Lena melded and molded her frame back into the whims, the fancies, and the ornate deities of poetry. The evening hours lent their brooding flesh, their crawling shadows, their slithering, sinuous, haunting design, so that as she roamed it combed her virtues, left them secret, kept them safe. The twilight songs bestowed their grief, their laments and their tortures so that she may find words to their dirges and requiems, so that as she scoured for runes and ruins she could place the phrases into ethereal contentment. The nocturnal reverie allowed her to escape into midnight quandaries and queries in silence and hushed tranquility, accompanied serenity into the sculpture of radiance and beneficence, polished the divine scriptures of her tunes until they became background harpsichords, whispers woven into the sky, the air, the earth. The muses imparted their wisdom upon her silly, compassionate mind, so that when her mind tried to unravel the mysteries of the dawn and dusk, she’d be sheltered from their cruelty, their misery, their woes, and tied back to her persevering, passionate strength. The earth granted her a path of gentle, harmonious rays to follow, tracing the lingering courtyard of the moon as it blossomed, bloomed; the ivory flower of gloaming oils, Stygian veils, surreptitious, specious exploits. Swept away by the wind, on strings, pearls and lace, she was carried into the flickering, icicle abyss, wandering, traipsing along the walls of frozen rime and nonchalant brawn. She’d lost angelic fragments in the caverns, scattered them amongst rock, rubble and hardened stone, misplaced their smiles, laughter and delight, sacrificed their unguarded warmth for determination and valor. Even now, as she became a seraph in the dwindling eventide, in the hushed breath of quiet and rapture, she did not search for them. Pieces of her had been rendered to ashes, and she gifted them to the ambience of another chiseled reverie, gone to find its place in the lulled snippets of time. The darkness crooned its feverish, selfish leisure, its tumultuous, turbulent design crooked its delicate, bony fingers over her features, and she turned away from the bowing embers of yesteryear, of tears unshed, of prayers never heard; ceased chasing cobwebs. Innocence torn asunder and shed for the might of a nation – it made her stronger, it made her mightier, it gave her light when the tainted coils strangled, and it gave her hope when the kingdom seemed to run out of such bleak convictions.

Imogen tried to find those little moments, scouring the cave floors for charms and tokens of blessings unsung, of grins she’d never seen or cries never uttered. But her stalwart companion traversed onward, bound for repose, restless for adventure and bombarded by some strange nuance of justice and ardor. The fox followed, too young to dream of magnificence and beauty, too small to cling to elegance and refinement, but watched as the sylph exuded, proclaimed, the triumph of such wiles, wildness and allurement to the temples of skyline, horizon and mountains. Lena drifted into tombs of the unknown, embarking across ice and danced along stone, arching to shadow and clinging to light. Her attention was soon enraptured, beguiled, entranced, by the distant magnificence of argent and silver. It blended into the corridors of ambient light, streaked across land like a star shot from the heavens, a moonbeam driven from its creator to travel amongst the mortals. The nymph ceased movement to stare upon its motions, and the kitsune did the same, gawking amongst the forest of still hooves and columns. Only when the fey narrowed her eyes and stared for a lengthy time did she realize that the creature was not made of luminary forces or forgotten mercury, but of the same sword, shield, as she, brandished by horn and beauty.

Incensed and enticed, she followed the path laid by the stranger. She embarked her own elemental dance, because where he lined the world with lunar melancholies, she offered the holy embrace of the sun, the remarkable trance of the shadow, the cloak and dagger lined pinnacles of covert, furtive enigmas. Hooves carried her along the trail of lustrous, scintillating poise, finery elongated by sharp, exotic motions, movements given to the summer’s edge, the arch’s mist and snow. Imogen glided thereafter, and they became pieces of earth and wind, lithe flutes, limber harps, willowy fixtures and instruments designed for harmonious, mellifluous adornment. When she reached his side, she brushed by, the stroke of vivid, intense rapture, the steady haze and gaze of a florid, influential wave, smiling, grinning, giggling, forelock splayed upwards in a bobbing tail and trail of untamed beauty. A call, a shout, pulsed from her musical mouth, a trill, a warble that flowed past the encroaching darkness. “Hello!” Then she continued her waltz, a thrilling, heady flow of travel comprised of swift bursts, riding the wind, soaking in its power, its fluidity, sparking the zeal for him to follow, to play, as a fellow beam of light and air. Imogen chirped behind her, then at his feet, so that everything around them felt like bells, carols and laughter.