The rancor of the infinite nocturne was lost on Lena. When the first sight of its hedonistic haze had filtered over her sights, wound around her lithe, lissome frame, calculated the cool candor of her sentiments, she’d been dismayed, confused and befuddled. Like an unnatural, scheming snake, listless and languid, the darkness pressed and smothered the perplexed antics of a creature that swam in sunlight, blessed and consecrated the radiance of warmth – taken to the enigmas of constant twilight. Even in the raw decadence of nightfall, she couldn’t fixate her eyes upon the dancing hues of the Aurora as they allured, beguiled and ensnared, she couldn’t count the stars dotting the wide, open sky, she couldn’t follow and trace the shape of the pinnacles protecting and offering sanctuary. Only the outlines of glades, overwhelmed boughs, and ivory drifts of snow met her serene gaze, the ample glow of lantern trees providing any sentiment of light, any regal flicker or flare that they hadn’t been forgotten. But in the passing dusks, she’d become accustomed to the evening’s slender apertures, broken free of its intersecting oubliettes, and pressed her face to its whims. Instead of embracing the melancholy hostilities, the fiery ferocity, the ardent animosity, the nymph’s boldness hastened to her chest, a fluttering, arduous bird, replacing the loss of her tender incantations stolen alongside the sun. She breathed in valor, she crooned in resolution, and she swindled and carved determination across the bounty of earth, glaciers and ice. No shackles, no chains, no fetters and manacles tied, strung and ignited to her finery, to her grace or to her diligence. The sylph had built more walls, more boundaries, more rifts and canvases, of love, of devotion, of loyalty, intertwining enigmas into ethereal entities until she was naught more than fervent, vehement intensity, bending the dispositions of the rime kingdom to looming mysteries, forgotten, primrose paths. She’d rather be tangled into the caresses and strokes of courage, daring and audacity, than wallowing in the branches and thorns of fear.

The evening’s journey held and captured her in front of the never-freezing lake, eyes caught by the brilliance of its illumination, by the strange serenity cast by its soft luster. Why did the dazzling sheen and shimmer of light seize the still water, when the sky could not cast them the same? Did it offer them imagined salvation where the rest of the sovereignty could not? Did it put them to ease, lull and lend them rest, repose and tranquility when the stars ceased their slow burn, when the sun paused its embers, when the moon halted its cool riddles? And how, in the bizarre twist, in the loss of enchantments, could it radiate such a reverie, continue kindling the cordial, amiable strings? Her dulcet gaze bent over its cool sentiments, extending her maw to touch the immobile current, a silken giggle uttered when Imogen’s face appeared alongside hers, casting a dabbled reflection of their united hearts. Here, she could see peace, she could see rapture, she could see abstraction and absorption – and towards her companion, loyalty, dedication and sterling regard for life, all of its brambles, all of its heartaches, all of its cruel, callous twists and turns. If her friends’ images were collected and distributed by the endless pool, she’d sense compassion, benevolence, connection, cherished dreams she’d forever try to grant. So when the sprite shifted her stare back upon her own manifestation, the incandescent, rippling likeness, she wondered what others saw past her veneer. Foolishness, whimsy, fancies dipped in disregard? Strength, bravery, honor and courage in the face of damnation? Or another beast meant to fall, to sacrifice and be reduced to fodder in the great, sweeping calamities brought to their world?

[For Deodat. <3]