The promise of crisp leaves, the cooling, soothing winds, the warmth stolen and hidden from the remnants of the earth only made the nymph more aware of the coming Orangemoon. So she danced with the swirling blades and fronds as their hopeful finale, laid her singsong ballads across their open arms, waltzed beneath their nimble, protective caresses, performed scales and arias into their collected boughs and along the soft soil, distracted herself from the haunting poignancy of their eventual quietus. She offered, she mended, she assuaged, but couldn’t stop the ensuing seasons, the crush and culmination as another era passed over their heads, gave life and took it as quickly, grasping, avaricious, gripping hands pulling and tumbling over the edges of the turbulent years. Perhaps it would do her well to forget the passing fringes of time, to forgo and consign them to the wretched oblivion, to the stretching, hushed convictions of war and bloodshed, to pretend that she never delved into the art. But sometimes, when she wandered, when she traversed, when she waltzed, she could see the droplets of ichor staining pressed into the earth, from her footfalls, from her petal soft daggers, dripping from her sword, seeping from her mouth, turning her hopes and aspirations, her croons and warbles into dirges, laments, requiems and trumpets of chaos. Other moments tumbled into reflections of what she’d lost and already pushed away, the whimsy, the fanciful sentiments, because she’d manned guns, she’d spit fire, she’d seen smoke, she’d battled monsters, she’d brutalized those defending their homes, and carried each sin with every elegant motion, every refined movement of grace and poise. Regality and nobility sundered, stained, turning from the golden wisp of bracts into the feverish, molten crimson of a fallen sylph. She’d been too altered to turn back the hands of time and whittle away the edges of her lost convictions.

Only when a strange scent wafted into her nares did she proceed to leave her fairy sanctuary, her grove, her copse of shelter, where the world didn’t consume and ravage her aching soul. Curiosity and the need for diversions emboldened and empowered kitsune and songbird, directed and pleaded for salvation, for amusement, in the hostile wake of dreaded awakenings – two souls followed another’s homecoming, tracing, sketching, outlining the dread and forcing it away from their perilous sauntering, beatific and ethereal again. She recognized only one from the depths of the valley, golden and bladed, Illynx, and narrowing her stare as Imogen glided into long, wavering grass, captured the small frame of a foal. Had she been enticed from the Threshold, promised the conviction of adulthood in the grandeur, in the opulence, (in the danger, in the treachery) of the Aurora Basin? Was she made of strength, endurance, fortitude, lost at a young age to the mysteries and enigmas of Helovia? Both beings advanced, nymph combining elegance and benediction with a welcoming, genuine smile, ivory fox fixating on childish intrigue by chirping their arrival and roaming towards the babe’s gangly legs. A nod of Lena’s head was extended to the individuals, and the alluring, beguiling intrigue of her voice pervaded the surroundings, ditties, melodies and twitters to brandish receptions and well-wishes. “Hello, little one. I’m Lena.” Her grin enlightened, curled further into her benevolent lips. “This is Imogen.” The kitsune responded in kind, gave a hearty chatter and chirrup, went to bend between the valley’s wholesome grass and Illynx’s front feet. The Nurse dipped her head closer to the filly, glimmered and gleamed of prosperous hope, even in the passing moments where she couldn’t feel any still clinging to her soul. “Who are you?”

Her smile gained in it's confidence as the girl took in the sights that lie before her, the finest of all things in Illynx's possession. Perhaps she could not truly own it, could not press her flag of conquest through it's layers of permafrost, but it was hers none the less; should anyone attempt to take her rights to admire it's high and elegant peaks, the still and sapphire waters of the lake, the splendid portrait of her unicorn brethren spread across it's boundaries, she would kill them and all those who shared a single drop of their blood in vengeance for savaging her heart so completely. The girl is so small, mused the Lady as her small black frame stepped ahead of her own gold laced being, the weariness that she had observed in her tiny body on the last stretch of the climb faded slightly as she turned back around with a grin upon her lips.

"I am glad it is to your liking," she grinned, golden eyes sparkling in the faint morning light in return of the child's enthusiastically gleaming gaze, stepping forward to stand alongside the girl with a confidence that emanated from her pores, "when the morning is full, more of the others will be about. Perhaps you might find a playmate among the children, there are several of your age." As she spoke, a familiar figure graced her sights with kitsune in tow, ever watchful of the gateway as she normally was, the Lady raising her crown to it's full height and nickering a friendly greeting to the nurse as her words were fully closed.

