L E N A
black clouds are behind me, I now can see ahead

Lena had woven many canvases in her short life, unraveled torn strings from their looms and untangled the mass of knots coiled within predacious shadows. Courage and confidence stemmed from these impasses, shards of remorse and regret, rue and melancholy, roughened by the masses of brutality, the searing, coarse patches of savagery. For, if she had not gathered audacity, pluck and daring from the sinuous, serpentine shades of those hollowed fragments, there would be an entirely different being standing in her place: varnished and lacquered with vicious rancor instead of hope, carnivorous pursuits instead of dreamy aspirations, coiled loathing instead of blessed tranquility. Was that where this Larkspur was now, treading the foundations of another path – one of iniquity, one of ardor? What would pull her in either direction, the harpsichord ambitions of a stalwart songbird, the licentious creed of immoral passions? Lena could say nothing to such an affect, couldn’t push, couldn’t pull, couldn’t drive the finite wisdom of her croon, both ideals brewed in her body, former created, latter inherited, and ultimately, it would be the mare’s travels that shaped her world, that sculpted her purpose, that framed the sinew she embodied; catacombs or pedestals, shrines or tombs. She offered conviction and assurance, because if she could bestow anything to the world tenacity was what she knew best, enlightened from the fallen castles beyond her eyes and the ruins captured by her daggers, all the stages she’d ever viewed from the covert boughs of her childhood. She could heal a wounded soul with the strength of perseverance and determination, the sweet, lingering smiles of a life not torn asunder, but afresh, anew, a slate cleaned and washed from the sins of yesterday, glowing with the hints of tomorrow. The chords of the past haunted, but the bloom of the present blossomed more vividly.

The reception of the femme’s biting sarcasm, sharpened brevity, found a wall pervading Lena’s chest, core, the formidable, impressive might of beneficence and composure. It slid away, disarmed and battered from its grievous assault. She’d heard worse, had been struck with more damnation, more corruption, more abhorrence, and so prospered naught from the recoils of Larkspur’s animosity. The grin remained just as she lived, intriguingly indifferent to the barbs of the midnight hour, the callous needles and prickles of the nocturnal, twilight evil, capturing the rapture of the moon, allowing the other’s gilded eyes to soak in the reverie of promise, faith, trust, and not the collected fragments of malice and menace. She didn’t reassure, didn’t comfort, didn’t soak her in the wisdom of her tender years, because this mare, durable and sturdy, would find her own way.

She shifted, uncomfortable perhaps, and so Lena slipped back, dimmed the luminescence of her smile, drenched the world in neutrality again. But the cerulean creature asked her own query, and the nymph listened, one ear tilting towards her direction, another catching the ailments of the rest of the realm. What troubles you? The air stifled her lungs for a moment, the cool breeze watching, lifting, the discord immersed in her heart, and she truly doesn’t want to unleash the vexations of her days, of her weeks, upon this newfound companion. She enjoyed remaining strong, tough, in the wake of adversity, in the remorseless, heedless whims of villains and pariahs, in the cool uncertainties of life. Even in those glorious moments of brawn and diligence, she could feel the Basin’s eaves showering her in chilling, rapier breaths, the uncomfortable shiver sliding along her spine, the dawning emblem of terror that beseeched her at every opportunity when she wondered about those lost souls she’d called companions; those she trusted, those she adored, those she strived to guide, help, and assure time and time again. Inadequate all over again, unable to assist those that she cherished and beloved; discard her enamel and she’d be the same wretched filly in the forest, drowning in the inferno of anarchy and contempt, useless, weak, trapped in the haunting veils of nothingness. She quieted, focused her warm eyes on the distant mountains, answering the femme without the butterfly whims and the songbird melodies, leaving only the tranquil essence to flow from her lips. “Missing friends.”