Sometimes she felt lost. She wandered down paths strewn with convictions, promises and assurances, and despite her unwavering might, her sterling tenacity and intense dedication, the world seemed to forgo her tender nuances, her sweet sonnets, her warm warbles. They were forgotten, brushed over, florets watered for one day then ignored for eternity, desperately clinging to that sparkle, that chance, at air, at sun, at life. Strangers smiled in return, but never placed the winsome caress within their hearts, or nestled the compassion in their chest, watching as it diminished into nothingness. Her concerns were easily washed away by the passing rain or the altering tides, the sweep of listless air, the hush of a heady brow, becoming naught more the neglected repose and tranquility. She wavered over ice and rime, she battled demons for the chance at order, and she pieced together portraits of serenity so that the creatures of this earth didn’t always have to look tirelessly upon sin, day after day, night after night. She invoked arduous passions only to have them composed into silence, she ignited and kindled soothing songs only for their warbles to die in the roll of the wind or the piercing of the sky. She weaved tapestries and canvases of gold, of satin, of sugared, honeyed thoughts and sentiments sprinkled over the horizon until she thought them perfect tidings of happiness, and subsequently altered by the heady rations of her compulsive wishes. She composed symphonies of joy, of ecstasy, of freedom and whimsy, only to have them destroyed by the clash of war drums or the beats of clamoring swords and shields. She gave her life to a land of ice and solemnness, a world of ice and enigmas, and wondered if one day she’d be another mislaid, wayfaring soul overlooked and astray on the glaciers, frozen into rubble and ruin. Would she be bled dry, until each radiant portion of her glow had been consumed and devoured by the contorted vapors of unholy disregard? Would she eventually be a carcass, a vessel, of misgivings, of dread, instead of hope, guidance and deliverance? Would she be robbed of rapture, of reverie, of elation and delight, discarded to the granules of sand, earth and clay? Even when she refused to dim, to wither, to decay, there were still the strangled seconds where she thought herself a stranger in the midst, in the abyss, of chaos, destruction and vehemence. And in the end, she remained perfectly useless to the stars, the heavens, and the sovereignty she pledged her soul to, adrift in the grand scheme of turmoil, turbulence and tension.

She was lost again when their dance slowed, followed by the calm, sullen trickling of silence. Like an overcast evening, a fond farewell of bliss, driven away by incorporeal, stagnant melancholy, the joy slipped into unease. He frowned, he flattened, his soul bitten by a scar she couldn’t see, and for a moment she thought herself to blame. Had her fanciful movements, her glee, her delight, been rendered something else entirely? Had her motions soured, rancorous, bitter or acerbic to his movements and motions, another disheveled, discordant haze that she’d punctured? Had she ruined this juncture, like so many others? Had she missed something altogether, the fragment of a star-crossed waltz, the ruptured, unraveled torrent of tension? Had she pierced his inner battle, his silent war, by the uttering of a name, a chord of querying for his? Had she bestowed something that he didn’t wish, didn’t like, didn’t cherish as she did? For a moment, she thought to escape into the wilderness, to falter as she had as a child, to run into protective glades, flee into the boughs of shade and oblivion, become washed once more in the bed of moss and leaves, rejected, abandoned, desolate and forlorn all over again. She was stronger now, wiser, bolder, braver, but the notion remained the same – desertion was a cruel, harsh and unforgiving weight. The nymph made no disguise of her confusion, a countenance once containing bliss had been moved into uncertainty, a brow arching, a smile dwindling, stitched together only by the mighty veil of a mare grown from her moments of solitude, of disregard, of strength and valor. Fey and fairy bewitched by befuddlement, sways, twirls and whirls slipping into a sedate, passionless flicker, the quiver of a limb, the staggering of a stride. She stilled altogether when he strung together his name in a series of forced decibels, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, a game she was unwilling to play. Kiro. Lena watched as the stag seemed enamored with the sky, the torrent of stars and the moon, and wondered if her error could be patched up from the segments of galaxies and constellations. Was he staring at their brilliance, at their magnificence, pondering over how she’d managed to demean the luminescence of the evening? Her eyes cast downward, stared upon the ground, and then upon the kitsune that brushed against her legs. Were she not worried for her blunder and delusion, she would have laughed and smiled at the ivory kit that sauntered, chirped and cajoled, dearly wishing to bring her bonded one happiness. The sylph did not wear a frown well, and after glancing at her companion, molded it back into a simple grin, one that conveyed all the inquiries of her error, and all the essences of her ethereal hold. Lena lifted her head to the wind, to the evening, to the nocturnal delicacy of the strange situation, answered his question with a warm gesture to the fox. “Imogen.” A pause, a tilt of the regal cranium, and the fragileness of a query softened the corners of her mouth, until they became a series of worried fragments, a wandering of her wretched soul and how to provide comfort when she’d seemingly rendered it vanished. Would a song ease the discomfort, or increase the twinge, the pang, with the trill of her soul? “Does something ail you?” Are you just as lost as I? Because I’d like to find a path someday.