The crisp, cool air gave her endless dreams, and she played amidst them throughout the early morning, twisting and turning at the folds of colors and the brightness of their splendor. There were vivid tapestries of stolen circlets and ruby convictions, hearts beating and bleeding, breaking and folding, then mirrors in corridors, undying images sparking and igniting from their locked hold. Streaks of gold, then red, then blue, gave way to a shudder of stars, a cluster of constellations, along the edge of her eyes, and she basked in all of them, one right after the next, surrounded and bewildered, confused and muddled. So when Imogen’s cold nose pressed against her cheek, the femme had to shake herself out of the dream world and back into reality, with no time left to ponder over the mysteries and enigmas of her clouded mind. The cold cave floor, the dying flames from the evening’s lingering fire fumbling into mere embers, and the few herbs left drying, not yet moved to the greenhouse, brought her to the present a little faster – for there were no reflections to stare upon, no brilliant shades and tones to haunt her, just the poignant possession of Orangemoon nearing its fiery rise. A sigh fluttered through her nares, a hushed breath coiled between heart and lungs, chest and shoulders, then she seemed ready, eager, to greet the day and all the promises it instilled.
 
Her eyes lingered over Imogen, clustered at her coiled forelegs, and the ivory kitsune’s gaze seemed almost apologetic, sorry to have disturbed her bonded. But Lena held no rancor, no bitterness, nothing but love and devotion, so the little vixen sharpened into her steadfast self, and chirped. Someone here.
 
The nymph’s stare lifted, glancing out of the cave, to the great beyond of growing ice and changing leaves, wondering, wondering, wondering who basked in the midst of the Basin’s wide-open valleys that would require her – for Imogen didn’t seem alarmed, didn’t seem perplexed, didn’t seem to hint at an injured ally. Paying homage to curiosity, the Mender eased upward, stretching, appreciating the wind filtering and flickering along the aperture of her cavern, then sidled forth, following the white plume of Imogen’s dancing tails.
 
But as they grew closer, the scent, the presence, grew clearer and precise. Her gaze settled on the familiar figure of Ashamin – cloaked and surrounded by his deer spirits, and the endless unknown. She stopped for a few moments, taking him in, puzzling over the complexities of the moment, of the here and now, of the past, how he’d left, how no one ever said goodbye in her life – how they simply departed, withdrawing from her without a second thought. He’d done the same as so many, and she gave him no ill will for it, she was easily forgotten, no more than a slip of assuaging tones and regal smiles, but at least she’d heard of his conquests, of his scholars, of what he did beyond retreating into the unknown. Ashamin was more than shadow and mist; he was still tangible, still real, still in front of her. She’d take the ghosts as they came, just as she’d always done: with a smile, with a sweet, nourishing wish, with virtue and honor. So as she came towards him, there was only a grin written across her gentle, forgiving face, remembering and reminding the world that she loved no matter how much the realm didn’t love her in return. “Ashamin! How are you?” She called over the wind, beautiful and serene, a wisp, a curl, a coil, of honey and sienna as she finally reached his stature, bowing to his essence. “I must congratulate you on the gathering of your Unbound.” The fairy winked thereafter, as if she always expected him to be successful, to be something, great and grand, and then formulated her inquiry carefully, suddenly sad she ever had to give voice to it at all. “What brings you to the Basin?”

Fault lines tremble underneath my glass house
But I put it out of my mind long enough to call it courage
To live without a lifeline