She would have liked to forget all her follies, all her indiscretions, and all her stupid, foolish acts. She would have liked to cast them all aside, watch them float away on a whim, on the wind, abandoned, forsaken, discarded. She would have liked remaining virtuous and clean, pure and pious, marching along to the beat of tranquility and serenity – but those wishes, juvenile at best, died many seasons before. The Songbird had long since been scattered into many ardent, zealous pieces: the moral, the immaculate, the inept, the foolhardy, the brave, the determined, and then finally morphing into the sinner, picking up nefarious acts and placing them like a veil over her gentle features. The sylph’s last journey had been a sojourn of reality, harsh and cruel, callous and alarming, and then finally, an all consuming plunge back into the regions of her past, and she ran, far, far, far away from the memories, from the images, from the distortions and revolutions, choosing to flee, choosing to escape, back into the void of purpose, to lose herself across the rime, along the mountains, beneath the peaks. It was so much easier to avoid than face the brutal ferocity of age-old poignancy, to drift along the curtains, upon the tapestries, she’d woven for herself, fleeting, blinding, and haunting; drenching and suffusing her world with flowers, with harmonies, with brilliant, luminescent excursions and forgoing the twist, the twine, of frayed ends. She’d carve more notches of resolution, of steadfastness, to imagine everything else never happened; turn an eye from the wake of actuality and truth –

But it hit her with a blunt force, the concerning sway of a voice calling for her, the chilling decibels ringing against her ears, layered and lacquered upon a backdrop of fragile notions and breakable nuances. She felt like glass, standing amongst the pillars of caverns, grottos and catacombs, not strong and enduring, not capable and persevering, but a chalice waiting to be roughened and bruised, thrown and tossed; afraid of what the Thief might say, afraid of how she may have changed in his eyes. It wasn’t too often she was held down by the ramparts of fear, choosing the path of stalwart motions and valiant movements, but she’d committed so many errors, she’d riddled so many flaws, she’d floundered and stumbled down to her knees, and she wasn’t sure how much the world had shifted in her idiocy. What would he think of her now, a silly little fool who’d ignored the requests of her brethren, who’d tried to storm into another castle (to help, to aid, to provide alms and assurance), only to be snagged and snared? Only to cause more work, more labors, for those with everything else to lose? Lena listened to the spark of rubble nearby, the roll of stones signaling his presence, and dropped her head, closing her eyes, strangled and suffocating under the wane of the moon. There was no escape from her selfishness: once pleading for his assistance, and now hiding when he requested for hers. She wanted to sob, she wanted to falter and flicker apart. She wanted to keen and wail for the likes of her thoughtlessness, to mourn the strength, the endurance, she once held, and to watch the tears fall away, maybe take some of imprudence and absurdities from her soul and pitch them over the side of the mountain.

Imogen flicked her tails, impatient and brooding: her own form of irritation. She didn’t know whether to be completely, utterly exasperated with the Mender, or pity the stages of melancholy, the waffling, mercurial exploits. But Lena’s thoughts were so derailing, so pressing, so diligent in their scythes, in their rapiers, in their swordplay, that the kitsune harked her emboldened impressions across their silent bond, yearning to reach out and slap. Stop it. And when the nymph balked, when the fairy swayed, she did it again, over and over, until the self-torture seemed to start erasing. Why would he think less of you? What has changed? You still Lena. You still flawed. You still strong.