She returned the bob of the head as it was offered, glad that of all their potentially insidious members it had been sweet and gentle Lena that had arrived to welcome Jorogumo to the proud Aurora kingdom. As she had come to expect from the woman before her, her smile was genuine and her words compassionate, more so than Illynx had ever been able to manage in her imitations of the emotion; her nose lowered to greet Imogen as she drew near her hooves, lips playfully reaching out to brush at her ears and the peak of her head if she would let her.

This crown has made me a woman, she thought to herself, noticing that she was acting particularly kind on this day. Perhaps it was simply that she had been so emotionally downtrodden as of late and that the child had heightened her spirits, but something within her made her doubt it was just the foal. Had she come to consider this pair part of her coveted circle of friends? That certainly was not it either, and so she was left puzzling over the intricacies of her actions as she lifted her head back up from greeting the fox nymph to observe the interactions of the bay and Jorogumo.

The nymph listened to the layered quandaries, the lacquered questions, and understood the curiosity of Jorogumo, of wanting, of coveting, information and ideas from the blades of petals, or the softened, luxurious tomes of sages, from the quivering nettles upon sliding boughs or shuddering leaves wishing for one last dance. Hers was seemingly never sated or abated, washed over and gleaned with new facts and notions, but in her time, in the rapture and education of seasons, she’d learned not to always voice hers. Only on rare occasions did she pry the intrigues from her mouth, give them song, give them life, and even then, they were never harsh in nature. The child’s was much the same, longing to be granted details and particulars upon facets she’d likely never seen (a notion that sent Imogen preening, dancing along the junctures of rime and frost, a strange, bizarre conjecture of beauty and wonder for the eyes of a babe), and Lena was not a creature to ignore the precious meanderings of youthful indulgences. While she contained her secrets, her clandestine oeuvres, Imogen could never be a private affair; she waltzed, trembled, courted and dove into each and every sight the sylph paraded and embellished, together, fox and unicorn, sprite and fey, sprite and fairy. They were two halves of a whole, balanced, for all the strife Lena wore along her heart, Imogen polished it with her ivory sentiments, and for all the boldness the vixen provided, the Nurse amended audacity with a keen, rapturous spirit, a composed, lithe soul. Without one another, the sienna was unsure of where they’d be (she, lost down in the ramparts of a ruined city, with only the ashen memories of past years to comfort her, and kitsune, an egg forlorn and abandoned, forsaken until the next life?). Her smile, unfaltering, curled deeper into the threads of her lips as she postured the answer to the filly’s query. “She is my companion. We are bonded together.” How to explain it further? That they were woven, deep down into each others’ souls, one full of splendor, the other full of mischief? That without the other, they could perish; sing their last sweet song before collapsing into despair, torment and agony? Instead, she captured the further embellishments of Jorogumo, all of the ponderings given rapture and deliverance; a dulcet laugh escaped her mouth and she tilted her cranium towards Illynx, awarding the Lady opportunity to answer the rest of the bounty.

Illynx found the look of suspicion that crossed the babe’s face at the sight of the fox endearing; she herself had been uneasy with the presence of the numerous, smaller breeds that her kin and mutated cousins chose to keep as company. It hadn’t been until her tangle with the healer Smoke and that damn blue dragon of hers that Illynx had seen the true usefulness of such creatures – to the land bound, such as herself, the flight baring bounded were of utmost use, though she knew from experience that the kitsune, in ways, broadened and deepened the level to which Lena could heal.

Perhaps it was all about love. Illynx didn’t really understand such notions, and so she held fast to a belief that the fox accompanied Lena because it gave her more physical prowess to be bonded to Imogen than just her own body did on it’s own.

She had expected the flow of questions from the child’s mouth, her smile pleasant as it lounged about her lips, and she listened to each in turn as well as the answer supplied by the bay healer, still attempting to piece together what held her in such a pleasant air on this day. Having found no answer to her own questions, however, she turned to provide the girl with whatever she would need to know in order to be safe outside of their borders.


"In Helovia? Hundreds. In all of Loorien, the land on which Helovia sits, perhaps thousands. The Basin holds nearly forty, at the moment, though the numbers fluctuate most constantly and are hard to follow," she glanced out over the fields coming to life in the rise of the sun, the myriad figures to be seen rising to begin their morning ventures. A year ago, when she had returned home, there were a handful more than there were now – but none were less strong than the others, and while politics hadn’t held up as she had wished them, she felt that they were still a powerful enough force to ward away most thieves and crooks bent on taking away their mountain palace.


