Secrets remained unscathed, plentiful and chiseled deep into her chest; the Pegasus femme didn’t press, didn’t pry, didn’t stare beneath the surface, so Lena escaped the potential fuselage, the augured outcry, the simmering poison that undoubtedly still embossed and coated misty, wooded hearts. She smiled and grinned into the simple atmosphere and unveiled nearly nothing, a dance of the effortless, easily glossed and glowing from whimsical wiles and fanciful laughter, delight sown into ambient shards. Resting, relaxing, her armor untouched, she listened to the chords of Alysanne, to the foils of a generous soul, remembered Kahlua and all her gifts, recalled the glory of hallelujahs and jubilance, responded in kind to the toast of absolution, the taste of liberation, and the gentle cajoling of quiet, harmonic gestures. Though the next query forged by the painted dame urged, forced, her angelic nature to recollect a world she’d long since thwarted, bloodlines mutually forsaken (though, at times, they reared their ugly heads and her blood hummed, beat, with that violent air of Valkyrie queens and baleful kings, and she detested the taste, the feeling, of her sword plunging into another’s nape), and a group of heathens who’d welcomed her into their arms. It was the latter she chose to reflect upon, to hasten across her brow with a composed, light, ethereal air, who’d taken the dainty morsel, the silly laurels, the alluring nymph and allowed her to live in their infidel wings, in their potent parlors, in their drawn veils and curtains, as gentle, as compassionate, as generous as she yearned to be. Not once had they doubted her creed, her valor, and instead, permitted her to live as she’d wanted, yearned, and desired. “The Basin members are my family.” Voice heightened to a drifting aria, to a brilliant hastening of melodies, bright, harmonic jewels nestled along her tongue and between her ears, as if she’d been awarded, blessed, and bestowed the most gracious of kindred spirits, brethren nestled together in rime and glaciers. “What about yourself?”

Optimism, buoyant and ebullient, conspired in the aching doldrums, so that rather than mulling over the bestial burdens of homes they couldn’t grasp, couldn’t hold, couldn’t touch with the press of their hooves, they hoisted them into their hearts, minds and souls. Lena dreamed of returning to the ice, gliding amongst snowflakes, christening and anointing the summits, the peaks, with their unbridled glory, with their endless strength and perseverance. She aspired to sing in the caves, she longed to touch and grace the unyielding lake, she ached for the refinery, the edges, of serenity, of tranquility, because despite the pleasing shape it took within the sanctum, within the current threshold, it still didn’t acquire the same hold in her essence. Alysanne’s conviction was contagious, and she didn’t hesitate or labor over the words formed across her lips. “Yes. Shortly, hopefully.” The nymph was grateful for the sanctuary, for the haven, for the refuge, but not the chains, the locked gates, the way she was incapable of spreading her joy, her soul, through the iron bars.

Discussion of the Edge returned, and still, the bay femme and her vixen were saved from the burden of explaining their tomes and legends – the painted figure, the one who placated plants and soothed nutrients, aspired them to greatness, ruminated on spoiled charms. She nearly opened her jaws again to pry, parted her mouth to mull over the blight and damage the abyss had suffered – but speculations held a firm grip over her melodies, and sentiments rang only in her head for a few moments. Did the femme comment over the last invasion, the building of ice-crowned fortitude and ferocity brewing upon her door? Or had another shade been amiss, a wraith, a ghost, contorting in the veils and valleys of the cliff tops? Though she ended on a laugh, though she ceased the statement with some light giggle, it still punctured, pierced, through the meticulous air of the limber, lithe, fey and fairy. Imogen’s head tilted, and Lena’s querying renewed on the depths and clamoring, on the listless winds and silken echoes, delicate in the daunted pestilence. “How so?” Had they been visited by more pernicious schemes, not orchestrated by the Basin, but by the dangerous ruses of the darkness beyond, turbulent, chaotic, and demonic?

@[Alysanne]