Every fiber of her skin was on fire with the rush of songs – she was a silhouette of orchestras and symphonies, a composer, a writer, stringing her chords and melodies together, hoping, praying, mending. Others seemed to join nearby, along the outskirts of her eyes, unknown shadows, tapestries melded to the wall, voices clinging over her mind, but she was only a musician, playing her whims and potency over the bounty of the void, paying them no mind as she heralded hymn after hymn, strain after strain, aria after aria. Even when exhaustion pulled at her bones, at her marrow, at her throat, she strived and loomed over the barbs, pushing the mellifluous particles over her tongue and across her mouth, springing eternity in the washed granules of death and demise, melding and molding each ounce of her compassion, her tenderness, into the rush of heavenly divination. She could still feel broken pieces of the mare’s soul crackling and carved away, and the Time Mender dove against it, fought, clenched her jaw, closed her eyes, bore all the sonnets she knew. The stanzas sprung along her lips and into the hollowed sphere, and she heard Imogen along their beats and crescendos, something about ceasing, something about stopping, but she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t see the reasoning, couldn’t be overcome by the great beyond, by the reaper, by the dark shroud hanging over the gathering. There had to be salvation, there had to be deliverance; that was why she existed, to ensure those who suffered were suddenly cured, soothed, eased from their misery, from their agony, from the torrential outpouring of pain and mutiny. She didn’t know the mare, she didn’t know her story, she didn’t know of her passion, of her sieges, of her bright, blistering sedition – but she’d watched her protect what was hers, and that was all the motivation she’d ever needed, longing to salvage the broken, embittered parts of the stranger’s dying breaths.
 
But she opened her eyes when reality crept into her golden edges and bronzed surface, when her gaze ghosted over the ailing remnants of the great warrior mare, when all the signs were clear, when organs began to fail, when nothing could be done. It stung, it hurt, it bled down the clarity of her mind, because failure threatened to drown and seize her senses, and all she could do was utter one last serenade, “I’m so sorry,” hanging her head, afraid to look into the crowd and see the femme’s children weeping, the leaders gathered around for a wake, for a funeral, instead of some grand, uplifting memory. She hadn’t done enough – and despite Imogen’s grave, solemn nod (yes, you did), the seraph couldn’t hear anything over choking sobs and last whispers, goodbyes that shouldn’t have been anything but hallelujahs. The Songbird rose, intangible wings and plumage fleeting, hovering over dust and grime, shells and shackles of what’d been destroyed and past repair, stare only resting on the stillness, on the silence, wondering when she’d ever be enough.