Even if the sylph didn’t believe it, the hesitation was enough. The fey lifted her head, stared out over the horizon, and loosened one harsh, trickling breath, watched it puff and dissipate in a coiled, curl of warmth – then marched, turning towards another primrose path, looking, seeking, searching for a gilded frame. She peered through the darkness, flowing and tangible, a blend of weakness and resilience, mustering the shaking, tired decibels of gentle might, of potent courage, bravely stepping forward into the midst and hoping he saw past her ridiculous vulnerabilities, her flailing, foolish moments. Her voice wavered only once, knocked aside by autumn’s chilling breeze, by the threatening clouds and the frigid prowess of their empire, slinking like a mellifluous bough through the curtains of hushed ruins. “Roland?” She didn’t know why it came out so uncertain, so quaking, so withering; maybe because she had so many questions for him and none of them would pass through her lips (Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’m weak?). Then, instead of any other syllables or phrases, she merely closed their gap, sauntered through the wavering pieces of Stygian subterfuge, and lifted her head to grasp hold of his frame, curling her crown around his neck, clutching and holding and embracing like he was a lifeline and she’d finally found the tether. Her breath mingled and foiled along the entwining, and her silence practiced all those expressions she hadn’t refined, putting them into his nape, into his mane, into the adrift notions of silence; and all the while, she shook like a leaf, afraid of what may come next.

@[Roland]

She waited for something to pass: candid questions about rights and wrongs, webs and follies, secrets and lies and everything intertwined between, frame shuddering, limbs quaking. Fleeing and escaping came to mind abruptly, all over again, pieces of fleeing, frayed tapestries and worn out solutions, calamities without end and chaotic semblances rising above the surface. It would have been so much easier to tear away, to fold back over into old forms, to shake and tremble and sway beneath dark canopies or silent oaks, soaking in her ineptitude (but it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, and not something either of them deserved). She took the difficult path, the one mottled, bruised, and entirely forlorn, reaching for the light, the pinnacle, the essences blinking and twinkling on the other side (and she was sure he’d always be there, illuminating and golden and brilliant). Her breath mingled over the gilded edges of his mane and the satin strips of chestnut hues, and the nymph watched warmth and cold collide on the singular patchworks of autumn nightfall – prayed for absolution in the shivering of her bones and the weight of all the anarchy pressing down over her shoulders. The Songbird’s frame stilled only when Roland responded in kind, twisting his frame around hers, like a rock, like a fortress, like a shield, and she surrounded, pervaded, cloaked herself in his presence, allowing the softest, sweetest sigh to glimmer along his skin, released from the sinuous torture of her own thoughts, of her own ruminations. But he didn’t ask her what she’d been doing, why she’d been taken, how she’d been captured, why she was so stupid, why she always appeared to falter and stumble instead of rise. At first, she had no response to his query; too much, too unsure of all the possible answers, and simply reigned and relaxed in the cloaked embrace, became varnished in gold and fire through the weary silence. She didn’t cry. She didn’t laugh. Instead, she lowered her face and hid it in his mane, tried to perfect words he wouldn’t see between or couldn’t peel apart. Her recent scars weren’t visible, corporeal, or discernible; they’d all been scattered inward, pulsing and coveting and craving the beautiful sanctions of her heart.

“I’m all right.” The song felt hollow, felt forced, sinking into the summit of his withers and the harpsichord lines of his shoulders, not making any attempt to drift away from his warmth, from his stance, from his entity. He was a necessity, essential, indispensible, and she closed her eyes again to simply stand in all her fragility, in all her vulnerability, giving absolution and serenity over and over, awakened by the rubble slammed in her mind, adrift on the open seas, slumbering on the mountain trails.

One more notion drove a nettle, a thorn, into her memories, spurring last season’s images against her eyes, a veil of water, a rising harmony of disaster and flames, and Roland’s resolution to claim a rite, an invocation, a prize of his own; she wondered, if in all her absence, he’d managed to grasp hold of whatever charm, whatever information, whatever noteworthy aspects suited his specious yearnings. The sylph maneuvered slightly, pulled back only so she may rest her cheek on his pelt, so she may see and behold everything about him, eyes speculating, persistence ruminating, pitching into another realm where maybe she didn’t reign in disaster and tribulations. His last phrase had been uttered with promises and convictions (to see her before he went, to grant her a goodbye, a farewell, an adieu – but she’d been taken first), and she prayed he hadn’t waited for her, that he hadn’t spent all this time, all these days, lingering, loitering, and worrying, instead of chasing what he coveted. A guilty, ugly plunge of shame collected around her throat and bobbed within her voice, uttering pleas she feared went vastly unheard (no one should be held back from their dreams, from their wishes, from their hopes because of her - that was the last thing she wanted for anyone). The query melted and molded into the earth as a hopeful aria, as a dulcet rhapsody, as a contorted reverie, binding and flourishing when its creator couldn’t. “Did you find what you were looking for?”


