Gifted in the craft of imposed containment, incapable of escaping, embarking, into definite darkness and foreshadowed peril, the Mender, the Songbird, the empress of self-loathing sank, withered, and wilted. The sylph remained in shamed purgatory, at a loss for reactions, ruminations, or responses from the Thief, waiting to be either embellished in further remorse, indignity, or a spouting of her foolishness, but none of those things came. Her eyes ghosted over his again, taken aback to notice hidden snippets and concoctions of trepidation, of concern, ears capturing the quick, swift acquiescence of her request, and the calamity suddenly notched its weight over her again and again, a spiraling convolution of doubt and ineptitude. The multitude of her intentions, feeble but stalwart, were flanked and burdened by the monstrous debts she owed him, ones he took with little effort, little concern, and her massive obligations spiraled out of control, speckled her sights, blinded her gaze. The fairy’s heedless desires constantly brought a encumbrance upon him, and she hated the essence, the taste, the bitter maelstrom of it, coating the back of her throat, threading through her veins, seething and rippling through her chest, because he didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of her melancholies at every turned stone, every ghastly ghoul, every phantom inquiry. All of it tumbled into a rancorous disappointment in herself, in her efforts, in her motivations, how it clouded another’s, how it shifted, how it stumbled, how it fumbled and faltered at each decree, each sound, each silly, foolish mistake. As much as she loathed distorting her figure into this loathsome cretin, into this abhorrent, hateful artifact, she couldn’t undo the past, the foibles, the mercurial, capricious actions she’d stirred and ignited. Eventually, they’d traverse amongst the gallows and search amongst the void for a piece of fire to set her ablaze, to seize and possess her frame until it was soaked in the ardor, in the zest, in the bright, brilliant, dangerous, treacherous coals of power: driving derision and contempt back into her soul at every moment wouldn’t help pass the time. The fey had to accept every bit of herself, either selfish or heedless, just as she’d done the Sun God’s quest, and allowed the slightest bit of breath to billow from her mouth, puff and curl against his shoulder, the barest hint of serenity and composure. Drawing, sketching, outlining the return of her beneficence, she arched the simplest of smiles across her lips, a flicker, a dream, of her jubilant, ethereal entity, settling his agreement into her heart and straining not to cast herself back into shadow, into sullen, silent refuge. His caress, his touch, bestowed an eager comfort, and she leaned into the dulcet stroke, returned it with fondness, with appreciation, with unspoken affection and endearments, with too many gratitudes and not enough repayment, and closed her eyes against the weariness overwhelming her once unwavering stature. “Thank you.”

@[Roland]