"Directly to the south, not far from the Threshold, lies Windtossed Foothills, led by Apollo the Merciful," she was hesitant to mention that contract that had been put in place by Psyche and Mauja between the near by herd and the Basin, unsure if it still stood in the wake of both former ruler’s departure, "their ranks are of mixed breeds, and they tend to be usually friendly towards us." She paused and looked to the girl’s face for a moment, pondering now how to break down the dangers that lie in the other herd lands to be found.

She began with the Throat.


"Further south, Dragon’s Throat waits; it is a desert ruled by pegasi. We have no kinship between us. I recommend you stay clear of that sand box," her smile was cheeky and pleasant, but the gleam in the back of her eyes was dark and carnivorous, a warning as to the swift death that such a young unicorn would likely find so far south. She had saved the most horrible of herds for last, however, placing her story teller’s mask back onto her face and adding the little bit of extra flair to her words that had brought a smile to the child’s lips back in the Threshold.

"Lastly, to the west of the Foothills and overlooking the northern sea, is a place known as World’s Edge," she lowered her head, words becoming more and more sinister with each passing breath, "ruled by the Dragon Queen Mirage and inhabited by the Qian, a blended breed force that seeks knowledge and sovereign unity over all kingdoms. It was once our home, before it was taken from us by the Qian, before Lord Time led the late Lady Psyche and Lord Mauja to the Aurora Basin. There is nothing but distrust and anger between our two herds. To venture into their misty wood would surely forfeit your life -" her pause at this point was dramatic, her ears sliding back cryptically as her mouth became a grim line of nearly humorous somberness, though she cast Lena a humorous wink when she felt the gesture could be hidden from Jorogumo's gaze, "as dragon’s fodder! Why, the recently stole several children from our herd. Thankfully Deimos was able to return them to us before Mirage and the others could roast them over their fires."

She would aptly leave out why it was that the foals had been stolen away from the herd.

The little girl didn't need to know that part of the story, after all. It would make them seem all the more the antihero, which was not the goal of today's lesson. Today's ultimate projections were that of gaining the babe's allegiance to the Basin and the hidden coven beneath it's glass surface - and one of those requirements was a deep set loathing of the Qian and their blasphemous ways of peace.

The conversation quickly wrapped and warped down pathways Lena commonly recoiled from; wars, invasions, defenses and abductions that mired, entangled, morassed them into states of upheaval, bedlam and chaos. She’d sauntered down the wayward barbs and into patches of thorns, she’d sunk into insurrection and villainy, violence and entropy, and held no desires to do over and over again. The child was almost unnerving, for one so lacquered by youth, she spoke in arduous tones, laid claim to pawns and rulers, monarchs and hostages, puppets and instruments of war, where to sever a dragon so that it would be the most severe. Why did a babe, a youth, know of such treachery, of such dangers and hostilities, of antipathy and acrimony, when all their precious tenderness, all their innocence, should have remained unsullied, untouched? Instead, it seemed to have been whittled into unearthly convictions and scorned into zealous, infidel seditions, allegiance to bedlam instead of warm pursuits or loving embraces. Quietly, the ambrosial healer attempted to lay out her own wisdom, the musing, the advice, the experience of her short years amongst the throng, the din, of their might, dominion, and the weight of so many circumstances. Gentle, lenient, a singsong of sage qualities, a shaking, shuddering of breath overtaken into calming, composed plumes, leaving the world unaware of how much their tactics, their trials, had effected her. “Taking anything precious would cause strife, either leader, child or friend.” Should they have gestured to a scion’s worth, a mother’s love tendered into value? Should they have left babes and their mother to rot in a cell? Did this youth carved from arachnids and webs want to be chained into oubliettes, forgotten, forlorn, despondent, shrieking for absolution, unheard and abandoned? A slight frown molded across her lips and down her brow, Imogen scuttled back in between her legs, and she attempted to rekindle the smile, the grin, that had brightened her features in prior conversations. It took a few moments, a quelling, a brewing, of quiet certitude, to regain what had been lost, trying to fashion, compose, sculpt, reason towards a filly who may not have seen anything more than the world she’d described; monarchs peeling away marionettes, dragons grasping in avaricious glee. Lena never gave higher value to any creature – all of them endeavored in venues of their own accord, their own gifts, their own granted artifices and delights, prowess and precision. “Every beast has their own power. None should be underestimated.”

