, just a muted, dull portion of the forest, blending into its earth tones and rustic bark, bent and curled her head down into her forelegs, horrified by the idiocy she’d displayed, so indignantly ashamed of herself.

@[Ink]