Lena embraced the darkness with the warmth and adoration of color, of vibrancy, of life and all of its vestal blooms, the darkest graces, the finest tastes, the honeyed, ambrosial pursuits of aspiring hands and glowing hearts, dazzling, beguiling, alluring, hues bursting amongst incandescent chords and choruses. If they withered, she blossomed, if they decayed, she radiated, if they trembled, she stood across, upon, desolate corridors with the singsong rhapsodies of lustrous melodies and cordial harmonies, bestowing lucent, impassionate, spirited sonnets springing from beneficent lips. Strength and endurance, passion and elegance, delicacies and perseverance, all the abiding, eternal, steadfast hymns glowing across her cheeks, entrenched and embellished into each web of her sienna skin, rippling hide. She could never promise them Elysium, she could never offer them paradise, for she hadn’t wandered into those parlors, hadn’t been subjected or allowed past these precious hallways, but she bled out for their weariness, for their haggard patriots, for their unwound, barbed citizens, for their insistent battle cries and their warrior symphonies, contributing to the burden of warfare, to the pressing onslaughts, for the unraveling maelstroms. Had she done enough for the beast before her, carved terror from his bones, counted and plucked sin from sinew, sketched and outlined the corporeal containers of his heart, the wonderful, beating vessels, laced and woven the soothing conjectures of her wondrous soul into each meticulous chord? Had she driven despair from his scarred frame? Had she fostered and rendered, discovered and sculpted the illumination of his power, his prowess, his deliverance for his own eyes to see, bear, and witness? Had he slid away from the temptation of gallows and garrotes, tiptoed away from the raw semblance and facade of ferocity, of indulgences, of whatever impulsive actions that had driven him towards her warbles and trills? Her gaze fluttered back open, recaptured the rogue shadows, the play of nocturne eaves across their icicle plains, their glowing anarchy of still-lake waters, and sought out the impassive wake of his solid, stoic presence, hoped and wondered and dreamed all over again. Repose in splendor, peace and grandeur in the arch of quiet sentiments, companions permitted to drift into the serenity of silence – dared her to ponder if he was well, if he was rested, or if he wished for more. The nymph tilted her head, attempted to absorb the space of his image, the roughened exterior, imagining his soul, his spirit, at rest, blessed and breathing, content and untroubled; like the rest of their world, incapable of truly grasping tender tranquilities, consuming and savoring in infinitesimal, minute tastes.

Her ears nearly caught a trembling of his words, but incapable of making them out, she pretended it was the clarity of the water, liquid pulsing and brewing in the calm, composed fixtures and figures. Imogen chirped her own response, traversed past the deep waters and crooned in the transfixing pool. The songbird’s warm, gentle, benevolent stare ensnared the rubble and embankment of the glistening current, drawn to their equanimity, the lull and cajoling, the beguiling, inveigling convictions and creeds of brawn, of prowess, of precision. Deodat, far from ruin, far from devastation, could be one of those rocky portals, stone standing amongst the rubble, monolith and pedestal, rebuilt and restored over and over again, timeless, ardent, complex and menhir, towering above the masses in one shining moment of valor, courage and honor.

He said something else, luring her away from the brilliance of her imagination for a few tender moments, considering the weight of his question, trying not to laugh away a melancholic response. The dove, the fairy, the sylph never learned a song from family, from brethren, from a bloodied heritage, never heard a soothing chord uttered from the bestial lips of barbaric mouths; only blood-curdling cries, war screams, battle rasps and incantations, roughened, heightened contempt and loathing, fire and ferocity stoked by the ire, by the wrath, by the writhing mass of mania, chilling, sinister art. From their lungs, she learned viciousness, villainy, cloaked daggers and specious garb, barbs and thorns penetrating and piercing the toughest of armor, phrases and syllables she couldn’t utter in her most tainted moments. Instead, she weaved, intertwined, words, stanzas and lyrics from the elements, conjured adversity upon blank canvases, tapestries, ruffian verses into sublime torrents, belles and carols, reforming, amending, revising decadence into morality. She saw pebbles and admired their unbreakable ministrations, she chased leaves and sought their shimmering magnificence, she slipped beneath boughs and appreciated their stately prowess, their guardian bellows, their silent protection. The fairy danced and felt dew, the fey trembled, quivered and quavered in awe of the mountain peaks, the hot, toiling sands, and the fervent, pressing crash of ancient, arcane waves. She remembered each and every friend, enraptured individual hymns to their resplendent revelations, fading footsteps, encroaching amiability, stoking embers to contort and collect their vivid strings, pressed them close to her heart, and sang from the depths of her devotion, ardor and passions. Lena didn’t need others to instruct her upon lyrics, arias, laments, dirges, strains and ditties, not when the world offered her the most wondrous provisions. The truth spilled from her parted, sanguine grin, warm, tender, forever generous and altruistic, blending and glowing from the finery of her precious sentiments and unguarded assertions. “I thought of you.” A smile traced her cheeks again, a fond giggle bubbling from her vocals, a firm wink bestowed amidst the gloom, lighting the darkest skies with the air of her mellifluous essence, ethereal, otherworldly, enchanted and captivated by the diligence and resilience of the world and the behemoth before her.