There is love in your body but you can't hold it in,
It pours from your eyes and spills from your skin,
Tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks,
And the kindest of kisses break the hardest of hearts

Despite the chilling, glacial ground, she was light, airy, ethereal again. Poised for the daunting stroll of cold and ice, she stroked the world with petal soft movements, motions for fairy wings and laureled sylphs, enlightened, luminescent, glowing with the prosperous notion of success. They didn’t have to wallow in the crushing grief much longer, immersed in the cavernous, infernal toilings of melancholy and ire, wrath ignited against thrashing bones, misery drenched in sodden veins, not with the promise of newcomers, wanderers, crossing into the ancient threshold. Amongst the corridors of the gateway slunk unfamiliar tidings, barbed warriors, sanguine hunters, and illustrious gypsies, awaiting the opportunity to become united with a herd again. And she, the satin nymph, the sienna essence, had found one of these creatures, buried amongst the ides and tides of meandering quandaries and curious, inquisitive enchantments, cherished and bestowed an invitation – and he’d accepted. What could be more aspiring, inspiring, than the arrival of fresh blood, strange, foreign and unfamiliar, but polished with the notion that they’d been willing to encompass their fallen, Siberian earth? That they’d been prepared, inclined, to weather this storm, to help furnish and replace the extinguished hopes, the damaged, destroyed and distraught whims of war-torn members? Lena revered, admired, this adherence to an injured cadre, this creature lending their hand to the crumbling ground, distorted menagerie of broken tribes. So she led him here, amongst the icicle dunes, along the intertwining glaciers and labyrinthine caverns, to be sanctioned as part of their regenerating harem. She looked back once to see this newfound rogue, Totem, following, before clambering further into the depths of the Steppe, dancing, waltzing with the smooth, elegant grace of a frolicking fae. A few more gliding turns forced her to laugh, a slight giggle, announcing their arrival (and in some part of her she wondered, for the tiniest snippet of moments, if he’d be as delighted as she, awash in the glow of snow, stars and sun, but nothing else). ”We’re here!” A few moments later, she threw her head to the wind and called for the glacial monarch, Mauja, eager for their time to begin, anew, afresh, heralded serene tomorrows instead of nefarious yesterdays.