For one moment, the frigid junctures and vestiges of Frostfall were but a vivid, beautiful dream: crystallized, glacial prints conforming to chill and ice in one manifested crescendo, one sublime movement and moment; and then they fell, quickly, swiftly, into chaotic shambles.

Ear-splitting screeches, unwinding wails, laments and dirges escaping from the lungs of her cadre bellowed and echoed, wild, frenzied, panicked and adrift, careening in all directions as she bit, clawed, and tore across the scene. Her heart burst at their melancholies, her chest and sides heaved at their worries, and the pictures painted across her eyes were streaked with apprehension, with loss, with forlorn realities, with the piercing guilt of not being fast enough –

They were sirens across the horizon, she and Imogen, Songbird and fox, racing against the pinnacles and treachery of time, off-kilter and seething amongst the deep snow. Vivid streaks along the valleys, pervading, surrounding, the world with song, with hope, with benevolence, opening her mouth wide and granting arias of the humble, of the beneficent, of the hopeful and sublime – guiding them in everlasting conviction, struggling to shroud them over the howls, the weeps, the cries. Perhaps it wouldn’t be enough, melodies springing and infusing, saturating the grounds with their honeyed enchantments and serene manifestations, but they could buy her precious moments, sanctified beats of the drum she, they, didn’t have. The scene they came upon, blood, blood, blood dashed across pelts, across frames, across a mourning mother and her fallen babe, was another galvanizing fixture; together, the arriving forms holstered their determination across brows, against chests, falling into an age-old rhythm, crossing wires and strangers, traipsing closer and closer until they stood before the tiny child with her slashed, maimed form. They were silent, quiet, tranquil, except for the fluttering of the Mender’s anthem, the soft harmony she cajoled, the crooning strain she harbored and divided against the plain. She shut her eyes against the world, against the gut-wrenching dirge of a dame and her lost daughter, against a worried companion, loosened her hold on sanctity and sanctuary, and drummed a beatific beat.

Time flowed, trickling from her frame in bits, pieces, fragments, drawn from a God’s power, bright, brilliant, vibrant essences of glory and wickedness, and like a loom, like a tapestry, they fortified and wove, stitched, laced back perilous wounds and grave lacerations. They varnished and gleamed, washed away, undid wrong from right, combated tempests of destruction and gales of disaster, kissed and caressed the damaging venues, diving headstrong into valleys of nonexistence. She breathed and unleashed an inferno of assuaging supremacy, unfurled and uncoiled the remains of her tenacity, held steadfast through the bewitching storm, and only opened her gaze to the sight when she thought the perils over, finished.

talk talk talk

Lacerations closed, wounds narrowed, injuries reduced and shrank, and the femme stepped aside so that the grieving mother could rejoice instead. A heavy rush of breath escaped from her lungs, a salutation, a prayer, answered and sculpted and revered on the brink of demise and quietus. She nodded and smiled toward the other babe and Hotaru, accepting their gratitude but never their debts or obligations, always eager to assist her comrades. Her satisfaction could reign over healed children and mended soldiers, not owed favors or misgiven providences. She very nearly wandered off altogether, her craft done and fastened, finished, bestowing art and form when it was needed, then wandering off into the valleys and sun once more – the babe needed time with her dam, to wash away the agonies and miseries eternal rest almost bestowed. The youth’s words, though, stopped her in her tracks, and her ears twisted in a curious, inquisitive fashion, testing the strange proclamation, the bizarre utterances. She’d felt death, she’d sensed its touch, its caress, its pestilent promises and alluring decrees, had almost been taken in its clutches and absconded to Hades’ chambers, crossing over Styx with no coins in hand. The Mender’s cranium tilted a fraction, benevolent eyes searching over the tiny dame’s frame, for a sign, for a hint, of the phenomenon beyond the unseeing, the intangible, but there was only a riddle of scars. Blemishes could tell many stories, and an unholy scythe’s chose to remain anonymous. But Lena held no dominance upon damnation and the condemned, could not pick them away from the moaning rivers and the bestial sway, couldn’t pluck them from the gallows when they’d already been chiseled and marked for the barbaric occasion. Her talents laid in bewitching what had already been tarnished, in alleviating pain, in granting hope and repose amongst unrelenting pain and agonies. Had anyone else mustered enchantments? Imogen shook her head in response, narrowed eyes darting from one form to another, all moved, all gasping, but naught exploring into the regions of obliteration. The sylph was forced to declare the unknown and her ignorance over its scruples, bestowing her charitable grin and amiable expression, a twinkle in her eyes, a keen swell in her note - when her gaze settled upon the child’s, she only prospered honeyed words and ambrosial truths. “I have no power over death. Perhaps that is for you alone, little one.” Was it unheard of, to taste death and rise once more? Was she a garbed phoenix, clutched in ashes and embers, regenerated and reborn time and time again?