She came on the trills of the early morning, when the frost leapt to her throat and curled against her chest, when the wind swirled along her wild tendrils and made her relentless, when the mountains howled in vast emptiness. She thrived on the peaks and valleys of a gilded age, with a lustrous song quivering past her lips and a determined vow on her tongue, springing from one sonnet to the next, lingering within time and space for only brief, cordial snippets, before sliding to one more desolate thicket. The maiden reached into the elements and traced their gifts with infinite dreams and barbed reality, calling to them in thriving hallelujahs, painting them in bright, laminating fixtures and racing to the edges; granting peace and serenity as the world returned to cold repose. Were she capable of taking flight, she would’ve soared past the empty canopies and the burdened fir, layered and lacquered with snow, obliging liberation and deliverance through the warbling dance and waltz of her melodies. Instead, she lingered and sketched over the granules of earth, a piece of its fixture, like a sienna sparrow, like a honeyed nightingale, caught in the tethers of yesteryear’s ferocity, promising virtue when others couldn’t find its appeal. She stayed in the midst of Frostfall’s glory for a stead, reaching past paths laden with stones and rubble, singing because she could, because she wanted to, because boldness savored and polished her bones, because her heart stirred, because restlessness tied its strings to her knots and cast her out into the wide world again. Then Lena chased, and Imogen pursued, and the whole realm seemed bright, seemed brilliant, seemed capable of a great, many things if they put their souls into dreams again, if they fought for sanctity instead of watching it wither and die, if they forged their names into tranquility and might.
 
They entered the locked ward of the Threshold as they’d done so many times before, with extended limbs and whimsical smiles, mellifluous tunes enamoring, enticing, finding, searching for those who’d wandered. They bounded as flames, as brambles, as thorns, as fairies – regarded for their passion, for their regality, for the strength and guidance nestled in their imaginary wings. Only when the ivory kitsune lifted her nose to the air, sifting through the unfamiliar scents, and followed an unknown trail, did the Songbird track too, laughing, silly and merry, buoyed and ebullient on the tides of what could be – unaware of mirrors and reflections, of times long since past, of seasons recycled, of renewal and benedictions paying fees for their reverie. Imogen ceased movement, and Lena saw the stranger then, marked in a dark sable cloak, in golden spires, drenched in bold hues against the stark white, against the arts and tapestries of desolation. “Hello!” She called out, too far away to do anything else but offer her greetings, stepping lightly over brush and twigs, picking her away closer and closer, not despairing at Imogen’s silence, at the uncanny tilt of her head, at the beckoning, suspicious gaze of a fox and her wiles. Her eyes remained locked on the ground, attention too diverted by the terrain to pay the stag much heed – she only noted his bulk, his mass, his stature when she drew several feet away. He could’ve been intimidating, menacing, and formidable through sheer existence, but Lena’s careful study, quick perusal, granted her a chance to bestow her guidance and support as he reached out for snow. “I’m Lena! Would you like me to show you where there’s some-" She paused, gasped, stare finally locking onto his gaze – and the color carved its way down into her memories, stoked and incensed, fired and flamed, because she knew those eyes, their depths, their benevolence, and then, their bewitching, haunting silence (it couldn’t be, she said to herself, despite the bitterest of hopes clawing their way through her chest). Something in her heart quivered, and the femme, who had always tried to carry on despite pain, despite torment, despite the leagues of trials and tribulations she’d faced, felt her vocals quake again. “-water?”