She found a great pleasure in the way the child latched on to her quick Helovian political tour, her ego crooning away happily in a small corner of her mind. There was much and more she could share with the girl, but the babe was young, and not likely to want much more than what she was given. Had she been older, Illynx would have gone on to explain the Basin itself in more depth – but her youth saved her from endless lessons. She would learn as she lived among them, and that, to the golden mare, was the best way to learn such things.

The babe’s sharp words at the mention of stealing foals draws a smile to the woman’s face; she rather likes the fire of this little white eyed creature, even if she is wrong. Lena mirrors the answer Illynx herself would have shared (though more than likely spiced with far more words and a handful of names that would fly right over the girl’s head), and she nods in agreement. "Children especially," she says softly, looking at the child sorrowfully, knowing that she cannot truly understand such things; it has taken Illynx a good bit of her life to recognize her bitterness and take care for those she lives with. Jorogumo’s mother is no longer around, for whatever reason, and Illynx will not dig knives deeper into her heart by inquiring just what happened to the family that had borne the moon eyed filly.

The commentary centered around dragons and spiders draws another amused smile to the lips of the Lady, accompanied with an arch of her brow that reveals her curiosity in the statement. Perhaps it is true; she herself has seen how poison can work more quickly than blades or hooves. But Lena’s response is also valid; if not for the healer, Illynx would wear a back of hideous wounds caused by such ignorance of the potential strength of an opponent.

"Lena is correct; what if it is a hydra? Removing its head will birth three new, and just as vicious," her smile is not mocking, more one of wisdom that she tries to impart with the ebony foal, "not every dragon is the same. This World’s Edge, the dragon in question, has numerous heads to begin with. It then becomes more tactful to assault the legs without letting the eyes see your arrival."

When asked for reasoning behind her racist logic, her smile gleams and is wolfish despite the hesitancy of the bay mare alongside her. Illynx knows Lena is not as she is – but the healer has redeemed herself through her undying devotion to the Basin, her ability to never falter when faced with whatever challenge has overcome their kin. She glances to her briefly before returning her focus to the child, beginning work on the most important lesson of all.

"Surely, we are much the same, but it is how we have come to be different that gives us our rights to power," she pauses, gathering her words before she speaks them, "our very horns are crowns, to start with. Equines are but unicorns who have lost their rights to rule, ‘disgraced’ as you worded it in the Threshold; the pegasus is a winged devil, equines disdained by the first Gods for breeding with birds and marked with their sin. No horse was ever born to fly." She looks to the girl hard for a moment before delving into her explanation of the wrongness of the winged creatures, words that were spoken from her father’s lips well before she had ever forgotten his name, "In addition to their original sin, all other beasts of flight are subservient to the unicorns and their mutated kin; eagles, sparrows, proud griffons. By such logic, those who touch the clouds are lesser than our crownless cousins, the equine, for they were built only to serve those bound to the ground."

She looks to Imogen, nestled between Lena’s legs, and up to the healer herself, before continuing in the rhetoric of her childhood and life since, and she wonders if Lena has ever viewed the darkened side of the Basin so closely, "Magic runs deep in our kind, a quick glance about you to the variety that the name unicorn can boast proves it." The simple appearance of Lena, the golden attributes of her own body; the cloven hooves and leonine tails of Leovan and Ulrik. She had never seen such variety among the other breeds; surely this meant that they, the unicorns, had the oldest bloodline of them all. "The genetic variety that can be found among our kind and our kind alone, to me, proves that we have lived on this plane for longer than the others. It gives truth to the assumption that equines once wore horns, and that the pegasus were born from the equine. We came first."

Smiling beautifully at the child, there is wickedness hidden behind the golden glimmer of her stare. "Do you see why it is so, that we must rule?"

