The nymph knew every sketch determination courted, every fine line it etched into sceneries and canvases, amongst livelihoods and minds, upon livelihoods and souls. The hues had always been beautiful, wondrous things – earthen browns and gilded wares, bright, luminescent shards of a greater whole, blinding and binding, shattering and cosmic, gifts from a greater, higher devotion. They touched her heart and left her breathless, wanting, when she was at her worst, and lifted her spirits into gallantry, into perseverance, into virtue, when she was at her best. The fairy lived her life in steadfast, stalwart degrees and decrees: hastening benevolence and generosity where belligerence bled across stones and ruin, promising diligence and persistence despite iniquity pulsing and unwinding its way through all of them. She smiled when the world churned out more bloodshed, more turmoil, and she prayed to the stars, to the sun, to the skies, for a chance, for a moment of respite amongst riotous dins. She sang every nuance of her hopes and dreams, of her sonnets and laurels, of her stanzas and graces, in hopes that someone, anyone would hear it and be altered, changed, magnified by poise, by resolve, by a magnitude other than savagery and brutality.

It was simply odd to see it hurtled back upon her.

She’d met the stubborn and the tenacious, lived amongst their thresholds for what seemed like centuries, deemed a part of the obstinate, frozen clan of powerful, staunch foes – but left to their own devices, left to their creeds and oaths, they’d never done her wrong. Each was a quiet sentinel, a pervading force, an overwhelming bastion of potential, pernicious prowess, but they listened, heeded her words, embraced her songs, or simply stared at her as she showed them kindness and respect, as she sewed, mended, and tended to their wounds. She’d been minstrel and dove, fay and nightingale, lark and ardency, passion and devotion, and they’d been silent compatriots, bestowing her peace, her freedom, her secrets.

But this one, the beast composed of heavenly forms and sparkling orbs was not heavenly at all; failing to flicker away from her attempts, from her serpentine motives, from her silly nuances and enigmatic rigor. He even seemed irked, irritated, just for brief moments, that she told him not to persist, not to waste his time, his chances, his moments of opportunity on her barbed, nettled, thorned frame. She didn’t know what to say to him after that, how to act, what to do, because after all her time, patience, and incantations, he still rebuffed them, acted as if there was naught for spells and weavings, for the veils and taffeta crossing over woven lines. Her head tilted away, and her body followed suit, pillars angling through puddles of rain and nightfall, feeling completely, utterly uncertain, enticed, and forlorn all at once.  “I don’t want you to regret-,” her voice, tender and broken, whittled away at the end, and she strung more silence, more hushed laments, into the particles of twilight. She’d severed serenity just as easily as she’d embraced it.

Why? was all she could ask herself, was all that echoed through her mind, twisting and coiling and distorting the segments of her joy, of her ebullience. Why did he pursue her, when she had so little to offer, when she had naught of worth, when all she’d ever done in life was try, try, try, and fail; riddling the world with more hypocrisy? Why couldn’t he simply leave her alone as the rest of the realm had done – grin, gleam across the surface, and not try to fold her back into her wicked, nefarious cage? Why couldn’t he see that she wasn’t worth all this time, all this patience, all these promises?

Lena wanted to though – wanted to believe she had more chances, more shards, more luck and fortune headed her way – because she’d chased it for so long, held it for just a few, beautiful moments, only to have it snatched and blooded and beaten away from her. At times life had been wretched (war, being stolen, snatched, captured, pestilence in the form of friends, war again), and at times life had been almost grand (meeting companions, cherishing those she beloved, holding a purpose in life). Perhaps she’d merely run out of the latter moments, hadn’t embraced them like she should’ve, hadn’t captured them in the right light, hadn’t enclosed them and wrenched them tight against her with all her might…

Life is full of chances… - but what if one had squandered so many of them?

Imogen pressed against her, along her forelegs and across their connection, brimming with more queries, with more responses, but the Songbird didn’t hear them, didn’t check them, too afraid of what lurked beneath.

She didn’t answer him at first. Her eyes merely glided along his frame, upon the sturdy, stalwart, gleaming enterprises of sun and moons and stars, like he’d been outlined in apertures and she should’ve been blinded by his figure eons before. The femme understood very little about him, couldn’t fathom his objectives, couldn’t figure out what crossed over his mind, but she did laugh, touch on the speck of merriment he proffered. She wasn’t sure whether to let him mold beside her until they were soil and sky, or to leave him behind, peel away on a notion of elemental dances and glimmering stardust, be a hushed glorification of midnight, a clandestine secret, never to be seen again. Both were enticing, both were beguiling, but only one was truly brave, rummaging past her heart and curling amongst the fronds and pinnacles of strength she’d stored away. Her eyes narrowed, speculating, scrutinizing, before turning away entirely, gesturing out into the nocturne reflections.  “Then you best keep up,” she nodded, winked, and sprinted out across the twilight splendor, Imogen following, so that they were earthen and ivory blurs against the scenery – and she didn’t look back. He was either true to his word or another charlatan, and she’d still be safe, still be secure, in her layers, folds, cloaks and daggers.