Listless and languid, the flow of safety pervading the essence, the foundation, the notion and sentiments of their wayfaring, wandering, orchestrated and composed her lithe movements. Times of peril claimed the channels of her motions, ruminations, and calculations, past the wicked shrapnel of hurricane debauchery and distant decadence, flowing into the adversary remnants of their ominous beginnings. Were she not so bold, not so valiant, not so honorable or beneficent, she could have been cowering amongst the heathen bulrushes or nefarious outcrops, shrinking and withering in the gloomy shadows, shuddering from quartet strings bursting against her eardrums. Instead, she’d scraped, molded and searched along the Threshold again, like a foreign memory a mere season ago, hoping for resurgence and renewal, when now, in the daunting supremacy of bedlam, of chaos, not stirred by their own animosity, she simply pressed for rescue. Salvaged from the wreckage of havoc, from the formidable, intimidating twilight clawing at their figures, had been two mares, one hornless, the other shaped with a sword, liberated from the confusion, the calamity, the acrimony gliding amongst their ravaged coils. Sadly, bitterly, rancorously, the songbird knew she could only offer pithy, concise knowledge on the musings of the land and its torn frame, for she’d seen darkness building, brewing, flowing along the Steppe first, caustic and callous, unbidden and rising, and then, entombed within Kahlua, a wondrous friend pushed and mauled until she’d been altered, morphed, into some unknown beast. Only when she’d triggered her song, when she’d unleashed strains, ditties, melodies, dreams and aria strings, had the Glazier become the companion she’d once known.

So she hummed and hymned amongst the rapid, shifting corridors, attempted to keep the vicious world at bay, trumpeting the vivid, mellifluous flow of soothing, assuaging benevolence, struggling to shatter the art of demise from coming too close to their nomadic souls. As they neared the sanction of sanctuary, her eyes traced the subtle hole in the ground, open, wide, an expanse destined to hold them deep into its belly, swallowing, consuming, devouring, and sheltering. Deep into the fathoms, where herds gathered and dwelled, united by zealous, unholy, malevolent circumstance, christened by patrons, saints and gods, consecrated by a wise angel. Could it contain so many occupants, allow them to slink and slither into its vessel, hallowed and hollowed, bravely sculpted into the storm? Mulling over the perplexing notions spread amongst their veil, she turned and smiled to the two femmes following her, cherishing the few, precious moments of safety, of luxury, of protection, before opulence became smothered over and over again. “Here we are!” The ivory kitsune gave a twirl to signify the grand gesture, bobbing her head in time to the chords Lena drummed from the breathless murmurs and croons unearthed in her lungs. Beast and nymph expected queries from the duo, and amidst the grandiose train of bafflement and bewilderment, she’d do her best to explain – but even she’d been left in the dark, stepping in the trills of truth when it sparked and ignited in front of her.

@[Elsiyum] @[Mermaid]

Fear was a titan’s cruel mistress, smirking, snickering, mocking and laughing through her rapacious contortions, cutting and slashing against hopes, fortitudes, foundations and livelihoods, sinking and simmering beyond the walls of determination, trickling down spines and withering down the armaments carefully built and sculpted. For some moments, she allowed the briefest culmination of wonder and resolution; hadn’t they seen the worst, breathed down quarters of hellions, breached callous disregard, distorted and destroyed monsters and heathens back into their specious veils? But then darkness uncoiled and unraveled its next set of terror, and the firm, unyielding structure of their absolution, of their deliverance, faltered, stumbled and fell, chinks in armor set, marked and found, horror rekindled. As if they’d never felt the will of strength, as if all the weary shambles of their collected youth, as if everything had been for naught, eyes widened and blood ran cold, confusion crooned and panic struck. A choking wilderness, a smothering ferocity, a rampant discord of the harshest terms, flanking all sides until brutality strangled an ugly knot across hearts, throats and lungs. Lena became witness to the strife all over again, honeyed eyes taking in the equine femme’s wide-eyed glory fading into distress and dismay, swift and abrupt, a shift from deliverance into havoc. In answer to the outcry, to the trepidation, to the fright flickering over glowing stones, suddenly altered to gallows or nooses, the nymph’s smile dropped, ceased to exist. Only composure, only stubbornness, only the thickest valor beset her features, gentled and angelic without the ebullience, without the glory, without the buoyancy, calm and honorable, refined and tender. Unaware and ignorant of the reasons nestled behind the apprehension (for here, in the sunken pits and pendulums, was true serenity and tranquility, safety measured in steep steps and unseen stairs, while the world outside remained unkind and fixated on massacre), she focused on bringing them into refuge, her curiosity incensed and blossomed, but refused to yield the fruit of its yearnings over songbird lips. The maiden was allowed to keep her secrets.

Movements and motions, a harmonic walk brooding and brewing the labors of arias, proffered closer ambience, ethereal existence in the harsh degradation of foreboding, ominous tomes. Nearer, not touching, not scolding, not wishing or dreaming, but bestowing the generosity and charity of her benevolence, reaching towards the seams of unease, hoping to pluck them away from the scars of old and polish them into a new veneer, convince the bounty of nerves to adhere to heartlines and might. “We must.” A careful stream of hums conjured, assuaging and mending, soothing and appeasing, flowed from the tempest of bitter winds, winter vestiges (and suddenly her heart ached for mountains and summits, not holes in the ground), breaths of life scattered into flowers and minuets, Imogen’s chirps and calls effused into distant beacons. “It’s the only place where we remain safe.” Not out in the cruel earth, where the loam beckoned for sanctums and only left pieces of havoc in its place, weak, weary, twisted bones, merciless and unrelenting.

@[Elsiyum] @[Mermaid]