The world never ceased in its quest for knowledge, and it scavenged the surroundings for the bits and pieces left to salvage, bait and restore; Lena listened, an open ear, absorbing the opinions of the child, seemingly embracing the notions of newfound paradigms, and then towards the Lady as she wove mythos from her lips. It was the latter that trickled a strange, chilling rush of trepidation, apprehension, and unease along her columns, down the base of her spine, across her mind, warning bellows, haunting bells, poignant strikes of menacing chords (bitter, rancorous reminders of shades and shadows, hiding beneath boughs, struggling to obscure the contempt from her juvenile gaze). Sprung from the augured sentiments of the unholy, of the righteous, of the wicked, scarring, maiming, brutal cataclysms marking end of days and irreverent maelstroms, reaching for the heavens and ripping them to shreds. The sylph stared towards the GildedBlade, a noble, angelic head suddenly confounded and overwhelmed by the inanity, the specious runes, the deceptions, gleaming and bright against the sky, illuminating abhorrence and pride instead of valor. Not naïve, Lena had been aware of their standings amongst other herds, for curses, for maledictions, for actions she’d never viewed, seen or orchestrated, but no one had spoke of these stories to her before, varnished and brilliant, as if they reigned over the land. Did everyone think of the world in such a way (surely not kind Faelene, incandescent Arah), brandished by horns and horns alone, dominating, supreme, glorious above all others, smiting the wicked doldrums of other species? Didn’t the opposing forces deserve a right to live in harmony? How could a sword rule over the entire world, with just the gleam of a rapier, just the hint of a serrated edge? Weren’t they all equal in some measure, vicious and unwinding, unraveling and unwinding, reposed and collected, composed? As if she’d been struck by a heavy blow, the femme’s eyes widened, shocked, dismayed, disappointed all at once, combined into a shell of bewilderment, disconcerted, serenity dimmed by the toxic decadence spewed into their parlor. Queries formed and brewed, fermenting anarchy, throughout her cranium, until she became overwhelmed by the cataclysm sliced across her fantasies. Had everything they’d ever committed been for this sickening supremacy? Did they murder in the shadows, claiming atrocities for power, animosity for antiquity? Imogen brandished a reaction against her limbs, snarling out of fear for her companion, for the confusion, the frustrations, rankling, spiraling, curling along her body.

Because she didn’t believe the tale, the narrative, the spinning web of legends and parables, wished to hear no more, she spoke a quiet thread of apology, sought to retreat from the cumbersome burden of lies, of deceit, of malice, of convictions sowed in blood and agony. “I’m sorry. I fear I don’t hold the same views.” The nurse attempted the slimmest of smiles, buried beneath the shambles of conversation and essence of sinister sagas, and began to slowly back away, into the light, into the day, instead of the infernal shades piecing together into derisive scores; an illusion snapped. A current of syllables rushed forth, then the nymph strived to disappear. “A pleasure to see you both.” Partially, if only due to the knowledge now sequestered deep into her soul, disenchantment tangled into the treachery of the mountains.

She watches the departure of the healer with a faint smile on her lips, one tinged with a bitterness that she can’t help but hide. For all her years among them and boundless service, Lena was still not yet truly one of their numbers; Illynx did not blame her, however. She had learned long ago that some could not be taught that their grandest purpose and reason for life was to place all others beneath their hooves. Even if the healer could not see at she did, the words were now there, to be pondered, to fester and brew; perhaps no others had planted this seed in the mind of the pretty bay, her gentle heart untouched by the poisoned barbs that adorned the crowns of so many who wandered the passes.

"Farewell," she calls most cheerfully after the woman and her bonded, their discomfort mildly amusing to the Lady. For having been among the unicorns of the Plague as long as she had, you’d think that Lena would be less sensitive to their teachings, their black book of half truths and lies, and it left the gilded bitch smiling softly at the tender heart of their healer.

It made her good at her craft. One could not blame the woman for clinging to her joy and unity, even if it was wrong.

"Excuse Lena. Some refuse to see our natural rights," she giggles lightly, shaking of the quick departure of the woman with a light hearted nature that she should perhaps not express.

She returns her focus to the chatting of the child, her face remarking little on the departure of the mare who did not hold her views. If Jorogumo was observant as Illynx thought she was, even this slight down turn in her training of the girl would hold – nearly all of their number were of the same thoughts that she was, and that would shine through in the pale eyed child’s experiences with those she shared her home with. It would seem the majority opinion – enough to shape a being greatly, Illynx knew.

She herself laughs heartily at the mention of horses being born from eggs, though she is unsure of how true or untrue it may be. She hasn’t made it a point to follow the breeding rituals of the sky devils, and though she has heard some things, she can fill in no more truth to the description. Perhaps they were born from eggs – the thought surely was amusing enough. "I don’t imagine it would be pleasant," she says with a broad grin on her lips.