Their world was constantly shifting, changes poised and aloft, unwinding, unraveling toils and tribulations, glories and absolutions, divine courtiers and rustic hazes. Snarled, snagged strings, a treacherous, sinuous, snaking story quipped with lies and poised with threats: ghosts claimed the frozen halls, wandered the runes of archaic denizens, floated in spectral chords until they’d wrapped minds and bodies into a formidable, confusing abyss, fogging their eyes and clouding their senses. In the siege of torment and befuddlement, they altered, tangible threads seeking the light, the air, the hand that fed them, the charisma that enshrouded them into their webs of loss and life. Designs twisted, forms contorted, raptures were forgotten and reveries absconded, fighting for unknown beliefs and creeds, for loyalty and protection, for salvation and security. They chiseled away at the intangible, tore against delusion and grandeur, fought for the strength, the dominion of a world they’d cherished, loved, then lost. When they rose from the chambers of wicked oubliettes, there were some absent, some seized, and some that dwindled into their next primrose path, silent and dedicated to another scheme of life. The masks had been torn away, sacrifices had been made, and in that hallowed, hollow sector, an empty clamor began to simmer, thrive, dissonant, inharmonious, missing from the essence of auroras and exultation. For all their terror, for all their hardships, for all their strife, they’d earned porcelain and grandeur. They’d surrendered pieces of themselves, humanity, morality, virtue, benediction, to offer, to bestow this newfound sanctuary of ice and glimmer, of vivid hues and shelter. And all along, as Lena had ripped fragments of herself from her soul, she knew there were more shards missing amongst the rubble and ruin. From perseverance she’d drawn might, from strength she’d stroked diligence, from patience she’d found redemption, deliverance, reclamation from the arduous pursuits of bloodshed and brutality. But why, when she crossed parlors of glaciers, when she wandered the halls of Siberia, when she traversed plains of chilling reverence, could she not find the container of the element?
She was late to the Mirror. Unaware of any mishap, any strange occurrence, she passed by caverns and rocky bombardments, and only the curious display of creatures roaming amongst the dedicated vault led her to believe anything was amiss, altered. Though some of her ebullience had left her, stolen by the weary ways of war, earth and sky, inquiry and interest had not – she laid a gentle crescendo of movement, dancing over iced puddle, skimming over pebbled ramparts. Clusters of bodies blocked most of her visual access, and she was small, overlooked, not worth the value of a coveted seat. Her gentle eyes instead scanned the walls, the shimmer of glass, the familiar and foreign tunes of her brethren. A flurry of questions and queries marked the echoing chambers, bouncing off of the darkened assembly, confusion amidst and amongst a labyrinthine quandary that had no beginning and no end. She’d almost given up hope of receiving any answers (what if none were to be had?) when an image flickered across time. An alteration of reality, stitched by reflections and sewn by simulation, discarnate, abstract, enchantments floating across the Stygian space. Features known, regarded far and wide, seized, pulled, torn from spectral, unearthly fancies, colliding into earth, into stone, into chaos, mayhem, and finally, unclear, harmonious fantasy. The image tugged at her soul, recalled sovereignty, comfort, guidance, from the vast tomes and ruins of their mystifying songs, their tremulous whispers, their quavering, quivering convictions. A murmur was stolen from her throat before she could cease its upheaval, tender, diffident, uncertain. “Mauja?”
Nymph and sylph, fay and fairy, drove herself by dark forms, pulled her sienna frame towards the distinct, the familiar, spotted monarch. Beside Larkspur, she halted her movement, stared, breathed quiet, hushed hymns of astonishment and revelation, of distortion and splendor. Was this all another illusion? Was this a trick, a ruse? Was this deceit, specious, horrendous, calamity woven by a despicable mirror, a ploy to destroy? Were they to take him again, before their very eyes, to ruin, to damn, to wreck what had been salvaged? Or was it the hastening of their King, coming to cherish them again, resurrected from the ashes of his vanished, dissolved, dispersed form? Perhaps she was foolish, perhaps she was naïve, perhaps she was a poor, mistaken youth guided too often by heart and mind, but she conquered the taint of doubt bursting through her chest, and stepped toward the glacial ruler. One motion, hesitant, the next, soft, dulcet, sliding across floor and portal to reach the barbs of absolution, breath mingling in silken vapors, honeyed eyes watching as his did the same – alive, well, nurtured by a world they couldn’t touch, couldn’t taste, couldn’t feel. Her muzzle reached out toward him first, drawn along his long mane, the tangled, noosed tassels, coasting, ghosting over his shoulder, accepting the manifest of his existence, the solidity of his presence: real, not an artifice, not a statue, not a sculpture to damn them all, but the actuality of their lost ruler. Then she stepped away, back into the throng, allowing a deep breath to shudder through her frame, brush into the tirades of air, mist and fog, to crackle against mirror, controlled and composed when all she wanted to do was dance. Instead, she hastened her gaze to meet his, hummed the vibrant tenacity of her ardor, of her fervor, of her delight and captivation, harkened her largest, most ebullient grin. “Have you come back to us?” A steady rush of song entered her heart and enlightened her senses, crooned and murmured from her lips, a passing assuage of calm, of dreams, of a wish suddenly granted.
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