stars and butterflies

They might have been mirror images, not by hues, not by colors, but by inward reflections, by souls drawn and matched. Perhaps they’d once been sketched by the same artist, a craftsman who’d sought the sienna, honeysuckle whims first and dreamed of her in fairy form, carefully sculpting wiles and valor but giving her no pathways in which to perfect it. Then came the Fire Dancer, courted more from embers and moonbeams, given life in the current sanctum and sanctuary, feeding her flames and no alternative venues but monsters and mayhem, smiling a little when she wandered down the same routes, the same twists and turns, as the other. Maybe, given the right moment, the right conjecture, they alternated, one being contorted into demonic verses, and the other distorted into the most beautiful of waltzes and minuets, conspiring to unravel and snap at the right instant, when their worlds crashed and collided, when their hopes and dreams fell apart, when they met each other again, beneath the press of earth and loam. They were a picture, a tapestry, a perfection of flaws – swept together by virtues and moralities, by mistakes and softness, by the weight of all the fiends they carried across their shoulders and along their backs. Lena would’ve gladly asked to have Tandavi’s and been moored deeper into the ground by the daunting burdens, by the cumbersome, emboldened threads, by the turns and trembles of her fears, brought them back to some holy light. She would’ve gladly sacrificed her contentment and given it to the girl who never seemed to smile, who seemed to hide behind muted masks and despondency, who was stalwart and strong and didn’t even know it. “Yes,” the Mender presided from her corner of song and sorrow, answering the echo as it reverberated along the walls.
 
Imogen rhapsodized in her own way, watching the other kitsune with his smaller, onyx figure and fiery tails, then chirping, gliding along the outer rim, running and rampaging in freedom, in liberation, as Tandavi and Lena ought to have done.
 
The nymph watched the companions for several moments, trying not to laugh, and then swiveled her ears back to the flame maiden as she confessed her consternations and apprehensions, already far more courageous than the Mender. Tandavi could admit her terrors, her frights, to the world, to the quiet, singsong shades of a friend, and Lena had rarely done such a thing – couldn’t bring herself to a piece of sanctum and sanctuary where the world wouldn’t stomp and press its dagger against her throat for being so weak, so foolish, so worthless. Her friend was none of those things, but the sylph couldn’t see past that, couldn’t comprehend why she should’ve been anchored to the dirt and stone, and why Tandavi should’ve been lifted up to the heavens. But the other femme could have peeked her way into the fey’s mind and seen just what she was – her lines, her words, her phrases, were certain and lacerating, a whisper drawn from the vacant hums of the Songbird herself. Her response was light and fair, form coming closer, so that a brown shoulder may have brushed against a crimson one, a portion of her soul to cling to. “We have much in common.” She smiled again, in the dark, trying not to furrow her brow, trying not to sink her frame, her figure, down into the cave’s swallowing pits. “So what do you want to do?” The butterfly mused, gazing up at the ceiling, at the press of monuments circling all around them. “We cannot be consumed by our fears – otherwise, we’d never be anything at all.”

the songbird