His smile widened and the unnerved pinnacles rankled across her hide; unsure, uncertain, if it became emboldened in malicious credentials or mere amiability, she coasted and ghosted through the lacquer of heightened armor, a guard to her heart, a shield to her soul. He dug deeper, queried and questioned, and the mighty, resolute portion of her essence nearly refused to give him the names, the callings, the heralds of those within his standing out of fear, out of apprehension. Would he hurt them? Would he hunt them down? Would he stalk them from the shadows, a bestial, unrelenting foe, bound and tied down the chains of his sneaky, furtive deception, chasing, following, and beckoning the domination of all, of many? Or was she being completely foolish, imprudent and selfish, preserving naught, being a hindrance to his wake, to his necessary information? Didn’t he deserve the right to know of his constituents? The burning twist of either direction caused a brewing in her throat, in her lungs, because he set her on sinister alarms and heartless corridors, and the compassionate bundle of her existence rarely rested in those passages. She yearned to protect the members of her herd – but from one of their own? Was she being inept and cruel, misguided and torn, led astray by a wily indifference and a strange, ruffling demeanor? Quietly, regally, she lowered her eyes and acquiesced, and all of it felt like a betrayal, a knife in her side, a blade through her chest, as if she were passing her friends, her companions, her cherished, beloved companions, a note of their execution. With a soft grace, with a hint of melancholy, a brandishing of brindled safeguard (if he touched them, if he scorched them, if he harmed them, would he be sorry?), encased with those of whom she knew in the same pulse, the same direction, as he, gilded Thranduil of the unknown. “Several – there is Nao, Arah, and Roland, to name a few.” The Songbird smiled then, ruffled it along her lips to signal nothing was the matter, when every inch of her frame was taut, rigid, pulled into another world, desperate to give chase to the stars, to the moon, to the skies, but too courteous to do so. Imogen, crafty and cunning, watched from Lena’s sienna forest of legs, narrowing her eyes in speculation, in examination, in devout mistrust.