They were at peace with the listless, languid tranquility, ethereal repose and calm sanctuary, tender solitude from the roughened edges and sharpened barbs drifting at their doors. Warmth to repel the chill, cordiality to avert cretins, benevolence and amiability to quell the animosity, the acrimony, a billowing courtship of allayed, assuaged strength. With the wilderness pulsing in their midst, with the bravado, the touch, the mysticism of the Basin laced and woven beneath their feet, they were augured prowess, heralded enigmas, scorched and marred by filaments of yesterday, grasping their renewed valor for tomorrow. Lena enjoyed setting her sights upon the Siberian horizon, then back upon her companions, witnessing as they molded into the backdrop of persistence, perseverance and tenacity, fine strings of unbroken hymns, chants and songs. She wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but in the presence of comrades, their backs to the wind, their noble heads craning to the eaves, to the skies, christened, graced, portended for some lofty goal upon their icy mantle. She had no doubt one day they would rise to the shining pinnacle, for whatever they wished, for whatever they yearned for, for whatever they desired, designed and sculpted in the fabric of their minds. Tiamat, with her elegant, sweeping hands of rain and dew, touching the world with her watery trance, her willowy intelligence, her youthful gaze, the Doctor, with his medicines and incantations, prescribing, nurturing, healing, tending and mending to the broken, the scarred, the injured. For herself, she remained unsure – she could sing, she could dance, she could strum the sinuous chords of a harp, a flute, a bird, lead them into serenity, kindle the stubborn traits of a bold heroine, but in contentment, she offered and bestowed the primordial sentiments of her charms and whimsical follies.

The Time Mender seemed uncomfortable, an awkward stance, features pulled into avenues of escape, but he still returned her smile, so her fostered grin became even more embellished, wild, fey, the essence of another otherworldly beast meant for dreams, meant for frolics, meant for untamed magnetism and allure. Her voice brimmed in a bright, gleaming tone, friendly and affable, the token affection of someone she’d consider a friend. “Yes. And yourself?” For she was well, no longer breaking off into segments of decay, no longer withering, no longer wailing to the silent requiems of her lamentable anguish. She had nothing to complain about, she had naught to dissuade her from the life she forged, carved and composed. Her happiness billowed and puffed around her in tangible waves, in the ebullient course of her frame, in the pride she claimed when she brought another creature to their valley. Her attention was drawn back to the aforementioned, the daughter of earth and sky, and the nymph watched as Tiamat’s eyes were caught and ensnared in delight, then to the shores of the reservoir, where the water glistened, where the rolling current seemed to call her home, onward and upward. A warble echoed from her smooth vocals, a tease tangled in the midst of newfound patriots. “Perhaps the lake first?”

Motions ensued, a dance, a whirl of movement, finery tipping into the wind, gathered in an exotic flourish of rapid finesse and poise towards the siren banks. Back into their elements, she modeled, shaped, cast the filaments of her careful, methodical reverie; the rapture of bliss that beckoned, invited, pursued her friends. She would paint the Basin as she envisioned it, regal, arcane, secretive, untamable and beautiful, showing them the heralded courtyards of mysteries and opulence, of splendor, of wonder, of vast, wide-open resplendence. Imogen followed, swirled and turned, a stream of ivory and blue, tails chasing after blades of grass – then the young Hellhound. She swayed into the tendrils of flora and back out again, batting back at his ears, chirping and warbling her own playful sensibilities.