Forgotten martyrs and riddled monuments, sepulchers of the forsaken and renounced – Lena laid flowers at their gravestones and chiseled their legends into lilting requiems and laments. The world coveted thickened doldrums of the inhumane, of the debauched, of the torn and flayed, and she continued stepping through pinnacles of light to embrace, to caress the beneficent essence of crooning courtyards and promised sanctums. Not without stains, not without marred runes, not without imperfections, but stroking vicious holds with a perseverant air – ferociously consumed by the determination, the valor, and the stalwart trumpets of resolution. An invoking of despair, an unraveling of hope, traced the sketch, the outline of her travels, and each petal-soft, dulcet movement composed by her lithe contortions pulsed, pervaded, aimed to divide the darkness, the destruction, from veils and labyrinths. The nymph knew she couldn’t convey enough hallelujahs, reveries and rhapsodies to unite fallen kingdoms, couldn’t destroy the stoked villainy or ignited, licentious chords, but if she managed to reverberate the divinity, the virtue, the morals and finery outside the corridors of corruption, chaos and callousness, then she remained persistent, unwinding symphonies for each parallel monstrosity. Tenacity, born and bred through the lines of her childhood to the bridges and gaps solidified over her tender heart, carved and marked the foil of devilish reaches, seraphs and fiends, blossoming antithesis to catacombs and hymns. Her search at these shaded hours could have been an eternal march, everlasting unholy vows striking against heretic walls and reverent columns, ghostly wraiths springing through phantom parades, clutching, grasping fingers gnarled and clenching over the sinful bounties of their salvaged serenity, but her senses were captured, enticed, beguiled by the overwhelming sense of familiarity blooming from the entrance. The trail billowed travesty and treachery beyond and behind it, looming, maelstrom antiquities, refinement trampled, secrets stolen and snared, lost reigns fumbled and ripped.

Light, radiant and ablaze by the fires and embers of her coiled reverence, of her illuminated adversity, she and Imogen pursued gallows and heaven, intertwining the fixtures of passion and hope with the ambitions of tranquility, solidified composure in the daunting trials ahead. The ivory vixen tracked and she followed, hushed as they combed through the awareness and affinity of the damned ahead of them, for if it were the puzzling, spellbinding temptress of the icicled kingdom, how had she come to such a fate? Psyche had represented strength, viper coils, enticements and allures, the beguiling sense of danger reaching behind corporeal forms, of holes and pitfalls aligned and placed for enemies, of swindling traps and specious laughter. To think that she’d fallen through the murky holds, through the nocturnal, Stygian mockeries, as abandoned, bleak and mauled as the rest, led Lena down the arches and eaves of certainty; everyone was capable of faltering and stumbling. There wasn’t room for paragon pedestals here.

Their arrival upon the fallen’s presence was marked by a sinister hiss tumbling through Imogen’s tiny frame, a feral growl conveyed and exposed from the layers and lacquer they’d had to face days prior (an attacking friend, a returned companion). Only thereafter did Lena’s honeyed gaze, ambrosial and sanguine, fade into dismay. Flesh frayed and clipped, sinew and bone exposed, treachery torn into filaments of roughened hues and destroyed beauty. Like a specter of death, wounds without closure, a skull without its scythe, serpent without its hood, slithering in the opulence of something it couldn’t have; the sylph bowed her head against the image, remembering a time, a place, a season where the siren reigned, did more than slither into augured ruses. A heady breath, a stoking of resolve, and she was obstinate again, emboldened by the memories of opulence and glaciers, stone chiseled to snowflakes and warm wind sauntering throughout valleys, christening one solo crescendo, cadence of the selfless. “Psyche…” It trailed off, reverberated in singsong echoes, a name, a calling, a namesake renowned instead of abandoned to corpses and living poltergeists. Then, she sang. An opus raised in travesty, a symphony conducted in hollowed halls, meant for serenity, meant for salvation, hums and hymns brooding in the haunting dusk, closing her eyes against the chilling ambience, against the ghastly screams, pouring the effervescent glow, the ebullient shards, back upon a marked soul.

