L E N A

Listlessness, languid and soft, curled, unfurled with winter’s vapor. They crawled amongst the runes, timeless and archaic, but clinging desperately to an eternal nothingness that drove shivers down her spine. The open, vacant world of the Steppe, with all its luster and beauty, could not contain the aching barbs of their wounded souls, of their desolate contortions, of their dedication and despondency. Children of the forlorn, the desolate - still and silent, trapped in the boughs of pariahs, combing the shattered remnants of bitter earth for a morsel, a sliver, of something to call their own again. The nymph wandered the chilling world and craved life, yearned for the intoxicating rhapsody of shelter, sanctuary, a homeland that would cling to their hearts, foster their souls, burn and churn in their mind – but naught ignited. The hush, once a humming token of song and reverie, was now a sullen reminder of what they’d become: broken, splintered things. Yet, here she was again, in the shards of the Threshold, searching, seeking, foraging for the newcomers that could render them whole again, breathe life into lesions, bring hope in the shades of darkness. An old habit, clinging to her soul since her deliverance to a castle she once cherished, ushering in the foreign lives that could restore, that could repair, revive. Even when there was a mere slivered portion of a kingdom left, the bedlam ruins they slunk within, she maneuvered into the depths of the gateway, longing to return with another. The layers of evergreen mysticism touched her sienna body, but she did not preen or dance in the hovering doldrums, did not waltz along the intertwining branches or sing in the harpsichord brambles. Instead, her limbs pulled against the weight of snow and embraced the scorn the icicle palisade had given them, lofty, cumbersome, everlasting. Only when the tug of others, strangers in the mist, pulled against her senses did she reclaim the bright glimmer of a smile. What lay in the abyss today?

She traced the scents that piqued and fell, stale, fading glimpses of others that had traversed and found their refuge, others that were crisp, fresh, eager for that promise of absolution, of forgetting their tremors, their tribulations, their tragedies; beginning anew. Lena, nymph and fae, chose one in particular to follow, dabbling in the snowfall, in the wind, in the juncture of vibrant silence, clinging to the vital hallways of strength, vigilance and resolve when it appeared as if there was no reason to do so. When she stumbled upon the femme, horned (like a bramble of thorns – where is the rose?), Stygian and murky, she felt that puncture, that laceration, of a chill nestled in her heart. A rancorous reminder of a world lost, of a heritage fostered by malevolence, malice and contempt, the acrimony and bestial shades of glory that sacrificed virtue and benevolence for the savage edge of triumph. She narrowed her gaze for a few slender seconds, poised her body in the shadows of pine and fostered that stalwart, valiant assurance over her soul once more, pinning it to her chest, her face, and embraced that warm countenance of yesteryear, felt her grin return, not broad, not luminescent, but there, honeyed and genuine all the same. When she stepped out from the veiled portal, she was herself again. Offering a nod of welcome to the fellow mare, she washed the icicle world in color, the sweet, tender, mellifluous vocals of her songbird serenity passing through her lips. "Greetings, I am Lena. Who are you?" A graceful pause, clever eyes meeting the femme’s darker, tenebrous gaze, finding perseverance bubbling in her satin entity, and briefly wondering if this mare had it within her too, before gesturing her tones again. "What do you seek?"