The sunlight was blinding, alluring, and beguiling all at once – it kissed over the scars along her hide and sweetened the end of Frostfall’s chilling fingertips. It traversed the length of her lissome, enigmatic figure like a long-long lover, grateful and secure: a sanctum, a blessing, a paradise pervading canopies and sonnets, odes to a foreign deity, to fire and light. In a daze, they sauntered through vineyards and nestled, tucked away corridors, getting lost in the verdant haze. Filtering through a whimsical dream, they were a piece, a part, of the mirage, ghosting and gliding, stretching out beyond runes and rubble, beyond valleys and winter edges, attempting to settle their roots through unknown, foreign soil. They tried for blossoms and tender nothings, watching as the rest of the world awakened and yawned, as morning filtered through eyelids and speckled through yawns; exhaling and inhaling amongst promised dew and fledgling shoots. The pair eyed bamboo saplings who’d survived the passing season, grinning at their perseverance, at their foreshadowed bounty, at their glorious hallelujah come Birdsong’s gentle swirls and twirls. The duo marched through light and grandeur, shadow and Stygian abyss, embracing the feral bits of freedom, the archaic designs of patchwork greenery, roaming without purpose, without rhyme, without reason – simply existing in another place and time. The fox billowed her tails amidst the wind and the Songbird fluttered on the breeze, without wings, without cages, without anything gilded or confined; mere refinement, hope, and grace. Their eyes cast lingering arias upon crystal waters and reflective pools; and the mirroring effect ignited intriguing reminders of days spent scratching a sword down the length of a hostile, rancorous, belligerent face (hers - so mighty, so angry, so desperate to be freed of the chains of her past and the tethers of the unknown), and seasons just past, dancing on the light of the nocturnal sky and staring at stars.
 
The latter thought made her glance away, brandish her stare among leaves and boughs for fear of the contradiction swallowing her whole – because he pushed and cajoled and enticed her – and she’d almost wanted to spill out every secret, every lie, every truth. She wanted to be known and then she wanted to hide, and it was such an agonizing mess of sentiments and variances, mercurial and capricious, that she preferred it ignored altogether. The notions could lay out of sight, out of mind, never to be touched or regarded again, and she could be safe, furtive, resting on her cloaks, daggers, and songs –
 
Imogen laughed through their connection, wily, kitsune eyes segmented on the beast Lena had just hoped to avoid.
 
Out of ridiculousness, the nymph thought to duck away, become shielded by darkness and the labyrinthine maze, run to some far off corridor where there was no temptation or impulse, no wild inclinations basking and glowing in her heart. He’d be none the wiser, all glistening constellations and marauding grins, wandering down his chosen lanes without hastening or asking or prodding her for anything and everything. Her eyes narrowed for a moment at Imogen, and the vixen’s fangs poked out of her lips, as if suddenly treated with an amusing game, cunning gaze sweeping back towards the beast lingering beyond the trees – almost threatening to expose their hideaway between branches and eaves, between shade and dawn. The maiden shook her head, once, twice, narrowing her gaze, and her companion took a few steps forward, dangling her paw along a tiny twig, arching a brow, tails twitching closer and closer to a few stray leaves – daunting, taunting, eager to make any sound, any noise, to alert their presence.
 
Lena nearly sighed. She knew it was cowardly to hide from him, veracity, and the beckoning quandary of celestial forms and intricacies (but it was so much easier, safer, to stray away from things and moments that purposefully inveigled – after all, what had come from the golden thief?). But she didn’t want to be renowned for being frightened, for being afraid of what could be and what might not even transpire – she’d always been a regal, refined piece of the cold landscape, a benevolent glimmer along the unwinding horizon, and to shield herself from Atlas was brutally unkind and unfair to him. She didn’t dare look at Imogen as the kitsune nodded her head in agreement.
 
Instead, she breathed and took a step forward, extending her crown through a parcel of leaves and shoots, behind him, watching as he strode further and further away, as if she truly had a chance to escape from his notice. But instead of lingering back into the hidden sectors and sanctions, her vocals warbled, sculpted and whittled a melodious tune through the brambles and warren; like she wasn’t tangled in a mire, in a jungle, in a web of her own sentiments. “Good morning!”