The horrors whittled and scored a vivid setting, wild minstrels, savage balladeers, and reality only rang as soon as she ceased talking; because they rang from her lips as well – all the terrors, all the treacheries, all the barbaric requiems and the sinister laments. She closed her mouth and stared, reaching for something, anything, to tear her away from the circumstances, from the actuality, from the segments of disaster and bedlam. They chose your home - her own words strike and strike against her like vicious, entangled chords, because the same thing had happened to her (a dragon-horse in search of her moon goddess, a rising tempest of hate and malice, the undone feeling of complete, utter loss), and some other beings were about to become refugees, and the cycle would continue. Would they become stronger, overthrow those who’d come to conquer? Would they search for another home, like those of the old, old Edge had done, her brethren, her kin, scattering like tiny, nestled stars, cold, indifferent, bitter, and rancorous, clinging to the cavern ramparts and the wide-open abyss? Would they endure, would they persevere, would they live out dreams and ambitions and aspirations, or sink into this newfound quagmire, succumb to the consumption of their credence? The rotation, the patterns, the revolutions continued all the same, but with no changes in sight: for what did war actually solve? She tried to answer, tried to seek the truth, tried to find the answer in absolutions and loyalty, in the armored salvations and promises she’d made lifetimes ago. There were shards of vengeance layered within violence and vehemence, there were lacquered commitments and intentions, there were rich, unsettled purposes, and then there was simply victory – but how far did it go? Would it cycle back towards offspring and children, where they’d be told one side or the other: of miseries, of woes, or of conquest and triumph, where they’d once again grasp kernels of truth and carve it into their own fledgling compositions? Which was right and which was wrong? The war drums beat against her head, and she lowered it for the sake of guidance, for the sake of damnation, for all these hardships sprung and leaping and terrorizing constantly. What did peace feel like anymore? The only syllables gracing her tongue were soft, dulcet, nearly inaudible, fluttering like leaves to the mossy ground. “I’m sorry.” For so many things.

But then he appeared in front of her, shadowy and black all over again, and she lifted her head to peer into his depths, all renewed strength and determination, clenching her jaw, losing the appearance of fragility. Her captor extended his muzzle, like an arm to grasp, like a hand to clutch, and she gazed at it – either a lifeline or deceit. A cloak of bitterness plucked at her shell, and her mind searched and searched for Imogen in the background, for the pulsing wane of supremacy lingering between them (weak and fragile, just one glorious chirp beyond city gates and castle walls, coming closer and closer); she swallowed away the bits of condemnation polluting her mind. Instead of snatching, seizing, or grabbing at his proffered maw, she reached down into the remaining drops of her potency, like she had from the time of her birth, scouring and wishing and dreaming and hoping (then watching it come crashing down all around her time and time again), stuck out her tucked limbs, and rose from her prison nest on her own. Her legs trembled, either from effects of his noose and snare, or the weakness drumming around her, and she felt cold, listless, nefarious beneath the shackle of the canopies and the drowning deluge of mercy. The Songbird’s eyes caught his movements as they wound away, then turning to watch her, beckoning her towards something – anything. And her curiosities compelled, and her resilience remained, and all the wiles and remnants of her persevering poise and prose sparked against the horizon. “Where are we going?”