They fell into a frivolous routine, she laden amongst the rivulet bed, and he searching amongst the dried grass and lavender concoctions, slipping and unfolding into blissful contortions and chicanery finesse. The regal empress of the reeds slid further into their wavering glances and writhing music, listening to the carillon stems trembling in the wind, waiting for a sign, a signal, of her jovial duplicity’s end (for she wasn’t a true master of the fiend barrages; only mischievous, impish enough, to declare courageous fancies and innocent immoralities, the mere snippets of secrets she kept nestled and locked away were her own). Imogen’s matching, roguish regard puttered into the void, lilting and harmonious, accompanying vixen giggles and serene trickery - ”He’s coming!” she dazzled and delighted, and left Lena to remain amongst the curled boughs and fronds amongst a bolstered charade of twitters and chirps. Flanked and covered by her flora minarets, by her vegetation towers, the sylph’s ears flicked back and forth, hoping to grasp he tell-tale signs of his arrival; the twisted beats echoing and bounding off the thistle lanes, perhaps a muttered contemplation of her whereabouts, a distinct, rolling aroma of gilded blackguards. Would there be an opportunity to glide away, crawl into the morsels of lapping water, claim another entrance and exit, slink from the ravenous claws of a golden serpent? Nay, there’d been too much hesitation, too much time spent reflecting on his surprise or lament to find another avenue, and so she was destined to meet her specious fate, blending into the marsh, into the quagmire, pretending to be an eldritch glow in the dimming fixture. Trapped and bound by her own motives and ploys, the capricious beat of her valorous cadence seemed to conjure a bout of quiet, unsung, nervous laughter; feral anticipation and expectation brimming over the surface of her ethereal kingdom. Leaning down into the fragile coppice, the maiden sensed the tremors of Roland’s movement, then, seemed to have lost them altogether, as if his ghostly wake pulled specters and wraiths from their illustrious haze, beckoned them from swamps and bogs to find her sienna shroud. There was an instant where she thought she may have secured victory after all; the rubble ceased, the dregs slowed, and she stoked the fatal swing of curiosity as she raised her cranium from the brook’s edge, only for her gaze to settle upon the springing Thief’s hooves.

Rather than extend a foolish spouting, rather than maul and muddle in disappointment, the fairy spiraled her forelegs inward, curled underneath her chest and amongst her fey nest, brought her serene stare towards the swindler’s features and grinned. Bathed and cloaked in his teasing, she prospered a delightful laugh, even as she was snared, caught, seized, and snatched, the nymph remained not so quickly undone. A sheepish note, she supposed some portion of her should feel the tiniest inkling of shame, glimmered past her earnest platitudes, crinkling in holy, melodious illumination, carried away and off into the lilting glades. “I was just offering you a challenge.” Queen of cattails and streams, she lingered quietly in his enigmatic grace as he mentioned rules of childhood games, years of foundation and traditions she’d glossed over, and poignantly, traced, sketched, her frame closer to the brigand, aiming to bestow what he’d sought, what’d he been owed. Reaching out with her maw, ivories accorded, she intended to draw a feral, ravenous line towards his knee, a quick, swift nip, followed by a tender, dulcet kiss, barely whispering, pressing, revealing, along the virile essence of his skin. Only thereafter did she pull away, a wild smile appearing across her beneficent features, a pixie puissance riddled with pride and delight. “Does that count?” After all, in some intriguing reversal, she’d brought, lured, called and beckoned for the conspirator to come to her, and with Imogen’s encouragement twittering from the embankment, she became quite pleased with her efforts. A soft, mockingly chastising sonnet sprung from her lips, outlined and pulled down towards the thatched stalks and the washed-over burrows, hushed depths brewing ardor and avidity through their mired confession, escaping into the airy escapade. “You know, I’ve been worried about you since we met, and now it seems silly.” Her admission, her revelation, ended on a perilous, sprite wink, emboldened and audacious as nightingale whims and christened tales, for he allowed and permitted all of her blissful divergences; she pieced them altogether, laced and woven, until they painted a dedicated fervor, elegant, harmonious birdsong.

@[Roland]