Fairy cascades and whimsical dreams couldn’t right their wrongs, but she softened into a dulcet hum, a soft, vibrant hymn, when the world gave her the slightest bit of serenity. She was surrounded by gold and flames, coppers and reds, tassels and tendrils mixed in with embers and ichor, and when they didn’t disappear beneath her, beside her, around her, her breath eased and her sobs relented. The fae listened to the songs of morning, of the quiet, tranquil breeze barely rustling a few snow-laden branches, to the beat of Roland’s heart, then, to the apologies cast, molded from stone and earth. I’m sorry, he said, and she was too – for all the ways in which they’d broken apart and been severed, for all the ways she hadn’t been able to do anything but wonder, beg, and plead for a salvation, for a benediction, never intended to reach her. He tucked her further into his frame, and she sketched a place for herself there, alongside his essence and his strength, driven back into a haven she’d known for so long, but hadn’t felt, hadn’t seen, hadn’t done anything but chase in so many cycles. A part of her wanted to forgive him instantly – had likely already done so between heartbeats and stares, between familiar eyes and besotted clamors – because she’d always been the ties of compassion, the cherishing architecture of grace and poise, dignified, noble, refined despite the bestial realms’ efforts. Her tongue yearned to say It’s okay and It’s all right, a twinge of I’m fine, cover up all the nuances, the secrets, the lies she so fervently kept close and locked away – it would’ve been easy, simplistic, agreeable, and amiable. The Songbird had done it many times in her youth, set up pretenses and smiles, grins and charity, so the only one that hurt, the only one that cracked, the only one that parceled themselves away was her. She’d grown beneath a staunch mountain and determined fortitude, remembered how to fabricate and falsify so no one saw the weak, inept, stumbling fool beneath her honeyed wiles and her mellifluous songs. But now it seemed silly and stupid, foolish and ridiculous, when she’d done naught to commit the unsaid wrongs layered and lacquered amidst them, when she’d been the one to suffer, the one to cry and abolish, the one left behind. Simply because it always happened didn’t make it right.
 
But the seraph didn’t crackle with anger, with fury, with contempt or abhorrence. Lena was a gentle storm, a shard of might not completely shattered against the rocks, emboldened by virtue and valor, by reverence and promises. She listened as he explained, shielded and shrouded in his embrace, of opportunities with enchantments and invocations, of the searing chance to do away with history and honor his chosen abilities – forgoing, forgetting, her in the process of annihilation and old demons. Something raw bit against her mind (a haunting, poignant cry she’d heard many times before, knowing she didn’t deserve his attention, his kindness, his deliverance and absolution for all her selfish endeavors, and the way he’d turned away from her told her the bitter truth of such sentiments); tore through the peace and repose rippling through her soul. She felt pierced amidst the silence, harpooned then tossed to sea, even as he pressed against her – somehow inadequate, incapable. It was the residual feeling murmuring along her core no matter how often she tried to defy it, no matter how Atlas had tried to reason with her that she was more, so much more, and it pounded, lacerated, sliced within her sentiments until a portion of it seared across her mouth, maneuvered along her lips, and whispered upon his skin. “The entire time I was trapped in that mirror, I only thought of you.” She’d tried to escape, to burn away the glass, to chisel her anger, her rage, her wrath, into infernos and finality, so she could make it back to him, so she could ensure his safety. She’d never accepted defeat – there’d been too much at stake to crumple to her knees, to cry out in anguish, believing he was in danger, believing she’d been thwarted so he could’ve been duped, tricked, and consumed. “When the beast came to finally set me free, it said you’d left.” And the crooked little thing been right, honest despite its Cheshire grin and torturous game – he’d vanished, without a trace, without a word, without a sound, gone off to another battle in a world she’d never know, and somehow she’d surmised she’d deserved it, for being less, for being pathetic, for being worthless.
 
Her voice gained in strength, in clarity, above a whisper, below a yell, stuck along the middle in a restless tangle of harmony and distinction, because he needed to understand, to comprehend, and she desired, pined, coveted for a sense of boldness, for a wild, tenacious audacity to spring from her soul and inform the world that she was more than a discarded, compassionate healer. If she said it, perhaps she’d believe it too. “I searched for you for several seasons,” she spoke, a calm, kind, composed strain and tune above all the hurt and melancholy stifling her senses. She breathed him in again, tangible and real, holding herself together by strings and taffeta, by lace and bird sonnets. “And all I could think, all I could believe, was that you didn’t want me near anymore.” The fairy blinked away a fresh layer of tears sliding down her cheeks, stifled the hiccups closing over her throat, fought against the burst of misery clinging to her form, burrowing, burying herself deeper in his presence, trying to encircle her figure in a hold she may never feel again. “But I still hoped – and now that you’re here, I don’t know what to do.”