I know you she wanted to say, she wanted to dream, she wanted to hope – because his frame was a stranger’s but his eyes were all his own. Despite the layers of strength and fortitude, the chambers of determination laced and courted inside her soul, she couldn’t stop shaking. Her body was like a leaf on the wind, threatening to fall apart, to crumble into dust, to fly away on the next breeze, catching the snare of her name across his tongue. It was familiar, poignant, and haunting, a wraith toying with her sentiments, a ghost playing with her desires; her resilience felt brittle and worn in the company of phantoms. She almost looked away, wondering if her gaze locked onto bits and pieces of snow, of the forest, that her torment would be forgotten, disappear, a specter chased away by mettle and grit – but she found herself incapable of doing that as well, reaching ever so slightly forward when he drew into silence again, when veils and shrouds, masks and semblances fell away. The Songbird gasped once more as sable blended into crimson, as gold furnished beneath Stygian sinew, as all she remembered, all she cherished, all she loved fell back into place. She stared, stared, and stared, hushed, painting him in every fixture of her beneficence, in the riches of her kindness, the glorious memories and the heartbreaking beats of loneliness, still wondering if he was real, if he was corporeal, or if he was going to vanish under her glances, be united with the stars and her miseries. Somewhere in the moment she’d forgotten to breathe, and her lungs ached, her heart throbbed, her pulse quickened, until the cold air settled back into her chest and she stepped toward him again, shattering the stillness. Her voice finally found its way to her lips, to her tongue, quiet, afraid to speak too loudly for fear the illusion would die, would fade, on the smallest snippet of her joy. “Roland,” she murmured, whispered, on a hallelujah, on a reverential prayer resounding with mist and bliss, with virtue, with devotion. It was a serenade for mirages and yesteryears, seasons past, futures unspoken, neglected, forgotten because she’d been left again. The fairy openly stared into his blue gaze, unsure of where to go or how to proceed, before her heart, her mind, her body, her essence, took over.
 
She drew herself to him, as she had many times before, maw tentatively reaching for his broad shoulder, his brawny chest, with one swift, soft touch, like a dove’s wing, like a sigh, all dulcet and finery. The Mender waited for him to disappear beneath her brush, but when he remained whole, tangible, real, she rushed in, a fool, a silly, inept sparrow, lifting her head over his long nape and pressing her frame close to his, a tight, interlocking embrace. Only then did she feel the first flutter of tears trace down her cheeks, throat interrupting with tiny hiccups and sobs, pressing her lips into his vibrant, red portions of mane, shuddering despite their close contact. “I’m so angry with you,” she breathed into his skin without the aforementioned wrath – not a snippet of contempt woven from her soul, not a hint of acrimony sizzling from her touch. She wanted to be, for all those days trapped inside reflections and agony, for all those seasons searching endlessly for a beast who didn’t want to be found, for trying to understand, for attempting to contemplate, where she’d gone wrong and why she was never enough for anyone, for anything. She yearned to be boiling with enmity and rancor, to contort and recoil with such avid bitterness that he’d turn tail and run, that he’d cow before her, bend and break just as she had – but there was nothing left inside her but relief, consolation, comfort and solace, as if he were a sanctuary, a temple, a haven. The world had taught her boldness in his absence, however, had turned her inside out, had made her crave, had made her desire, had made her audacious, because no one else would fight for her, no one else would ever answer to her inquiries if she couldn’t give them voice, if she left them withering away in her essence, forgotten and deluded. The Songbird wished to know why she’d been consigned to oblivion, why she’d been discarded, why and how she’d managed to chase him away too, why she’d always be a ruin, a piece of benevolence so often neglected; but she’d have those answers soon enough (she was sure, she was certain – she deserved some annals of truth, even if they lacerated her heart and watched her break apart again). Instead, she turned her muzzle into his shoulder again, traced down the contours of his strength, eyed the lines of his ribs, and coiled another strain, another hymn, another aria, into the winter morning. “Where have you been?”

