It’s a good thing I’m not, he’d responded to her line about gods, about stars painted on coats, about galaxies and their rotating axis. Curiosity indulged, entreated, her to a bit of wondering on her part, as she turned to glance at him from the corner of her eyes – brooding and tempestuous again, a turbulent means controlled by a makeshift quilt of something she couldn’t quite ascertain. Why wouldn’t he want to follow what so many others dreamed of: far-off kingdoms aligned in heaven, all-powerful rites and enchantments, omniscient and immortal, granting abilities, hindering mortals, delivering gifts of bestowal and acceptances of the inevitable? Why would he yearn, crave, and desire the capability to see everything in the world? Had he already ghosted too far into Elysium, once, twice, and realized what it truly was? Had he already climbed Jacob’s ladder before, witnessed the top of puffy clouds and whimsical barbs, and found it wasn’t to his liking? Had he fallen, wings cut away, to journey with the rest of them, destined to intertwine with determination, falsehoods, and merriment, until that was gone too? “I don’t mind,” she shrugged, appeasing him with a lighthearted grin and features that were all the more emboldened, consuming the liberation, the freedom, he gave her, he pushed her towards.
 
Another had done that for her before, but she shoved those memories aside, ignoring the chill rushing through her skull.
 
Instead, she glimmered on gilded crowns and sparkling tiaras, placing the webbing, the crawling, the hurt aside, staring at canopies and loose, shaking leaves on the wind, propelling her inquiries into reality, forgoing the veils and shrouds, the cloaks and daggers, because if he got to see her for what she truly was, it was only right he’d do the same for her. “If not a God, what have you always wanted to be?” The Songbird asked her question upon the breeze, carefully crafted in dulcet tones, so as it surely met his ears she could stare upon him, watch his expression, and ponder the munitions behind celestial bodies and fragmented ideals. It didn’t matter to her what he was, truly, she’d already accepted him for all the actions he’d enabled, all the deliverance he’d shared, all the locks, all the cages he’d opened; but audacity and boldness had crept in with her valor, incapable of being shut away with the rest of her sins and transgressions.
 
The fairy must’ve looked away when he began uttering his regrets, glancing down the lane of hedges and jungle vines, peering through the gaps and corridors, the strange, unwinding avenues that cut away in all sorts of different directions. Instead of being lost, of being trapped, of being ensnared in the warren, she’d been freed, and she almost choked on a gale of laughter, on a spirited giggle formed along her tongue. But she did just the opposite, arching her brow at the beast who took blame, who took shame, for things far out of his control. “You have no reason to apologize.” She did laugh then, preferred it open and carved on another gale of wind, watching the flowers and buds again as they waved it away; as Imogen chirped and chirruped beneath swiveling brush and fronds, never asking if she was all right, understanding the need to press on, to not break, to not shatter under the weight of so many memories.
 
The little fey shuddered though, when he crept behind her and touched, delicately, softly, over the scars mottled down her back (scorched marks from Gaucho himself; because he’d chosen to hate instead of propose armistice, because she’d asked to receive fire and brimstone in her heart, in her soul, and the Sun God had done exactly that, stared at her like she’d been the biggest fool at her request, and again when she returned, blighted and marred). She didn’t shy away, she didn’t flee, but her muscles bunched beneath the lightness of his touch, and her stare went downcast, for a just a few moments, before she turned her head and glanced at him again. Her smile had faded, drawn back into a line, brows furrowed, sketched in contemplation and concern, because she wouldn’t have wanted him there, just like she shouldn’t have asked Roland to come (but she’d been so scared, so frightened, so stupidly, idiotically selfish). “It’d been a quest I appealed from the Sun God,” she admitted, she pressed, she ensured he’d see her for an absolute cretin, leave her there in the labyrinth, incapable of helping her any further, for she was too far gone. The nymph’s voice grew a little quieter, barely above a whisper, when she uttered her sins and iniquities. “I wanted magic to protect my herd, and it came with a price.” Eyes lifted to his, powerful and courageous in their own right. “Even if you’d been there, you couldn’t have saved me the pain. It was for me to endure, to understand, what I’d asked of him.” Then she smiled again, a sheen brighter than before, wrapped and coiled around her lips, along her mouth, amidst the foils and fumbles of her days spent in Helovia. “So don’t take my mistakes upon yourself. Those are mine to carry.”