She’d blundered badly.
 
The Songbird had always been capable of realizing her mistakes and blunders; they were always readily available, at the forefront of her mind, scorching and shaming. She’d practiced the art so many times that the talent could easily design its own canvas, leaking out hues of disaster and stupidity, foolishness and ineptitude. Eventually, she presumed, the patterns and colors would all run together, show up on her hide as more than burn scars or waxwork thoughtlessness, and everyone would see her for what she was – witless and rash.
 
He had, and seemed to have forgiven her for it. She just couldn’t do the same for herself.
 
The nymph’s features were unmistakable in their musing: discontent, smile askew, worn and frayed off to the side, brows furrowed, lost in the wake of ridiculous thoughts and reckless abandon. She’d misinterpreted an inquiry as a sign of worthlessness, of her measure being inadequate, of being nothing, nothing at all but another piece of nature and elements scattered on the wind, on the earth for a brief spell, and fired back a round of volleys. They hadn’t intended to be assaults and sieges, but that’s what the words had felt like on her tongue, poisonous and damning, seething and menacing, clinging to her throat, to her lips, like pieces of ash and ember. Her regrets had been instant (how long has it been since she’d been a hellion instead of a seraph?), damning, coiling against her heart, her mind, as a steady, reckoning blow. The lithe fairy knew she’d have to make amends, but the notions of how always withered away, too soft, too delicate, too inadequate to even proffer to another being. Atlas had been far too patient with her already, and she’d muddled everything up again.
 
Imogen took the opportunity to divert and distract her fey mistress, curling her ivory tails this way and that through the dense fog and the murky outreach, scaling over rocks and rubble, enchanting her with a ditty or two that Lena eventually joined, following over the wayward, foxy path to a stretch of sand. When some of the strains became naughty (I think he liked it!) or cunning, the seraph blushed, ignored them, or refrained from rolling her eyes, gazing out towards the sea and mulling into a quiet hum, trying not to become another siren enticing wanderers to their watery graves. The white kitsune chirped this way and that, diving into pools while the Mender looked on, fueling her with silly, inane sentiments and ruminations (a crab! she’d shout through their connection, then pretended to pounce on its hardened shell, pawing at it until it escape or threatened to pinch at her limbs), hoping to inspire a grin to wash over her companion’s face. But Imogen, wily and crafty, knew naught would become of the situation unless something happened, either by declarations or apologies made, and she huffed a little, irritated at being incapable of smoothing things over. By some innate hope and design, because if anything, the little beast was methodical, she hopped on one of the largest rocks she could find, chirruping all the way – and beckoning her tails like sails, enticing and inviting stars to find their way amongst the depths. Lena, too preoccupied by the state of her latest fallacies and iniquities, barely noticed, and stared across the lands, the forest, the jungles, the archipelagoes, never warranting a hint of suspicion.