Fairy cascades and whimsical dreams couldn’t right their wrongs, but she softened into a dulcet hum, a soft, vibrant hymn, when the world gave her the slightest bit of serenity. She was surrounded by gold and flames, coppers and reds, tassels and tendrils mixed in with embers and ichor, and when they didn’t disappear beneath her, beside her, around her, her breath eased and her sobs relented. The fae listened to the songs of morning, of the quiet, tranquil breeze barely rustling a few snow-laden branches, to the beat of Roland’s heart, then, to the apologies cast, molded from stone and earth. I’m sorry, he said, and she was too – for all the ways in which they’d broken apart and been severed, for all the ways she hadn’t been able to do anything but wonder, beg, and plead for a salvation, for a benediction, never intended to reach her. He tucked her further into his frame, and she sketched a place for herself there, alongside his essence and his strength, driven back into a haven she’d known for so long, but hadn’t felt, hadn’t seen, hadn’t done anything but chase in so many cycles. A part of her wanted to forgive him instantly – had likely already done so between heartbeats and stares, between familiar eyes and besotted clamors – because she’d always been the ties of compassion, the cherishing architecture of grace and poise, dignified, noble, refined despite the bestial realms’ efforts. Her tongue yearned to say It’s okay and It’s all right, a twinge of I’m fine, cover up all the nuances, the secrets, the lies she so fervently kept close and locked away – it would’ve been easy, simplistic, agreeable, and amiable. The Songbird had done it many times in her youth, set up pretenses and smiles, grins and charity, so the only one that hurt, the only one that cracked, the only one that parceled themselves away was her. She’d grown beneath a staunch mountain and determined fortitude, remembered how to fabricate and falsify so no one saw the weak, inept, stumbling fool beneath her honeyed wiles and her mellifluous songs. But now it seemed silly and stupid, foolish and ridiculous, when she’d done naught to commit the unsaid wrongs layered and lacquered amidst them, when she’d been the one to suffer, the one to cry and abolish, the one left behind. Simply because it always happened didn’t make it right.
 
But the seraph didn’t crackle with anger, with fury, with contempt or abhorrence. Lena was a gentle storm, a shard of might not completely shattered against the rocks, emboldened by virtue and valor, by reverence and promises. She listened as he explained, shielded and shrouded in his embrace, of opportunities with enchantments and invocations, of the searing chance to do away with history and honor his chosen abilities – forgoing, forgetting, her in the process of annihilation and old demons. Something raw bit against her mind (a haunting, poignant cry she’d heard many times before, knowing she didn’t deserve his attention, his kindness, his deliverance and absolution for all her selfish endeavors, and the way he’d turned away from her told her the bitter truth of such sentiments); tore through the peace and repose rippling through her soul. She felt pierced amidst the silence, harpooned then tossed to sea, even as he pressed against her – somehow inadequate, incapable. It was the residual feeling murmuring along her core no matter how often she tried to defy it, no matter how Atlas had tried to reason with her that she was more, so much more, and it pounded, lacerated, sliced within her sentiments until a portion of it seared across her mouth, maneuvered along her lips, and whispered upon his skin. “The entire time I was trapped in that mirror, I only thought of you.” She’d tried to escape, to burn away the glass, to chisel her anger, her rage, her wrath, into infernos and finality, so she could make it back to him, so she could ensure his safety. She’d never accepted defeat – there’d been too much at stake to crumple to her knees, to cry out in anguish, believing he was in danger, believing she’d been thwarted so he could’ve been duped, tricked, and consumed. “When the beast came to finally set me free, it said you’d left.” And the crooked little thing been right, honest despite its Cheshire grin and torturous game – he’d vanished, without a trace, without a word, without a sound, gone off to another battle in a world she’d never know, and somehow she’d surmised she’d deserved it, for being less, for being pathetic, for being worthless.
 
Her voice gained in strength, in clarity, above a whisper, below a yell, stuck along the middle in a restless tangle of harmony and distinction, because he needed to understand, to comprehend, and she desired, pined, coveted for a sense of boldness, for a wild, tenacious audacity to spring from her soul and inform the world that she was more than a discarded, compassionate healer. If she said it, perhaps she’d believe it too. “I searched for you for several seasons,” she spoke, a calm, kind, composed strain and tune above all the hurt and melancholy stifling her senses. She breathed him in again, tangible and real, holding herself together by strings and taffeta, by lace and bird sonnets. “And all I could think, all I could believe, was that you didn’t want me near anymore.” The fairy blinked away a fresh layer of tears sliding down her cheeks, stifled the hiccups closing over her throat, fought against the burst of misery clinging to her form, burrowing, burying herself deeper in his presence, trying to encircle her figure in a hold she may never feel again. “But I still hoped – and now that you’re here, I don’t know what to do.”

