The tangled moorings of compassion and benevolence didn’t stop there – they were both aided by the comforts brought to one another, each trying to shield the other from more torment, from more soulless fervency. But Lena had learned in her short life that there would always be something else guiding them into destruction and mayhem, that repose was short, sweet, and fleeting, a whisper on the wind, a speck of dust in the spectrum of so many blinding gales. She didn’t want Alysanne whittled away by pain, by anguish, by despair, and she didn’t yearn for her to be given more persecutions and misery – so she stood, conflicted, listening, struggling to comprehend the ways of the Moon Goddess, the layers of sacrifice to do something for others. She might have shaken her head, she might have bent it down into the depths of sorrow, to lament for a friend who didn’t deserve the belittling, barbaric sway of this rancorous torture, and she might have swallowed the toxic indulgence of a blunt word or phrase lingering along her tongue. Instead, her ears flickered, her eyes shifted from sea to feathers, heard the distant squall of defeat, and the coming embrace of better days, of moments not so shrouded in dismay and ruin, of a time and a place where Alysanne would’ve overcome her strife and aches. “If that’s what you want,” she sung through the ramparts and the outcry of gulls, closing her eyes so her concentration swayed to only enchantments and invocations. The gilded light of her potency glimmered and gleamed, a scintillating spark of hours unlocking the past, before instances were bleak, before swords cut through skin, before weapons were unsheathed and spars were ignited. For a few seconds, she was a hallowed vessel, dreaming forth beneficence to drown out suffering and despair, parting her lips so a melody curled and coiled there, resting a short moment on a beautiful tune, on a graceful aria, before gliding and coaxing, caressing and stroking, with an easy gentleness over the searing wound, over the embittered laceration. The fairy pressed and goaded until she hoped, she prayed, it was no more, and the ivory patterned dove would be able to return to her world, fresh and whole, only to be battered again. The final thought made her wince, caused her eyes to open again as the strain reached its end, and she couldn’t hide her sigh, her sad smile, her elemental grace as they still stood between water and earth, between sand and sky. “I wish you the best of luck,” the Mender murmured, pressing her maw into her companion’s neck.