She was a melody – sweet and serene, trying to ward away the ghosts, the wraiths, the shadows falling between caverns and avenues. She thought of love instead of death, she thought of benedictions instead of dishonors, she thought of births instead of funerals, and she dreamed in convictions and resolutions, instead of the unrelenting nightmares of previous seasons. On a serpentine rush, curling and coiling along fallen snow, the seraph and Imogen dashed between melting mounds and greenery struggling to make its way back into the world, stringing musical chimes together. She molded and finessed a careful, quiet, incomplete composition, giving time for birds to answer in unison, so together they measured delicate, infinite possibilities, and the humming seemed to stretch over the valley in beautiful clips, in wondrous phrases, in delightful schemes. It was a minute contentment, the kind that harbored between the doldrums and dirges, transpiring along the midst of more disastrous things that always seemed to come in rippling patterns and effects – for no sooner had her mouth opened to bare one more dulcet tune, allowing it to flicker along the horizon, to cast over pink hues and lullabies, then did Imogen register something alarming in the meadow below.
 
The Songbird was pulled out of her heavenly reverie, eyes peering at the white vixen as her tails swayed back and forth in agitation, as she followed the fox’s line of sight to another’s obvious distress and discomfort. They plunged immediately, racing along patches of ice who’d yet to give way or give in, descending into the patchwork of clover and verdant tapestries, forgoing the usual jubilant pace or elaborate dance. Her comrades, her brethren, her empire had always been bestowed with her protection no matter the hour, no matter the day, no matter the circumstances - you can’t have them she would’ve chanted to death, had she been capable of facing his scythe and veil.
 
Only when they grew closer did the femme recognize the fallen figure. She’d melded and molded assistance towards Albrecht before, while he chided, while he droned, while he calculated the next nasty remark for someone who didn’t deserve it – and despite all those past occasions, she thought naught of it, yielding to a slower pace, to a softer grace, when she grew near the sickly form and his companion (who seemed to suffer in the same stead, losing the precious meal he’d previously hunted). “Albrecht,” she coaxed from her mouth, gentle and comforting, a tender nuance of earthly tones and benedictions, lowering her head and leaning her ear towards his bloated stomach, careful not to touch, not to caress. Lena followed thereafter with a whisper, attempting to identify the cause of his condition before mustering a remedy for it. “What ails you?” She couldn’t see any wounds marred across his figure from the past few days: no open, glaring, menacing lacerations clawed and flayed open, fervent and eager for infection. However, by her mere study and perusal of the shorn plant life (her stare rendered on nearby objects, examining for root causes), of the inability to rid himself of any toxins, she had a suspicion (more than simple gluttony) of where the faults and flaws flickered, where they brazened and hastened his malady. Her brow threatened to arch, and her tongue nearly burned to grant a lecture, but it wasn’t the time or the place; her light, airy fixtures won over the irreverence nestled within, a sigh flowing through her nares while she waited for the truth.

She listened with a kind tilt, with a compassionate ear, with a composed fixture, eyes settling across companion to bonded, fixating her attentions upon the task at hand – internal, stomach consumed by impacted particles. “You’ll be fine,” she murmured (and believed it to be so), a seraph, an angelic warrior tending to her flock, shepherding the first glimmers of melodies and hallelujahs past her lips (when Mortuus arrived, eager to aid and assist, eyes flickering momentarily to the herb proffered, nodding, “Thank you Mortuus,” kindled along her quiet serenade, trying to avoid the break in concentration). It sparked over her tongue thereafter, a careful, quiet hum, familiar and soothing, a beautiful, warm melody coaxed from the dedicated measures of her soul (trying, always trying to assure that none of her brethren were in pain). She parted her lips, closed her eyes, and kneeled next to him, crown and mouth poised over his aching barrel, sang from the corners of her heart and the diligence of her laurels; a nymph, a siren, a fairy, a coaxing, rapturous piece of reverence. The Songbird again, mind ensconced in hymns and rhapsodies, in choruses and orchestras, in vivid compositions, while her enchantments picked apart at the clover his stomach had failed to pass, while they yielded to her diligence, to her possession, to her ardent, passionate zeal for justice and assuaging. Veiled and varnished in gold, in strung harmonies glistening, opulent, tender, fervent notes cast into the air, the invocations seared and simmered, polished and intricately laced the tremors, the pain, the agony away, swindled and stole and pried against, until the lines of ruin and abomination didn’t conquer her horizons, didn’t swindle her sights. When the afflicted moments seemed to pass, her stare, revitalized, lids opening to the outside world and the heavens again, went to the snake too, hoping she’d managed to provide him with some release, some aid, in the cordial slips and turns of refrains and tracks.
 
But she didn’t bark, didn’t lecture, didn’t chide, didn’t scorn – merely remained, resting there, poised and ready to try again if need be. She questioned, gently, a beneficent passage for the suffering beast (no matter how many times he’d sneered and snarled, he didn’t deserve a raw, petulant tone; she wouldn’t become embittered and rancorous, hadn’t even in the darkest of hours and days). “How do you feel now?” Then, with a little glance towards the plant Mortuus had gathered, her gaze swept along the earth, along the clover, sprung from spring’s coaxing measures. “Do you know how this happened, Albrecht?” Because she wanted him to understand, to comprehend, the ways in which they could all be injured and marred (that gluttony wasn’t the answer, that an avaricious beam rarely got anyone anywhere), to try and prevent another moment of agony or affliction.