She would have liked to forget all her follies, all her indiscretions, and all her stupid, foolish acts. She would have liked to cast them all aside, watch them float away on a whim, on the wind, abandoned, forsaken, discarded. She would have liked remaining virtuous and clean, pure and pious, marching along to the beat of tranquility and serenity – but those wishes, juvenile at best, died many seasons before. The Songbird had long since been scattered into many ardent, zealous pieces: the moral, the immaculate, the inept, the foolhardy, the brave, the determined, and then finally morphing into the sinner, picking up nefarious acts and placing them like a veil over her gentle features. The sylph’s last journey had been a sojourn of reality, harsh and cruel, callous and alarming, and then finally, an all consuming plunge back into the regions of her past, and she ran, far, far, far away from the memories, from the images, from the distortions and revolutions, choosing to flee, choosing to escape, back into the void of purpose, to lose herself across the rime, along the mountains, beneath the peaks. It was so much easier to avoid than face the brutal ferocity of age-old poignancy, to drift along the curtains, upon the tapestries, she’d woven for herself, fleeting, blinding, and haunting; drenching and suffusing her world with flowers, with harmonies, with brilliant, luminescent excursions and forgoing the twist, the twine, of frayed ends. She’d carve more notches of resolution, of steadfastness, to imagine everything else never happened; turn an eye from the wake of actuality and truth –

But it hit her with a blunt force, the concerning sway of a voice calling for her, the chilling decibels ringing against her ears, layered and lacquered upon a backdrop of fragile notions and breakable nuances. She felt like glass, standing amongst the pillars of caverns, grottos and catacombs, not strong and enduring, not capable and persevering, but a chalice waiting to be roughened and bruised, thrown and tossed; afraid of what the Thief might say, afraid of how she may have changed in his eyes. It wasn’t too often she was held down by the ramparts of fear, choosing the path of stalwart motions and valiant movements, but she’d committed so many errors, she’d riddled so many flaws, she’d floundered and stumbled down to her knees, and she wasn’t sure how much the world had shifted in her idiocy. What would he think of her now, a silly little fool who’d ignored the requests of her brethren, who’d tried to storm into another castle (to help, to aid, to provide alms and assurance), only to be snagged and snared? Only to cause more work, more labors, for those with everything else to lose? Lena listened to the spark of rubble nearby, the roll of stones signaling his presence, and dropped her head, closing her eyes, strangled and suffocating under the wane of the moon. There was no escape from her selfishness: once pleading for his assistance, and now hiding when he requested for hers. She wanted to sob, she wanted to falter and flicker apart. She wanted to keen and wail for the likes of her thoughtlessness, to mourn the strength, the endurance, she once held, and to watch the tears fall away, maybe take some of imprudence and absurdities from her soul and pitch them over the side of the mountain.

Imogen flicked her tails, impatient and brooding: her own form of irritation. She didn’t know whether to be completely, utterly exasperated with the Mender, or pity the stages of melancholy, the waffling, mercurial exploits. But Lena’s thoughts were so derailing, so pressing, so diligent in their scythes, in their rapiers, in their swordplay, that the kitsune harked her emboldened impressions across their silent bond, yearning to reach out and slap. Stop it. And when the nymph balked, when the fairy swayed, she did it again, over and over, until the self-torture seemed to start erasing. Why would he think less of you? What has changed? You still Lena. You still flawed. You still strong.

Even if the sylph didn’t believe it, the hesitation was enough. The fey lifted her head, stared out over the horizon, and loosened one harsh, trickling breath, watched it puff and dissipate in a coiled, curl of warmth – then marched, turning towards another primrose path, looking, seeking, searching for a gilded frame. She peered through the darkness, flowing and tangible, a blend of weakness and resilience, mustering the shaking, tired decibels of gentle might, of potent courage, bravely stepping forward into the midst and hoping he saw past her ridiculous vulnerabilities, her flailing, foolish moments. Her voice wavered only once, knocked aside by autumn’s chilling breeze, by the threatening clouds and the frigid prowess of their empire, slinking like a mellifluous bough through the curtains of hushed ruins. “Roland?” She didn’t know why it came out so uncertain, so quaking, so withering; maybe because she had so many questions for him and none of them would pass through her lips (Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’m weak?). Then, instead of any other syllables or phrases, she merely closed their gap, sauntered through the wavering pieces of Stygian subterfuge, and lifted her head to grasp hold of his frame, curling her crown around his neck, clutching and holding and embracing like he was a lifeline and she’d finally found the tether. Her breath mingled and foiled along the entwining, and her silence practiced all those expressions she hadn’t refined, putting them into his nape, into his mane, into the adrift notions of silence; and all the while, she shook like a leaf, afraid of what may come next.

@[Roland]