Lush, rich, vibrant, she listened to the soft air and the dulcet claims, a winged femme broadened and hastened to the earth and all of its laments, requiems, and elation, pieces and snippets of roots, stems, and trunks. Her gaze floated to the tiny shoots peeking from rubble and stone, reaching for renewal at Alysanne’s quiet, hushed, comman; entreating the beacons of life to further perseverance. Imogen traced the filaments with a bellowing chirp, echoing over the midnight oils and nocturnal constellations, everlasting twilight and shadow, hidden and conveying naught. The nymph’s voice followed, like a harmonic swing, embodying bliss where it was foiled and trenchant, mordant and unholy. “A remarkable gift!” She winked towards the compassionate creature, the kind and the benign, pressing her energy into maintaining a semblance of plant-worth, as if they could feed themselves off of the endless crops, the everlasting radiance, the aspiring trace and glory of one being against monsters, fiends, and blackguards. An emblem of determination, and Lena appreciated tenacity, fed her blood, her fire, her essence, its rampant ichor, and through the stalwart bounty, felt the kindred spirits bond in cauldrons, dungeons, and oubliettes.

Yet, the Basin resounded within her chest too, leapt and scaled the words embodied by the painted flier, of wonder, of lovely sights, of flowers blooming in the drowsy, summer sun, or rime shackling its alluring aura. She missed it, the fine summits, the brilliant edges, the hot springs boiling and simmering, the lake refusing to freeze, refusing to bow, all the mettle and finery. What did it look like now (and the fear, that it could have collapsed, it could have been destroyed, it could be covered and distorted, suddenly made her heart jump in fear, smothered with a quick smile)? Instead, she pressed the sudden panic down, below her whimsical tunes, beneath the valorous fathoms, whittling and chipping at her bones. She formed benevolence and beneficence, wonder and majesty through her words, unfolded their tender, generous hums into the chattering atmosphere. “We have many things to marvel: summits reaching for the heavens, soothing hot springs, a fine lake…” The sylph ended on a sigh, recalling its images with naught else to hold its glamor, grandeur, and opulence but distinct memories, hoping they hadn’t faded in their prison cells.

I’m from the Edge. Ghosts, silent wraiths, trickled back through fog and mist, reminded her for each portion of angelic, seraph boldness, devil dissonance had long since etched their hymns over her virtuous boughs. Her sins lay crisscrossed in the Edge’s rubble; carried out through the abyss, where victory didn’t always mean conquest, when two little urchins and their mother were carried off to their former world of cliff tops, bracken, and the wild sea. It’d been a world to first accept, then betray her, swindle her with stars and ferocity, temper her ebullience with the reality of treachery and wounds wrapped around her throat, her heart, her soul. Where she’d consumed violence just as quickly as the rest of them, defending what was theirs, then trying to grasp it again, watch and witness as it was torn from their clenching fists and iron swords, tossed back into the wicked eaves, faltered, stumbled, frayed and flayed. All the blessings, all the wiles, built an artifice around her grin, tactful, cunning, bright and brilliant to hide the quiet desolation around a land she’d once known, cherished, beloved. “I have. Its quite a lovely place.” Not a lie, but a breathless lull of specious ropes, and she has no need to drag her feet within its snare and be pulled and strung beneath its grip, has no urge to traverse down melodies of legends and tales seemingly scattered by opposite ends. Perhaps Alysanne had heard of their mistakes, misgivings, danger and allure, could calculate past the locks and veneers, the forts and walls, visualize sinister outcries of war, channel and chain the formalities and destitution of destruction – but Lena held no regard to kindle and ignite the flames within the confines of their glowing cavern. Truth held its own layers of demolition, and while she administered it with harmonic twists and turns, with a melodic flow and a cherubic grin, she clenched it between her teeth now, bitterly swallowed the remnants of turbulent seasons.


@[Alysanne]