The darkness continued, a constant assailment of cloaked daggers, clandestine travels, secretive and surreptitious decadence, shaped and maligned into sable mantles, Stygian swords and inky, wan, starless odysseys. It stuck to the boughs of glades, to the vast horizon, to empires rising from their dominating supremacy. She stared into the void and it stayed stagnant in response, a listless, unlit haze branching into haunted corridors, hallowed halls, anointed, christened quests and pursuits that seemed meaningless in the boundaries of the world. No answers to the riddles, no replies or retorts to the labyrinthine courtyard. An endless, eternal ghost drifting along the chords of glacial sea, writhing specters, withering paragons and aimless, meandering foes – and the nymph refused to leave more souls thrust into its savage berth, into its hedonistic fury, into its ferocious, undying storm. Sylph and fox roamed across the vast catacombs of immortal, enduring twilight, drenched it in hopes, dreams, lavished spectacles of grandeur and cordiality. Where the hollowed vessels blew their bestial savagery, their cross, vexed winds and relentless rancor, Lena and Imogen spun ambrosia, compassion, beneficence, fed the thirsty trenches with beloved sentiments, carved the kingdoms with their melodious song. A hum, a whisper, a croon, a hymn, an aria, blessed and sacred, sanctified and ordained, to drown out the noise, the screams, the yells, of the stretching, overlapping, deluge of nocturnal menace. Deep into the Threshold, listening to the laments, the dirges, the requiems of lost spirits, the companions moved in harmonious conjecture, filtered over the raw, untamable, wild ballads and wove birdsong through the winter’s cold, unfeeling grasp, undulating beauty, grace and elegance through the muster, the luster, of malice.

There, amongst the nefarious shadows and the rapier gloom, she caught a scent, felt it ensnare her senses, driving her onward into the languid nocturne. Imogen followed, blended into ice and rime, cherished the footpath her comrade created, and they melded and molded into one aspiring unit, bright beacons of radiant warmth, guidance for those lost and discarded. Her honeyed gaze pinpointed upon the stranger soon thereafter, a massive stag mottled in blue. The blended darkness didn’t allow her too much study, but as she grew closer she noted the telltale horn consecrated across his brow, the, perhaps, kind eyes, the rigid way the world encompassed his form. She slowed, drew across the flaked plain, the icy ridges, bowed and tucked her head against her chest. Mellifluous words brewed along her throat, trickled into the midnight air with a flourish of vapor and tenderness. “Welcome to Helovia.” She paused as Imogen danced along the snowdrifts, petalsoft and dulcet, and she accompanied the silly, fanciful creatures movements with more song, with more affection and devotion. Her head tipped, curious in nature, eyes focused in cordial, amiable splendor. “I’m Lena of the Aurora Basin. Who are you, traveler?” Then her mind set into its spiraling affects, its warm calculations and thoughts – from where had they wandered, what did they want from life, what caused them to flee, and what made them choose the world of Helovia, now only veiled in gloaming, dusk and iniquity. Did he need to be saved?