She’d spent her entire lifetime chasing after stars. They were glorious, blinking lights, far, far, far beyond her reach, intertwining and twinkling, past spirits and remnants of years past, of ghosts she’d never known, of deities she’d never see. They’d always been transfixing, a lure, a siren, billowing along the horizon and through the clouds, diving between the moon and the sun. In her youth, she’d find a constellation and point to the dots with her muzzle, talk to herself as midnight turned to dawn, count them aloud until there were none left and her eyes drooped heavily in slumber. Then, in her dreams, she’d touch them, all waxen, all glorious, all tangible, beautiful things, no longer alone with just the backdrop, surroundings, and forest beside her. They’d been a fascination, because they were a part of heaven and earth, virtuous and kind, compassionate and luminescent, glowing, lustrous, untamed by the sky, incapable of being swindled and moved by anyone but themselves. She’d once believed them to be figures and legends transcribed from stories and myths, heroes and heroines who’d managed to conquer monstrous foes, vanquish demons, crush enemies and fiends, freeing the world from treacheries and travesties. Galaxies aligned and beams were cast, seasons changed, groves altered, and kingdoms eroded, but the stars always remained, wise and infinite, strong and enduring. Like him, Atlas, a map of the heavens, she presumed – virile and resilient, corporeal and real, and too much for her to ever hope for. Her youth taught her about insignificance. Her days within Helovia taught her to pursue (to dream, to believe, if she was ever going to amount to anything, anything at all, then she had to dig, scrape, build, and cast shades, cloaks, and veils, because no one would have ever cared about the little sprig wandering in on wraiths, phantoms, and war). Then, they’d informed her she wasn’t worth anything. It’d been a harsh, unrelenting barb to take, when all she’d ever wanted to do was love.
 
His touch, fleeting, gentle, had been on her before she could balk, before she could flee, before she could run away and hide again. Out of habit, her eyes gestured to the ground, over roots and shrubs, over thickets and groves, on points and pieces her body, her mind, knew well. But then his chin lifted hers, brushed away, aside, and she came face to face with the sky, with the sun, with the morning dew and the wide-open canopies, where stars would bleed in the midnight varnish, and flickering back over to his hide, where they seemed to rest during the day (and at night too – a constant beacon, an alluring shield). The Songbird couldn’t belong there, nestled in paradise, waltzing through Elysian fields, dancing and trilling along empyrean gardens – but her eyes couldn’t resist entangling back to his (afraid, so weary and frightened, craving everything but incapable of saying the words, incapable of believing), listening to the phrases, to the assurances, to the oaths he declared. Because you deserve more than the earth - and already she wanted to interrupt, to shake her head, to disagree. What had she ever done to be apart of the celestial whims and the mercurial expanse? It wasn’t enough to be kind, to be compassionate, to hide, to coat herself in armor, to waver and fall into the cracks of iniquity and morality. That’s all she’d ever done in her life – give, give, and give, take, then give again, always poised and ready for the fall, for the earth to reach out and swallow her whole, for happiness to fade and for everyone to disappear with it, leave her behind for another span of time. “I wouldn’t be enough for them,” she stated, staring at him, at his frame, at his figure, committing to the double meaning, to the layers lacquered and smoothed in between each melody, each softened, quiet curve, “But I want to be.”
 
We are more alike than you know.
 
While she gazed, while she gazed, she continued pondering, wondering, over the mystique and mystery of Atlas, denying the threads he claimed to be stuck within. He couldn’t be as tethered as she, not when he was so assured, so confident, so capable, wielding traps and snares, pitfalls and declarations she kept tripping in. Where had all the convictions come from? Where had all the strength reigned? Why did he bother with her at all, with her irrelevant presence, with her worthless, meaningless punctures? He could be the same as everyone else – walking by, uncaring, indifferent, shrugging as one more piece of her fell away, as one more smile managed to flicker and dim, as one more sliver of her heart died. But he prevailed, just like she had done for months, for seasons, for years, until it all seemed so wretchedly tiring, until it all seemed to no longer matter, and she spent her days in listless, languid intricacies, running, fleeing, escaping from everyone and everything. When she was ragged and torn, when it was all too late and she’d been scorned, scattered to the winds, he appeared – tenacious and bold, wild and enduring, all the things she used to be. You will no longer be any of those things, so long as I am here he’d chimed, he’d echoed, he’d brandished, and she blinked, narrowed her eyes, drew all the suspicions and luster, ignored Imogen’s head shaking and demure chirps, and extended more of the pain she’d always found inflicted on herself (gone, gone, and gone again; all on the wind and the rain, the fog and the mist, never telling her where they were going, never caring about what they left behind). “And when you leave?” As soon as the query left her mouth she regretted it, spurned the acidic taste flowing along her tongue, and reached out to his cheek, pressed her soft maw to his warm skin, apologetic at once. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
 
Perhaps they were simply much too broken, too cracked, too chiseled and sculpted away by others. There were some pieces of her floating off along the Edge, where she’d battled with her own ferocity as they waged war. There were some slivers of her left on the Endless Blue, where she’d sculpted her own selfishness into burns and vehemence. There were pinnacles and pedestals of her stretched all across the Basin, from healing, from scaling great heights, from daring to dream when she should’ve known better. But, as he gave name to his fears (she wondered if hers had sounded just as silly, when his were so easily refuted), she smiled again, forcing herself not to look at the ground, but up, up, up, towards the sky and clouds, towards his figure, towards his strength. “You’ve already proven you're capable,” the nymph winked, glancing back along a string of vines, of blossoms, of blooms ready and eager to join the sun. Lord, we are fools, she wanted to whisper into the void, into the jungle, into the labyrinth they’d quartered themselves in, but perhaps they both knew it enough so the notion didn’t need a voice.