A haunting dance replaced by bells, arias, and strains, effusion of grace, majesty and reverence, toiled and sprung from rhapsody, from melody, from fallen reveries. The brilliant, segmented heart, with its illustrious wishes, its pulsing, meticulous beat, calm and wondrous, exotic and foreign in the swollen tides of nefarious acts, bestowed ethereal carols, chased down sorrow, and culled strife. Her eyes were a beacon to the lost honor of comrades, brethren in arms clinging to icicle ledges, and charming, sprite whimsies, rich benevolence skipping in the sinister haze. Her soul was the requiem to refinement and essence, unearthly and subtle, the airy, fine whisper of kindness stolen from so many cavorting titans, collected and solidified in her untamed being. Her song was the arch of laurels and flower crowns, fluttering in the absent breeze, pixie well-wishes captured in a dream jar, righting wrongs, glorifying missteps into lessons learned, piercing through the juncture of Machiavellian intrigues and crumbled claws. March for march, match for match, the infernos sparked and ignited, hers a luminescent glow, a parade of arias lit for the radiant fuse, and Psyche’s a pungent recollection of all the things they’d been, all the times they stumbled, all the hours of labor, strength, deliverance from sunken gallows. For a growl, she proffered fierce anthems, for a hiss, she endowed feral hymns, and for collapsed, sullen fixtures, she spilled the sweetest of ditties, lyrics and stanzas. Restoration and renewal at the hands of nymph poetry, laureate convictions, ensnared rapture and emboldened glory, open, callous wounds stitching, piecing back together under the might, the gall, the audacity of her blinding, binding altruism. In the shadows of hearts and mercy, she provided every avenue of goodness, and throughout the murk, the twilight, the gloom, the sylph watched the gloaming patch and lace skeletal remains into the snake Empress she’d once known. Morality touched and caressed iniquity, forced the colossal, fiend hands to hem and darn its former armaments upon silk and steel.

Then, the cobra slunk, plummeted, plunged and descended to the ground, knelt and chiseled her armor back into the shadows, and Lena’s voice quelled to a heart-spun silence, sheltered in the void and absence of rule and anarchy. A bold witness, borne to carry the weight of many stares, to become part of glades and copses, to traverse and remain with naught but the secrets of her own unsung particles, regarded the return of life. Bones fastened beneath hide, veins beating and pulsing under fused skin, held aloft, alight, enlightened by the tricks of her trade, by the songbird wishes of her stained throne. While Psyche slept, she stood guard, and while she rustled through the clarity, through the perils of mercy, compassion and benevolence, she remained the mighty statue gesturing towards the light. The fey figure gave no hint of puncturing, piercing shards, of remnants of yesteryear, of follies and foils, fallen snakes tenderly hiding in their coils and contortions, and simply nodded at the offered gratitude – Psyche wouldn’t receive any vile, soiled words from her lips (for even this fae queen had committed treachery, let it swallow her whole and condemn her to slaughter; she’d waltzed a fine bolero beside them, tasted the ardent betrayal of war). Only calm, lithe, limber composure, even from the pale kitsune nestled between her forelegs, drifted from her stalwart strains (and when Psyche began shaking, she pretended not to see, and drummed an ardent heartbeat of hums, flowing in inaudible decibels, quieting the somber quivers and stumbles). Lena took the whispers, the curiosity, and turned them into answers, mellifluous and dedicated, chiseling pathways for an Empress to serpentine through. “A haven, of sorts.” She ceased her speech for a moment, and allowed the depths of her ambrosial stare to kindly, gently, serenely linger upon a mare that was once a monster. “It’s protected us.” From wraiths, from phantoms, from specters and demons outside – but inside, it can do nothing to quell the infidels already within its walls.

The world was cruel, waiting for the strong to trip before they were pushed headlong into the dirt and sand, waiting for the weak to notice so that they may chisel the fallens’ bones into the grime. Lofty weights ground above the viper’s sullen crown, a heady, cumbersome shift of knotted vines and gnarled roots, pine boughs and crimson pebbles, slipping, tumbling, and Lena wondered what else she held so tightly wound over her skull, needling and nettled, poised and precarious. Seemingly gone were the days of the asp curves and cobra helixes, where her haughty smirk balanced along a Siberian throne, where they bowed and stared, where they adhered and danced to the demands of her hisses and croons. The nymph hadn’t known either creature, this poor, suffering one bent to the swinging pendulum, or the high queen resting along icy summits and peaks; shirked and fled when serpent eyes meandered to her corner, tended to consul duties and watched them fester away into nothingness. She’d avoided the serpentine tongue and the sibilated vows, the den of snakes and ophidians, smiled, grinned, fed flowers their basking glow, ruminated and reflected on her cretin exploits and how she continued to tumble further into the iniquitous plain. She’d waltzed beneath Psyche’s banner, flag and ensign, flocked and shepherded newcomers from the grove gates, sheltered and proffered nuances of generosity, gathered and listened to them fall by the wayside. She’d cringed and felt fear trickle up her spine at the inclination of war, at the twisted phrases and serpentine syllables, witnessed as her world spiraled deeper into anarchy, tyranny, and violence – and none of these things were placed upon the Medusa. Lena had ventured forth, loyal to the stars, the sun, the earth, the sky, light and candid mercy, tripped, stumbled and faltered along the way to renewal and reverie. Perhaps she’d been worthless in the Empress’ eyes, another ghost lost in the battle hymns, another frame, another body added to the abacus, but Psyche had represented something in the slyph’s stare, and the fairy found it so odd, so heartbreaking, to fixate upon a winter monarch begging for a home. Roles reversed, ranks shed and outfitted, simpering and destitution knocking along a cavern door, wasted away to bits of naught. The healer nearly asked her to awaken, to breathe in the icy air and remember who she was, what she’d become, what she reigned over (hadn’t they been supreme, mighty, stalwart and staunch in the chilling winds, in the vibrant tenors of glory?), but the words were lost in the jackal’s repose.

