Her heart registered a small ache at the name, the heralding, of Ashamin. Lena hadn’t heard or seen him in ages, and the latest herd meeting had made it all the more apparent that she wouldn’t, as he left to follow another calling. Gone, gone, and gone again, like the rest, flying after clouds and dreams, ambitions incapable of being found along their caverns or through their wiles; she'd learned to accept that through the constant experiences. The Songbird had been dismayed to discover another friend had left their kingdom for a siren song, for a whim, but intrigued all the more to ascertain it had been to start one on his own (the Unbound - chained to nothing but wisdom, but sagacity, but annals and archives, chronicles of yesteryear). He’d grown, altered, and changed beside their mountains and peaks, and now he was destined to ascend more and more, stretch out his determination, his skills, down further pathways and designs. She smiled for him, the painted, shy stag who’d morphed into something strong and enduring – then her eyes drifted back down to Bellisma, and wondered if she’d eventually be the same. “Could you give Ashamin my regards?” She smiled softly at the stag, then listened once more.
 
She’d been hoping for an answer, for a revelation, from the slide of the other femme’s vocals, a direction she could point her towards, hand her a compass to restore her navigation. But the fae gave no response, uttered no replies to both of their promptings, and Lena recoiled a little, presumed she’d pried too far and the end result was nothing, nothing but the cold dashing of possibility and opportunity. The nymph had been the same way once, shying away from everything that dug a little too deep, curled a little too close, came on steady drums to whisk her back to treacheries and disasters. Seeing it now, all over again, was a subduing measure, and though the femme likely couldn’t see her, the grin dimmed a little, losing a bit of the brightness, the allure, afraid her luminescence, her curiosities, were maligning the moment. But she wouldn’t shy away, she wouldn’t run and hide, she wouldn’t shudder and slink off again, head tucked towards the ground, looking at roots when she should’ve been humming to the birds. The grin resumed its former position, and her crown tilted vaguely, mellifluous chords providing their ease, their arias, their composed, lissome movements and moments when she feared she was just pushing the femme further and further off, into the mist, into the gloom. “I asked first,” she laughed, light and airy, but continuing without fault or grimace, not bit by rancor, by frustration; ethereal and elegant, forever poised and proper, allied with virtue and valor. “I always come to the Threshold to find newcomers and strangers, like yourself, to offer them a home.”