The Songbird surmised some form of argument, a quarrel of natures building, sculpting, flowing between voids, worlds, and regimes, of rights and wrongs, of hypocrisies and double standards, and she equipped herself with compassionate armor: a righteous, regal head, a kind eye, a beneficent stance, a harmonic chirp to her stately affairs. All of it was for naught, oddly, strangely, and her valorous depths heaved a softened sigh as the winged sovereign agreed and concurred with her statements (hadn’t they fought tooth and nail for possessions, for innocents, for blood and fire and ash? Was he tired of it too, the loss of life, the bleeding of comrades, of family, the dysfunction and chaos burning through their cores?). But just like before, an easy lilt into the chill and frozen aperture, she accepted his thanks, his appreciation, flicked her ears back and forth to capture the remnants of his speech, Imogen dulled at her feet, perhaps dismayed or disappointed the walls had not come to blows. But he yearned to talk to Mirabella, the little belle who’d carried the task of delivering their invitations from land to land with the Mender and Sialia, and the nymph couldn’t forget her conviction, her determination, even amidst the tired, flailing movements or the tear-stained diatribes, forced to face the notion of cruelty as a tender shoot, as a tiny sapling. A protective surge billowed in her chest, swelled along her mind, and she didn’t bother to fight away the anxiety and apprehension of bringing Midas into her lands or searching far and wide for Mirabella only to lose sight of him thereafter; time was precious, hearts were fleeting, and she adhered to the here and now, to the struck vows and reverberations between sinking lacerations and punctured wiles. Her gaze hastened across the horizon, towards the depths of glaciers and walls, down the primrose paths and gateways to tundra, to springs, to beautiful whims and treacherous ideals, swallowing the notch of pride, the simmering of consternation brewing in her throat. The nightingale’s stare settled back thereafter, the gentle, dulcet rhapsody dancing across her lips, cautious, deliberate, lavender and honey, ambrosial and stalwart, shielding and preventive. “Perhaps its best if I deliver the gift to her?” She smiled, an amiable, affable grin, tended to her fierce convictions, always a fierce, righteous gale in her sentiments, in her ruminations, in her pledges and purpose. “I promise its safe journey and swift arrival.”