Time passed like a whirlwind, and she always tried to desperately fill the slinking, daunting hours, not willing to waste precious seconds and minutes. Sometimes she counted stars, painted the horizon with their luminous glow, watched and waited for them to fall, splendor and wonder casting hopes, dreams, wishes and glorious benedictions. Other days she bent the old wooden boughs of the glacial copses into new frames, weaved them into idle carvings, anointed and christened for the sunshine’s elongated rays, renewal, rebirth, flames of the phoenix. Another moment would be painted in intention, humming, singing, the relentless songbird venturing into the unknown, flanked and molded, sculpted and cast, into the nymph, the sylph, the polished, finessed grace of some otherworldly, ethereal entity. It was the latter she loved best, cherished and beloved with the sensational fiber of her tender being, pushing her onward in the scheme of perseverance, valor and staunch, stalwart morality, greeting the world as the light, the divine, the seraph. While she did not dance in the specious shadows, while she did not unite the tainted intrigues, while she did not daunt the earth, she still provided and applied purpose, motivation, drawn across the skies to usher invitations, to proffer kindness and to foster hope. Her brawn, her might, her dominion, her power came not from the undulating, pulsing muscles of bestial bravado or quaking intimidation, but elsewhere, deep in the flutters of her wild, untamed heart. Solidified for the ice, the rime, the glaciers concocted and invoked over her chosen terrain, compassion, petal soft, aloft, hallowed and amiable, beatific and glowing, radiant, poised across her frame for the distinction of mercy, tolerance, humanity and virtue. Whimsical reveries, rapturous tranquility, harpsichord rhapsodies refined and dedicated to the art of morality, for the oeuvre of integrity, for the trace of beneficence often lost in the reaches of their stronghold. Even in the chilling, cold winter, she glowed, sought and derived warmth, she gave and bestowed, offered and guided, became ardor, serenity, elegance forged by elemental design. To the air, she breathed curling vapors, to the water she sang sweet lullabies, to the earth she prosed heavens’ beatitudes, and to the wind, to the fire, to the darkness, she stretched out her arms and fitted their wounds into her chest, buried them within the recesses of all her rancorous, rapier regrets.

Her journey was marked by the tender nuances of long tread paths, she crusaded, Imogen at her side, as she’d had many times before, down the length of snowy corridor, embracing, embodying the cycles of seasons. The silken wraith, the ghostly softness of a silken canvas, flowed into the wickedness, sought the peeking, rising sun, satin incandescence and majestic light. A paintbrush’s malleable, pliant, mold, brushing strokes of fervor, her lissome candor polished by a tender visage, broken and reshaped by fragments of supple regality, noble rapture re-sculpted by her own beatific ministrations, beliefs, and yearnings. This was her sacred, revered dynasty, spilling from skin and sinew into the earnest, resolute drifts, the raw tenor of her enigmatic repose; movements quickened by the nature of another’s scent drifting across the biting dawn. Lena ceased all motion for a few idle moments, traced the smell upon the wind, turning her sienna form towards the direction of newcomer, stranger and individual, fed by the mysteries, fueled by the quandaries, the intrigues, the curiosities, of another’s odyssey. Did they wander as she, wayfaring bliss, listless and languid, touched and caressed by the notions of sin but underlying none? Did they brandish sword and shield, did they taste the sweet, affluent chords of yesteryear, brewed by the sentiments of all their passed days? Were they too marked by labyrinthine qualities, lost, tangled, morassed? She followed, a minstrel of crooning, smooth murmurs, delighted chirps echoing from the kitsune thereafter, never somber, never solemn, never subdued. Warmth on skin, stars aligned, heavens granting their elegant essence, she stepped into the void, honeyed eyes seeking the nomad, the traveler, the gypsy, the Romani.

Her resplendent stare was immediately fixated on a brooding figure, trembling, quavering, quivering as if he were a leaf embittered by the noxious wind. But there were lines of strength coiled, contorted, taut, across his blue frame (and so very sapphire, the harmonious blend Huyana carried, rainchild and showered in bliss), and he hadn’t yet shattered amongst the heathen gestures of winter, the frigid monstrosities embellished, encased in beauty, allure and danger. Her mind conjured too many queries, launching, bouncing, tracing the pathways of her heart, too curious, too inquisitive, too enshrouded in enigmatic twists and turns herself to ever voice them aloud. Where did he come from? Why did he run? Why did he shake upon the earth, why did he tear himself away from the world he’d once belonged to? She advanced, careful, soft, dulcet upon rime and slush, allowing the sanguine shades of her divinity to curl into the air, a taffeta hum, a fanciful whisper, a timeless opus of calm, composure and peace. Ever genial, the smile she so often wore brandished itself once more, elongated, enlightened, pressed across her lips as if it would never disappear, encountering many storms and still setting its sails along her kind, gentle features. Imogen proceeded nearby, ivory against ivory, proclaiming her own welcome with light trills. When she’d reached his front, the fairy lowered her head in greeting, brought the lithe conjectures of her soul into the harsh condemnation, sought to erase the tired armaments of his travels. “Greetings. I’m Lena, of the Aurora Basin.” She raised her head, eyes traveling to meet his, enraptured by the beauty of their crimson distinction, the strange familiarity brushing over her, touching, tracing, caressing fibers of her mind that merely unfolded into more and more vexing manifestations. Continuing with the enlightened twists of her vocals, she didn’t posture questions over his appearance, she didn’t court the prying whims of so many other tides, and instead, laced one query to the forefront. “Who are you?”