@[Roland]

Remorse rasped and stung its way over her jaw, down her throat, intertwining and blending its way through her chest until it slammed against her heart in a vicious, sadistic pulse. It rested and remained there, vile and ruthless, pervading and surrounding, as the Thief’s notions spilled over the wayward chill (he hadn’t gone, he’d waited – and all those unsaid words glimpsed to the surface) – because she’d been snagged, because she’d been taken, because she’d been too weak, too stupid, too infirm to do anything but crash to the ground and dragged into enemy confines. No arts, no wiles, no foundation but ineptitude had caused a blurring of errors, with poor Ulrik charging and beckoning for her freedom, with patient, composed Roland standing amidst the throng, lingering and loitering, not wandering where he truly wished to go. She closed her eyes, ignored all the sharp edges, all the keen blades, crisscrossing over the images behind her memories; but wishing, hoping, and praying couldn’t bring back time, couldn’t twist away the hours, couldn’t pull out knots. She couldn’t mend her way out of this hollowed out hell, she couldn’t assuage or soothe or sing horrors off into another world – all that mattered now was what would come after. How would she prevail? How would she change? How would she alter herself so she was no longer this miserable cretin, sinking instead of swimming, drowning instead of gliding, falling instead of rising? The urge to apologize to him, great, grand Roland with his charismatic ease and stalwart, steadfast, kind presence, was overwhelming, pressing down between her shoulders and erupting over her skin, feral and wild. How many times had she executed the same notions, the same sentiments (and when did they grow stale, no longer counted, no longer fastened to the slate of regrets and rue)? Was he tired of listening to them? She pressed her cheek against his pelt and felt all the somber, frail melancholies lace and stitch their way into her seams, and she choked upon their grinding, fractious force, beaten, worn, restless, forsaken and abandoned; exhausted in between perils and mutinies of her mind, of the world, of all the flaws she’d managed to tangle in a matter of moments. The nymph nearly yearned to bury and hide in his entity, in his presence, in his constancy, so when she emerged again she’d be whole, she’d be new, she’d be fresh, vigilant, strong, all over again. The repentance shimmied across her tongue, bobbed and swayed, twirled and waltzed, a harsh, siren cry of self-reproach, and she opened her eyes, loosened her mouth, prepared for the endless tirade of compunction –

When he’d continued, stared at her, fixed her with constancy, with certainty, with all the notions and sentiments she couldn’t hold onto. His request played over her mind like a sonnet, composed and written and strummed across as a brilliant, blinding symphony, because he always found some form to guide her along. Deep in the caverns, when there’d been no light but the sprinkling of eerie lanterns, he’d escorted her to freedom, when they’d played across meadows and divulged disappearances, he’d granted her hope, and when he followed her into the fire, into the flames, he’d supported her selfish, thoughtless tidings, watched her become enshrouded in phoenix ashes. Now, he proffered her an opportunity to return the favor, to be something other than miserable, leap from the stumbling, fumbling stroll she’d been taking. Her eyes widened, her jaw slackened, her soul threatened to break apart in raptures and reveries. The Songbird’s lips even cracked and bloomed into the simplest of smiles, dipping even closer so manes, so tassels, so charms and beads and trinkets blended together seamlessly, black and gold.

I don’t deserve you, her heart warbled. “Of course I will,” her voice chirped. No hesitation, no doubt, no irresolution, she surrendered herself over to the task, over to the foils, over to the crumbling wake, striving to see the sun past the horizon. Already there, Imogen crooned, and Lena laughed inwardly, suddenly blinded all over again by his generosity, by his benevolence.

@[Roland]