The ambrosia gaze fixed back along the intertwining lengths of healed frame, not wholly repaired, fully mended, past the broken, crumbling fixtures of a proud woman. A sad, somber sigh drifted past her nares, unwinding in brief puffs of warm air before they’re sullied by the nefarious cold, stretching the lengths of fortitude and valor into deep-rooted silence. Does it protect everyone? A heartbreaking juncture split across the seams, and the nymph realized Psyche had prepared herself a tombstone, marked, etched and scored the words across its tablet, and merely waited for the act to fall. Like a piercing, puncturing blade, scabbard and sheath vanished, shield distorted and discarded in the dust, forsaken, abandoned, renounced. Lena’s stare hardened for slender, lacerating moments, imagined the desolation, the despair, hovering in scarred plumes, harbored and harpooned in callous copses over the other mare’s chaotic figure (would someone truly dig her grave, with her form like this, scraping and toiling and rasping) – then her halo glided forth, and the warmth pulsed back into its outset. Melodies, rhapsodies, harmonies invoked, for a simple gesture, for an outpouring of faith she wished Psyche could cling to again. “Yes.” Then, the curl of a smile, an indentation of her lips, handed to the morose, the melancholy, the despondent.

Honey and ambrosia didn’t hasten bright sentiments. A twist settled over the layers and lacquer, rancorous and bitter, biting, scathing, and the sylph recognized the touch, the taste, of sharp petulance. It sank against her coat in conspiring, acidic traces, outlined by the nettled burrows and chains sketched along her frame, in the gentle lull exposed and flayed. If any portion of the old Psyche still remained, once proud, once mighty, once haughty, it was this chilling shard, a morose fragment, prickly, unsatisfied, and domineering. The supremacy of her queries, the imperial shield she carried, would have melted a younger nymph, unguarded and left to wither in the woods. Instead, Lena’s smile died away, replaced by a calm, composed being, exuding warmth, but not the bright, cheery effervescence once portrayed – the Empress shied away from its light, and so the sylph dimmed its reach. In the hollows, Lena stared at the torn banner, the frayed pennant, christened by heavy sighs and dissatisfaction, taken into portals and whims of ineptitude and ineffectiveness, a tossed rapier left to rust in the rain. Embers thrown, cinders ignited, the brilliance of her stare fixated upon the bile and wry, sardonic grin, ablaze and courted into the lithe rhapsodies of the tenacious. Her own frustrations seemed to rise with the monsters’ irritation, and undaunted, relentless, persevering, crooning no sympathy for the devil, her voice, audacious, brave, and emboldened, erupted over the cavernous swell, lacerating in its rose convictions. “You let others’ thoughts define you?” Was all her passion, all her glory, a fortuitous collapse, an augured hindrance? If she’d been so shambled, so distorted, so woven by the notions of another, how had she survived? How had she made her way into hierarchy, ruling and commanding, sending troops into battle? If she’d been so weary, so mordant, so trenchant and defeated, how had she managed to rise from any ashes? Was one blow enough to fell a viper? Was one burning tongue enough to strike a cobra? Was one battle enough to wither and whittle away an asp? How far had her promises been? How far had she flung her heart? How many pieces had yet to be picked up and stitched into her wilted seams? Who was the beast before her now, once demon, once beacon, once slithering fortitude and slinking power? Was she caught in her own vices, in her own weaknesses, drowning and floundering? Or was she merely ungrateful, aching for sympathy, for empathy, that even Lena, who had struggled and tore against her childhood, her memories, her past, and armies for her purposes, her pursuits, refused to give or grant. The crisp elegance of her words flowed again, not dipped or entrenched in the same toxin as Psyche’s venom, raking over the coals of veracity and candor. “I thought you were stronger than that.”

