They lived on, forever enduring, strong, and mighty beneath the mountains, the chasms, and the cliffs. The Basin always had; it was habitual, it was instinctual, it was from seasons, cycles, years, and eons of constantly treading into the weight of fury, into the onslaught of terror, and coming out on the other side. She wasn’t surprised to see them swell again, numbers escalating, encroaching back to where they used to be, under directions, guidance, and obstinate hearts, from the General, to the sovereigns, to the hordes of newcomers who’d settled and tried to make their home in the chilling, but protective, strong, and eternal kingdom. Lena couldn’t help but smile as she listened to Tiamat, for the sea maiden fit well into her role, regarded them all with humbleness, with tenderness, with warmth, and attempted to fill in the gaping hole the Reaper had left. Roles were obliged, bestowed, granted and given (and she prospered a wink to Mortuus Nox, no longer under her tutelage but beside her, gone from a demon, to a fledgling medic, and ultimately to a skiller healer, a master of mending), titles no longer empty or forgotten, each and every one of them destined to help, guide, and foster their world, their empire – just as it should be. Even if she didn’t know some of them – the incoming Weaver, one of the Thieves – she was still proud of their achievements, their tangible abilities, the ways in which they’d earned their mantles. She bobbed her head in time to each of the announcements, peeking this way and that for the individuals taking legendary places (a whisper of Faelene towards the Thieves, D’art for the Menders, Ulrik for the Weavers), declaring her congratulations with a bright, luminescent smile and a resounding melody.
 
Even when the talk came to wolves, predators lurking in their midst as a means to guard, she wasn’t immediately withered, dismayed, or disappointed; she and Imogen simultaneously glanced to the decaying, metallic guardians crumbling into the dust, pondered over the means, the measures, of protection from the vile, wicked evils they'd seen amongst the unearthed catacombs. “Will these wolves replace our Sentinels?” She asked on a whim, gaze fixating back to Tiamat, to Aisling, wondering over what Ulrik's ancient machines would become too – another part of the backdrop, ground into the earth, sharpened for something else, or forgotten, one more piece lost to time's ills.