The unknown bridged across their heavy, strung silence, and she dreaded every piece of it, every stitch, every thread. It was heady and cumbersome, wicked and clawing, and it stung and labored each breath until she was sure her heart would break apart, and they’d be strangers again, lost to the midst and mist of time and perils. Veils had been lifted and shrouds had been cast aside; no cloaks, no daggers, no armor resting along her chest, no pretenses folded across his features. She waited for a semblance of the truth, for honesty to finally ripple along their chains and leave her with the abrupt, calamitous honesty she’d always known, always realized, but hadn’t heard from his lips (you’re worthless someone once told her, over and over again, and as hard as she’d strived to conquer those fiendish whispers, they still tore and snared). The Songbird shuddered as he pulled away, suddenly feeling bereft, alone, cold, the same speck of dust, of sand, of snow, tossed away on the unfurling breeze – and she was almost too afraid to look him in the eye, to glance his way and find him agreeing with her prior sentiments. She should’ve expected it, being left again, because somehow, someway, she pushed them all into the shadows, into the darkness, into the abyss; where she couldn’t follow, where she couldn’t chase. Her kindness was too demanding, her compassion too overbearing, her heart too overflowing to ever accept the possibility that no one cared for her until it was too late, and they were already gone. It lacerated again, embracing the cold, chilling breeze instead of the radiant, copper glow of his tenderness, of his warmth, of his generosity (but she’d damaged that too, on their journeys, sliding precariously into so many blemishes and fault lines it was a wonder she hadn’t been swallowed by the earth yet). The femme nearly curled away, and would’ve tucked herself into a coiled, withered frame had her own perilous thoughts not distracted and deterred her from fleeing the inevitable. What had she ever done for him? Danced? Laughed? Forged smiles and grins? Wrote sonnets? Spoke about the sun and dragged him into further perils? Followed him when he said he’d wander – despaired when he’d committed those exact actions? Traced and sketched and tried to find him when he didn’t want to be found? Her actions, compiled together in an assemblage of youthful whims and rapturous days, seemed almost meaningless, inept, and ridiculous (no matter how much she enjoyed them). He’d likely humored her, smiled at her antics because she’d been so pitiful, so pathetic, so ineffectual at everything but amusement and denseness, too blind to see the inevitable, too stupid to see what she’d always be, too foolish to ever overcome her faults and flaws. While Imogen blanched and hissed at the reverberating lies, at the collision of all the myths Lena told herself, he finally spoke.
 
The words coursed through her mind at a steady beat: confident and assured, even as his eyes were set with tears and his stare bored into hers. There were no falsehoods labored within the enigmatic rise of blue and misery, anguish and declarations, and she didn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend, the rise and fall of his notions. She opened her mouth, parted her lips once or twice, but failed to make a sound, honeyed, amber gaze merely locked on him and him alone, struggling to dissemble her previous reflections, to know on which line they waltzed. So the seraph said nothing at first, and simply stepped toward him again, taking long inhales, then exhales, matching regality and rapture, reverence and virtue, as she reached for the drops sliding down his cheeks, as her maw softly landed on one and gently brushed it aside. The Mender tread very carefully, soothed and assuaged the tender, raw pieces of their broken, rancorous hours, hummed beneath the quivers in her throat and the benedictions pervading her lungs; she’d forgive him over and over again just to hear such phrases once more.
 
A catharsis, a beginning, a glimmer, of something new, a trembling, fledgling course of the furtive was suddenly lifted – specious fortifications that hadn’t been so deep, that hadn’t been so rough. It wasn’t all cut and dry, it wasn’t all healed, it wasn’t all laced together in a pretty package and delivered with a bow, but it was an understanding, a notion, between two blemished souls. She didn’t intend to make him suffer any longer; her own words had mustered enough blows. Lena was done looking back on a thousand heartaches, done combing over guilty tales. He’d served his penance, and she was not a siren damning him to purgatory.
 