Lena healed, mended, and assuaged, but not when the recipient spurned, rebuffed, and dismissed her gift – became scalded and anointed only with the slaughter, the condemnation, of wounds that were not hers to take. She rejected the drowning words or concrete ball wrapping its shroud around her neck, the heavy garrote threatening to choke, annihilate, and persecute, she would sink no further into the creeping haze or nefarious shadows. Instead, she smoothly anointed the regal, noble composure of a nymph drawn to the eaves of the valorous, gazing at her prior leader without the gestures of a sanguine sylph. Altered into satin nerve, courage, daring, and stalwart graces, she refused to carry the Lady’s cumbersome weight, and forced her to pick up the slivers she’d broken in the first place. Compassion and beneficence stirred her into another means of granting the charity of her rectitude. “We’ve all faltered, but you don’t see us fading into the dust.” She tilted her head, an elegant power of quiet, hushed dominion, underestimated and forgotten time and time again, delivering finality to a poisoned vector. “Wallowing in self-pity only feeds weakness.” She paused, whispered across the terrain, across the gallows, across the air of vanquished souls. “Is that how you wish to remain?”

Perhaps the greatest anomaly was that the Empress had been ruined, felled, and destroyed by something so insignificant.

What was loss, in the brambles and thorns of life? Hadn’t they all experienced failure, over and over again, varnished and coated in the lacquer of dust, cinders, and ash? Hadn’t they all tasted the piquant, rancorous brine of a damned sea, where victories were dashed, eradicated, and annihilated moments after their war trumpets and drums? Hadn’t they all faltered, stumbled, fallen to the last vestiges of earth and begged for absolution, deliverance, liberation from their pain, their agony? Hadn’t they all scraped their knees across rubble, sand, and glass, striving for solutions, machinations, and calculations when hope was lost? It was how they conquered collapse, defeat, oblivion, that etched, sculpted, and molded their characters, their strength, their valor. They’d be remembered by their debacles, disasters, and catastrophes, and the way they reshaped their stones, their embers – if they could stoke them back into infernos by the press of conviction, by the sweltering of persistence, by the brazen, bold, creeds. How many times had Lena struggled to breathe in the suffocating agony of violence, strung and stung by her vile embraces? She’d quelled and brewed in the anarchy of her own soul, but instead of blaming, shaming, or sobbing, she’d restored her armaments; confidence, compassion and composure, fitted whims back into her shield, and sheathed her sword. To lose, to fall, didn’t make them lesser beings – just another soul melded into the fortuitous balance of existence, rooted sentience. But when the fairy monarch’s eyes stared, fixated, upon the whimpering malice, upon the absconded menace, she saw no restoration, no attempt at renewal. Was this how Psyche combatted her mistakes, her errors, by shaking, shirking, responsibility, and wallowing, withering, planting seeds of disrepair and dissolution, waiting to drag others into her siren wails and supplications? Was this how she strived to remain, a legend sown into fiasco, rather than asp venom, snake vitriol, coiled schemes and ruses? Was this what she showed to the world now, despair, depression, tiring melancholy? Was she so blinded by ruin, incapable of seeing the sun, the moon, the stars, the monsters, the heathens, becoming another one bleeding, ending, forgotten in the rocks and pebbles? The resolute, adamant gaze of the sylph bore deeply upon the former Queen’s, uttered truth, veracity, and candor through lilting tunes, not dulcet, not silken, but sharp, blunt, reality simmering into the columns of cracked monoliths. They always had a choice. It was how they took, grasped, or clenched the opportunities. “Not if you’re unwilling.”

Intrepid, brave, and valiant, she pressed into the chaos and came out whole, riveting, elegant, refined, alluring – struggling to beguile wisdom into seemingly deaf ears, too far gone to relent, to admit, to agree, that through the seasons, the ages, the grieving for her defeat should have ended. The forthright clamor of her wounds stirred again, as tenacious, steadfast, and unwavering from the first days of her arrival into the Edge, damaged, but blessed. “I don’t ask you to lead again. I don’t ask you to hold a throne.” She paused, carved and whittled her phrases back across the surface again, polished the armor of her ethereal veneer, of potency strangled, then reinvigorated through time, adamant, passionate, and merciful. “I implore you to see beyond failure.” There was more to the kingdoms, the castles, the palisades, the realms, than the reaches of conquering or dividing, of consuming and devouring, of lacing and layering the earth with poison or vexation, or even combing over decaying wiles, lands sullied by one’s own hands, horns and hearts broken. “The rest of the world has – and will leave you behind if you allow it.”