The sound of another’s approach hastened her away from daydreams and doldrums, scattered her gaze from the falls, half-expecting the ghosts of the past to linger before her sight, a dissolving puddle of ink, a drawing on the ground, a rough sketch of her prior captivity – but only recognition fluttered there, out from the abyss and into the sunlight. It was friendly and amiable, a tether of stars and the horizon, and her heart lifted for the strongest of moments, remembered another laying beside her rose Queen, granting aid and assistance when it’d been needed the most. “Hello!” She gathered and echoed back, a smile peeking over the grandeur of her lips, radiant and effervescent as before, sun-kissed and illuminated by better hours, when lives hadn’t slipped away. Mesec, she stored in her memory, but it seemed familiar too, as if he’d been here for centuries, glowing like the heavens, sent down from the moon and her spiraling galaxies. “How wonderful to finally put a name to a face!” Her voice chimed and echoed, harmonic and melodious, but it was Imogen immediately thereafter, excited and jubilant, that caught chirps and tied them into bowstrings, delighted to see another of her species wandering the great, green earth.
 
“Not at all!” The Songbird spoke, laughing as Imogen spiraled into utter restlessness and silliness, bouncing along the grass, tails whipping feverishly back and forth. “It seems Imogen would love to make her acquaintance,” and with a kind, obliging nod from the Mender, the ivory kitsune hopped forward, bending this way and that to see the young kit, reaching her nose out to touch with the other, encouraging her through chirrups and foxy gestures. Imogen, perhaps because she was the elder in the situation, felt utterly obligated to allow the cub a chance to speak with another like her, and continued with her friendly, outspoken charades, branching into kitsune language with soft twirls and deeper resonations. Hello! was the first, and then Do you want to play? was the second, tails flipping wildly again, embodying her elation. A hope bubbled and buoyed there, for she very rarely got to interact with fellow kitsunes; either there were too few of them, or something else always appeared in the way (war, chaos, mayhem, a mixture of bedlam and desecration). As they spoke together, Lena pressed her curiosity further into the grain, pondering over the nature of Mesec’s companion, for surely he’d had another when she’d seen him last. “Have you had her long?” She inquired, stare glancing along the horizon for signs of his other bonded – impressed over how he’d managed to acquire two. 

Lena the Songbird

tomorrow will be kinder