Her yearning for absolution wasn’t to be dealt in this haven, for the flickering chime of another polished the waxy chronicles of the Threshold, woven and waving unusual sentiments of monsters, heathens, and infidels borne and resolute. Lena wondered, pondered over the moment, thought perhaps this dark hued mare, with her eerie mask and manic stare referenced the behemoths once towering and conspiring to undue their precious kingdoms, or if, by some twisted anomaly, there was something else more sinister lurking beneath the Stygian clouds. The discourse of demons and barbarians only reminded her of her former, cluttered thoughts, if she’d been twisted, distorted, and coiled enough to reign in sinister allurements – she passed back over it readily, sought to control the effects of the invasion with her blooming smile, her staunch grin. The delirium didn’t pass, falter or fail from one examination to another, didn’t float away into the springtime air, and as she perused both creatures (nodding towards the newcomer, Seele), there was a stark realization that she could be treading on dangerous grounds again, dancing in the thickened smoke of heretics, dining with the devils. But instead of being compelled, driven, taken and beguiled into the roughened corridors of tainted whims, of taunting ambiguities, the nymph remained composed, light, airy, ethereal, graceful and poised in the dragged whims of intriguing hysterias. If the stranger’s eyes narrow with suspicion towards her, for his glare is stony, hostile, flinty, he has nothing to be triggered by, her muscles refined, relaxed, dreamy and free in repose, naught to drag her into the doldrums of the chilling void. Lena, indulgent in serenity, generous in tranquility, compassionate in her bearing of beneficence, didn’t frown, didn’t become dismayed, and didn’t echo into a fit of despair – merely remained, listening, smiling, bestowing soothing guidance and kindness where the mustered world seemingly forgot its existence.

He offered his name, Vulture, and she thought for a moment to consider the calling, one of scavengers, raptors, predators fixated on carcasses, how he’d come to claim such a heralding. Was he like so many within her herd, eager to gnaw on flesh and bone, ready to contort and corrupt? His comments wavered along the breeze, and she captured them, held them aloft to answer as simplistically as she can. She had no other motivations but the ever-present song of preservation, to ensure her herd remained strong, growing, persevering in the dampening spirits of constant dusk and no dawn. If he wished for something else, a yearning for hot knives, scalding scythes, bloodthirsty glory, he wouldn’t find it from her words, her phrases, her appeals. She is not one for games of derangement, distress or madness, she could alter whimsies and fancies, caprices and play, but never the harboring, harpooning, writhing wrath of enemies sanctioned. So her words trickled from a gracious hymn, simple, forthright, mellifluous and crooning. “I’m here to offer you a home.”