“I don’t deserve anything,” she finally uttered in a strong, stalwart, valorous melody, weaving it along his ears so he couldn’t question its clarity, its might, its strength – tilting her head so he could see the depths of her smile appearing, so she could watch his reaction as more of her hidden convictions, as more of her boldness, of her audacity (because something inside her was bursting, begging, beckoning to be set free) blossomed through the frosted dawn. “I have loved you for a long time,” the Songbird paused, stirring another tune, silken, airy, ethereal, before she could stop herself again, before she could retreat back to the same unrelenting sorrow and melancholy she’d built up around her – she’d throw herself over the ramparts he dared to scale. If he didn’t catch her, it was her own fault that she’d fallen, her own bones to mend, her own soul to heal over once more. “You were my deliverance, my salvation, and I was so lost without you.” She grinned beneath his touch, as he caressed her cheek, as he strived to meld back into what they’d once shared, and she fell into a sort of impish gleam, into a mess of fey instincts. “If you think you can escape me again, you underestimate my abilities.”

A sense of elation blossomed through her chest, beat just as tender, just as bold, just as dulcet as the soft tremors of her heart – light, airy, ethereal, melded, molded, and laced together with birdsong and stretches of rapture. Caught in a reverie she didn’t want to escape, her eyes glanced upwards at the threads of copper, at the crimson, golden waves of skin and sinew, polished like daylight, like a sanctuary, like a gilded heaven she dared to embrace. Portions of it must’ve been a dream, she thought, snared and woven with hallelujahs and sonnets, fashioned by her mind after a spell of endless evenings spent with nothing and no one; but she placed her lips against his shoulder and felt his corporeal form again, absolute and real. So instead of bending into the funnels of darkness, instead of whispering into the grains of tainted, tangled, remorseless annals, she smiled, radiant and light, petals facing the sun. Her essence, her entity, was a jubilant press of whimsy and dedication, a peace, a prose, forged in the bloom of compassion and devotion, springing up in golden dawns and hallowed pinnacles – she breathed and dove into a song, just barely brushing over her tongue, bounding and igniting, enlightening and beguiling, a hum, a hymn, a promise immersed between fronds and fir. Beneficence and joy lit up the foundation of her movements, slight and few, the miniscule caresses, the laughter, the fanciful flutters, the smile dipping into her cheeks and refusing to falter while he spoke. The fairy, the nymph, the seraph, didn’t allow a strike of disbelief to shudder against her spine or ripple through her mind – she embraced and rejoiced, she giggled and grinned, she lifted her head to swiftly glance up at the sky, then him, as if he’d always been the source of her bliss. She felt utterly divine, virtuous and free, liberated and delivered, a resonant piece of harmony and composure, warmth and eloquence, heartstrings painted and sketched by blue eyes and mellifluous convictions. She didn’t need to pretend to be happy, to be content, because the feeling stuck to her mind and reverberated in a graceful, ardent trill; no pretenses required when she couldn’t cease the tranquility, didn’t want the captivating, luring cadence to end (and where had those wondrous occasions been all her life?). Gone were those fragile moments tied up in knots, gone were those instances wrapped around her in chains, in thorns, in brambles, as he proffered things no one had ever said, uttered, or declared to her.
 
Lena was utterly invincible at the composition of his oeuvre – untouchable, only defined by the radiance of her elation. No fears pressed into her brow. No thoughts haunted her soul. No soulless ghouls relished in her anguish. She was alight and spirited, a piece, a portion, of the heavens left to shine beneath the wide-open sky; serenity and luminescence, valor and magnificence, honor, glory, vitality and tenderness. She was strength, endurance, and dedication, might and ardor under the affection of his gaze, snared from her warrens and mazes, directed into gleaming, glowing, resplendence. Loved, she was loved. She barely heard Imogen’s scoff along their connection, a careful, beautiful reminder that she’d always been; but too blinded by her own insecurities to see where gazes laid and hearts stirred, benevolence shifting into more than just bare convictions and glowing affability. The concept was foreign but wonderful, and she laughed once more to avoid crying (through euphoria, not sadness – she didn’t know if she could feel that rancorous edge of melancholy again), pressing her frame closer and closer into his until she was sure they were just intertwined hues of earth and repose. The fey wanted to dance, wanted to waltz, wanted to pour her presence into song and light, dazzling arias, but swallowed all of it for the comfort of his embrace, for the pull of reverie. “Come home with me?” She uttered instead, tilting her head so she could see the corner of his gaze, interpret what he craved, what he yearned, from the lining of the snow drifts and glacial expanse; heading back into eternal winter, where she thrived despite its desolation, its vicious past.