The winds whispered, and she didn’t sing back. Instead of marching to their stark, Orangemoon tune, she delved deeper and deeper into the abyss, listless and languid, with no real purpose, with no real design. She morphed from butterflies and swallows to just another being on the horizon, tired and worn. No matter the diversion, she seemed to fall into the same routine – because each thought was heavy, every sentiment was overwhelming, and she’d hang her head against the midnight sky and the bright veils, hoping to find something in the roots, in the snow, in the rime, to tell her where to go next.
 
The Songbird had sought many things in her life, had melded and molded determination through her mind, through her heart, conjured love out of nothingness and cast it to every corner of her wanderings – and somehow, it was never returned to her in quite the same way. Her smiles would lift and her grins would cascade and her merry, bright, beautiful sentiments would scatter amongst the world – and they’d be taken with aplomb, with virtue, with something akin to camaraderie and kindness. Then, just as quickly, they’d forget about her. They’d walk away. They’d flee. They’d disappear. Or they’d shrug, countering her beneficence in broken pieces or shattered shells, as if it were nothing, ineffectual, pointless. She’d be left, eternally unaware of how or why, what she’d done, or why the realm simply didn’t crave what she craved, why they never respected the notion of benevolence, the sanctity of promises, the tenacity of warmth - why the realm always fell to sin instead of rising to virtue.
 
Yet, time and time again, she proffered, she bestowed, she extended her tenderness, her generosity, until she was completely, utterly empty.
 
The pattern would continue, endless and enduring, and her heart felt hollow, idle, futile, and useless. Nothing changed. Nothing altered.
 
The nymph, the sylph, the fey, lifted her head to peer against the dancing constellations, the searing stars, the presence of the heavens beckoning across centuries, voids, and the heady, heavy abyss; smiled because it was what she’d done all her life (enduring sacrifice after sacrifice, abuse after abuse, grinning for virtue, for sanctuary, for some small bit of compassion to flicker, filter, amidst the heresy and brutality). Imogen did the same, replicating the stance until they were just two more beings, two more restless souls, wandering the plain of ivory and rime, tracing over signature molds. Together their breaths mingled in the night air, and together they wandered along the borders, more pieces of the puzzle they could never solve.
 
When would the world stop sacrificing the generous souls?
 
A scent wafted through her nares, familiar and tangible, fragments of memories left untouched for seasons or more, and she stopped for a moment, pondering over the reasons, the whys and the hows. She stared over the dazzling skyline, conjuring motivations for Mauja straying here, deep into the denizen of what he used to hold, what he used to have, while he currently reigned over the Edge – an empire they all grasped once. But sweet Lena couldn’t fathom his deliberations, had rarely been capable of doing so when he held either crown, and nearly ventured away from his hallowed sanction. He wouldn’t require her presence. No one did.
 
But her ears flicked, because she could have sworn her name crooned over the wind and the snow; perhaps it was all a hallucination, all a mirage, and she just wanted to be wanted, required, needed for something other than a creature of the mountains. Her gaze sought Imogen’s, and the fox shrugged, just as lost, just as unsure and uncertain as her bonded.
 
Then, she turned, back into the fray and the abyss, shifting through the powder and the ice, performing the same elegant dance she’d always conjured – graceful, dignified, and poised despite overbearing thoughts and confounding notions – never daring to slip into the most melancholy of cretins. Her eyes caught him near the borders, hovering out of reach, not brazen enough to wander beneath metallic stares or cold, nonchalant features.
 
Imogen chirped and she murmured, allowing the cold breeze to stroke the incantation of her voice and song. “Mauja? What brings you to the Basin?”