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.