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She lived in between lines in the sand; drawn, idle sketches of good and evil. She could balance along both, travel and twist and tumble through her wiles, her traces, her infinite, compassionate trills, until one action or another sent over the edge, and she stumbled. Some moments were sculpted in warfare, in strife, in belligerent invasions or abductions, taken from her home into another’s against her will. Some instances were carved in rapture, in utter, blinding euphoria and she couldn’t dream of anything else until that too shattered. The nymph was used to the notion, to the art of savagery and the coil of determination and everything else pulsing and distorting the way they all became so rancorously entangled, but it still hurt every time. Her dreams could be full of bliss, of hope, of ebullient, spirited pursuits, only to be dashed by reality, thwarted by catastrophe. It was brutal and soulless, the way their paths were sometimes laid out, because no matter how many times she gave every ounce of her love, of her being, of her strength into the world’s intrepid, daring whims, she was only repaid in guilt, in rue, in vehemence.
Perhaps she should’ve learned by now not to aspire, not to wish – but that was what separated her from the cruel, from the monstrous, from the decadent. She tried. She craved. She prayed. She didn’t give in.
But some days were much harder than others.
The Songbird’s notes didn’t end, whirling and twirling in boundless possibilities, scaling the rock walls and the floating, humid wind, spiraling in warm cascades and silly follies. Her mouth opened to the beguiling orchestra unwinding and unfurling, a beatific glade, a beautiful serenade to pieces of herself she’d forgotten or the individuals she’d understood, she’d cherished, she’d loved, never to see again. Lena painted pictures and images and tapestries with her voice: gilded, glowing, glistening, mellifluous splendor for all the things she missed. Her eyes closed, drifted shut, and she pushed the tones higher, then softer, alternating patterns of fantasy and regret – forgoing the tears building behind her eyes and the painful, barbed nettles driven into her core.
Then Imogen burrowed into her side again, dulcet and warm, tender and perfect, chimed along with the echoing symphony, and another voice pulled her away from the sorrows. Her gaze fluttered awake again, reacquainting her sights with the girl from the Dragon’s Throat, a compliment gliding along the breeze and ruffling her sentiments. She blinked several times, hiding her broken pieces, but not rising from the dunes, not trusting her limbs. Her smile, always elegant, always refined, always gentle (despite the heartbreak clawing and rasping against the composed remnants of her soul, despite the savage, acrid bile returning to cloud her thoughts, her mind), remained poised over the loss of life. “Thank you,” her words hovered, poised aloft like wings and feathers and threads waiting to snap, entirely too delicate. Instead of falling apart, she chose to savor the appearance of another, a worthy distinction, a distraction, from the tumbling nuances and the way she never seemed to topple her demons, gaze enigmatically drawing over amber gloss and honeyed whims, to a child who’d grown into a beauty. The Mender’s smile widened. “You are more than welcome! I trust you are well?” Then her stare pinpointed to the imp manifested at Sikeax’s limbs, felt her own kitsune stare, growl in suspicion, and the strength of her dominion rose, beating, hovering, within her chest. Gentle but not deceived, she claimed her voice again, tilting her head in curiosity, in divine inquiry. “Who is your friend?” The sylph wondered, speculated, how far demons and monsters and fiends crawled into one’s mind – and if poor Sikeax had been possessed by them too.
[Not at all! Thank you for joining me! ^_^]
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