Lena poured the nature of her beneficence into the murky gloom, hastening the pervading courtship of whimsical florets, and bright, vibrant hues of resplendent blossoms. She entranced and enchanted the burning, kindled glow with her own incandescent petals; harbored a silent, unsung dance transpiring amongst constant twilight, rugged, indomitable nocturne. Even if each illusory, spectral flower faded into the iron subterfuge, into the ebon decay, she’d still provide the revelations, the twists and turns of follies, majesty, dawn shaded by dusk. The nymph was an extended limb of their laden boughs, imagery invoked by the slender touch of her smile, the whisper of her hymns, the stalwart movements and motions conjured in breathless bliss. She was heart, soul and strength, pure perseverance bottled into grins and laughter, valor borne into amiable stares and tender aspirations, coiling and snaking the finest candor of quality characters, enlightening the surface of their chords until they sang beside her. Her eyes touched upon the midnight corridors, traced the inquisitive tenebrous, the tainted fabric of their hedonistic desires, their plaintive pleas, their strange, otherworldly caresses, and she still didn’t know what to make of their prowess, their puissance, their pernicious schemes and capricious assaults. Stealing the moon, the sun, the stars, the sky, only to indulge the kingdoms within anointed shadows, pressing, smothering, smoldering until beasts reached out for salvation, and nothing answered. She closed her eyes and dreamed of the last, feathery moments she’d felt crescent beams twirl across her frame, or rays of warmth striking a bolero along her pelt – and now all she felt was the surrounding, possessive darkness tearing its way in, dragging, clawing, against her cheeks, simmering upon flesh, skin, sin and virtue. It divulged naught, failed to betray its secrets, or unveil its mysteries, skimming in the nefarious and sinister eaves, leaving her to ponder, wonder, stare at the reflection of the world within the glow of the Basin’s mirror-lake. The world refused to materialize its cryptic, arcane designs, and so when she lifted her lids to peer amongst the corporal depths, there was still only darkness, only dimness, only gloom breathing back the vapor she’d exhaled. No new perspectives, no recent insight, no appeal from the howling, hollow, haunting horizon to bring back their beloved constellations and elements, and she was bereft all over again, stolen in the strange, timeless, vacant haze of labyrinths, warrens and morasses, tangled and fumbling in their knotted grasps. But the nymph resisted, grinned, portending, auguring, and foreshadowing serenity and tranquility in the sequestered follies of their empire quandaries.

The frigid, chilling wind brought her another moment to dwell upon, and instead of the alterations to the wan sovereignty, she caught a familiar scent drifting across the ardent breeze. The unfurling presence of Deodat travailing, guarding, protecting, and the mere, simple notion that he still remained within their world brought her out of the melancholy void, soothed and cajoled the composed, calm quintessence she always tried to encompass, embody, consume in the relish of perilous pinnacles and ravenous hazards. She breathed in his scent, grinned out of relief, and twisted her regal head towards his direction, enamored, beguiled and allured from her mystifying stupor. He represented many revisions to her purposes, her goals, her yearnings and ambitions, and she felt as if she forever owed him the soothing gesture of her repose, her poise and equanimity. The golden, rich smile stretched across her beaming lips as he approached, and she tilted her sienna crown into various directions, actions that were swiftly becoming habits as she perused his body, inspected his frame with amiable, honeyed stares representing the wish of his welfare and shelter, forever opening her arms and enchantments to provide sanctuary in the storm. The scathing, scaling, slithering dimness failed to release any signs of injury (though what could she have done, devoid of hums, trills and stanzas of her songs?), so she released a breath she didn’t notice she’d been holding and drew her gaze to his deep stare, allowed herself to get lost in his rapt attention. Imogen warbled her own greetings, stretching her maw to his lowered jaw, twittering and chirping as he coiled his own queries to Lena, still devoid of notions. Scrutiny perked along the endless horizon, and when naught returned, her eyes ran over to the lake, mouth parting to impart only the solemn truth of her mellifluous curiosity. “Unfortunately, I have no answers.” She almost told him of Myrddin, coasting along the white walls of snow and ice, becoming a ghost, a wraith, a specter, disappearing, vanishing, collected into the oblivion of endless nightfall. She kept it to herself, silent and vague, and attempted to kiss the rimed earth with the harpsichord rapture of her tones again, resolute regard fixated back upon the rugged, strong beast that had given her far more than she could possibly offer in return. “How are you faring in this constant darkness?”