Witching hours cast and brewed, fermented and decayed, over the long, illustrious corridors of the Forest. Nestled into the piquant edges, the frothing blooms, the eldritch, sinister catacombs, flayed and plagued, cackling and moaning, casting their spells and mocking the aching swells of innocent doldrums. Even amongst all of its dying wails, its banshee outcries and heartless persistence, its treacherous beauty and scandalous, probing eyes, she couldn’t fear the glade. A belle raised beneath fir and pine, ash and soot, decadence and upheaval, clinging to the moral blossoms, the persevering blooms, the elegant, woven promises of brighter tomorrows and victimless days. But she was not an unwary, oblivious creature, fallen from the branches and boughs of ignorance and ineptitude, and though the shadows shifted into fragments and shards of all of her regrets (perhaps I shouldn’t be here, lost in the dying stars and the earth’s last rites), she ventured further, deeper, became another rose trapped in the labyrinth. Not as a sorcerer, but a lingering element dipped in ambrosia and flickering with luminescent light, harpsichord strings roughened by the nefarious iniquities, the plights, the paragons, the virtues of previous actions and brutalities. The nymph returned to the roots of enigmas and quandaries, wandered, pursued, reflected upon the vast nuances, the interplay of Stygian curtains and taffeta rays, the collision and repose, the respite and entropy, laden amongst each perilous affliction. She strode under the widening expanse of darkness and light, wore out pathways laden with primrose, with moss, with weeds and hibernating, dormant grass, shuffled then stepped, stumbled then danced, amongst the arduous halls and wayward parlors. At first, purpose had been strong, convictions waltzing behind her lids, pressing deeply into her membrane as brilliant motives and aspirations, searching and inkling for flora, verbure, cleansing stalks and fronds so that even when her songs were ill composed, healing could be obtained. Imogen ensnared several herbs between her teeth, gripping them tightly, maneuvering along the shades and gloom, the silent parallel to her unsung ambitions.

But now, with yearnings and aims clustered, more entangled from the ethereal air, flowered and besieged her with an old, compassionate existence. Instead of leaving, they delved onward, moths to flames, honeyed and candied, persistent and enduring. Undying coals tormented and anguished, seeking out the reticent, deluded strength once so enamored, lacquered and enameled to their chests, to their hearts, to their souls. Lena swindled her way past trunks and over fallen, rotten logs, dove into the frays of silhouettes, nocturnal gloom and fragmented sun, to remember, to recall, the art of her passions, the fruit of her assurances and certainties. She tested and explored, searched the wider boundaries of her sentiments, felt fear trickling down her spine and then the spirit of her harmonious essence lift, higher and higher, until her mouth broke out in song, in hymns, in hums, surrounding, pervading, providing the endless bounty of birds, of sonnets, of lyrics cast from everywhere and nowhere. They passed by the pool of red, watched the rim of its opulent, ichor-rich tragedy ink and dot, maim and deprave, and still continued onward, never ceasing the eternal aria hastened by her lips. Like fragrant hallelujahs, they traipsed into soulless paradigms, into haunted warrens, into tangled snares, and didn’t look back – unearthly, fine, subtle beasts of the copse. Is this what its like to heal?

[Open to anyone. :D]

Bleeding heartlines, crawling entities, snatching, scathing, searing wraiths and omniscient specters crossed over her thoughts, her eyes, bent and broken, searching and probing, asking for her soul and essence, threatening, beckoning, devouring. Threatening boughs, unkind, bewitched snares, trenchant, mordant croons and murmurs bubbling, bursting, from the sardonic entrails of a sorcerer’s potion, brought to a simmering boil as they sought to kindle one more light into their elixir of damnation; houses of Usher rising and falling to the beat of sedition. They proceeded through festering, decaying omens, portended figments of delusion, hallucination, chimeras slinking along corridors, past hallways of heretics and irreverence – she breathed through a cloud of foreshadowed gloom, wished it would bloom soft, petals and flowers instead of regrets, rue and remorse. The brief fluttering of wings made her honeyed depths rise towards the sky, coveting the sound instead of the darkening, haunting canopy, drowning them in the dregs, the fathoms, the rancor of bitter affluence and antiquity, immersed enchantments choked, strangled and smothered into the desecration, the oblivion, of forgotten arias and strained ditties. Only when the voice came after, soothing, assuaging, coating her hums with further meaning, hallelujahs she could savor and relish, taste and revel, drink until the ambrosia ceased, did she notice the being conjuring and composing the lyrics. Inquiry and sage alms buried and echoed across its beautiful, wide eyes, immediately enamoring nymph and kitsune, too mired, too morassed, to be coaxed and beguiled by anything other than the dulcet clamor, the stringed harpsichord nature of the wise owl. Lena wished she be a reflection of its strength, softness enduring the clarity, the awakening, the declaration of ominous beacons, instead of falling to their violent, vehement pathways again and again, intoxicated and poised into the allure of perilous motives, menacing goals. Her answer arrived throughout the lilting silence, sketching songs to match the bird’s querying melody. “A gain of strength and fortitude.” Honesty delved and toiled, with no reason to deceive an all-seeing, ethereal figure, a spirit of the forest. Her speculation crossed over moments later, a sylph’s curious reign, virtue’s fallen paragon lifting her chains to the presence of the earth, the rocks, the trees, the skies. “What do you seek here, owl of repose?”

[Thank you NPC! :D]