The unsung hymns of her treachery, of her exposed pieces, lit up the skies, the sinew, and the pulsing vibrancy of her glowing resplendence as she embraced the serrated edge of her sword like a lover. A primal, wild caress, a vicious, hedonistic stroke, the nymph was a torn soul split along the masses of machinations, calculations and howling, raptorial crusades. Maddeningly, primitive, ruthless, an awakened demon in the dimness, walking the pathways of sinner and seraph, the perfidy of her once innocent actions were lost as she slashed, tore, clawed and consumed. Sinister lineage infused with the tangible threads of indomitable efforts, sumptuous, gliding keens and wails of silent strength, a challenging opus crossing over the horizon of her unearthly, ethereal crusades and fixations. Atavistic, she slipped from the rim of her virtues, of her morality, felt the long lost tenor of all the locked corridors she’d kept hidden and covert suddenly revealed in the cold raptures, in the decadent harshness, in the hot, grinding menace of her emphatic valor. Was this bravery? Was this honor? Was this courage and conviction seeping from her veins, from her haunting, hunting gestures, prey turned predator, rapacious and wanton, or was it the heedless, rancorous persecution of another? Was this justice, or was it vengeance? Was it annihilation or protection? Was this reaction to a threat against her kingdom and country, or the longing, the yearning, the deep, clandestine desires for the strangling, smothering, smoldering ardor of battle again? If someone breathed in her ear of her fairness, of her boldness, of her audacity and her righteous clamor, would it make the stretching moments of lacerating skin, burrowing vehemence, and rasping malevolence warranted, vindicated? If lungs crooned the flicker of her dark, pressing iniquities, of her monstrous transgressions and immoralities deep into the hopeful beats of her heart, would she wither again, writhing and grasping for the lingering remnants of her compassion, her fortitude, and her composure? What if the blood staining her rapier couldn’t be washed away?

The rumble of discord hastened her mind to the wily, cunning maneuvering, the callous reality of barbarians wrestling and tangling in the midst of the toxic indulgences, faltering, falling, traipsing over escaping endeavors. The instant her horn struck true, deep, resonating, bleak and extensive, draining life from its humming vitality, hazards and perils thrummed in the pervading texture of chilling, glacial air, turning all the whimsies, all the fancies, all the capricious delights and bliss from her body into formulated schemes and foils, ruses and strategies. Lena remembered the unrelenting sting etched across her haunch, still felt it dragged and scratched into the essence of her once amber, honeyed, gilded form, and had no need for it again, but then Imogen launched into her assailment, and something choked inside of her, stilled her motions into dulled, mute contortions. Pride, for the overwhelming sense of love, adoration and benediction the kitsune uttered and ensued, never hesitating, never faltering, never stumbling into her vicious assault. Shame, for bending her companion into a state of viciousness, carried over the wind and blood, chirps and trills forgotten in the grating, strident calls for barbarity. Fear, for as the fox careened into flesh and ripped, lifeforce, shocking plumes of potency lingered over the once beautiful pelt of immaculate ivory and blue. Disgrace and terror, when the sharp, piercing cry careened from Imogen’s maw and her small body twitched from the punctures of pain.

Suddenly, she was a frenzy of movement. Not elegant, not refined, not picturesque or dainty, graceful or eloquent; something else altogether, wild, untamed and feral, stretching across the loam, launching over pools of crimson, a tangled, unkempt blur spread across the icy floor. Lena lowered her cranium for one moment, completely, utterly silent, opened her muzzle to snare Imogen’s pelt into her ivories, and became naught more than a restless spirit, a beautiful, aching ghost careening across the plain, to safety, to security, to sanctuary. Her mouth stung from the bits of monster’s ichor trapped across her tongue, and her heart hurt from the vicious assailments and sieges she’d waged upon it and her friend. Her eyes were cutting cords of ambrosia, stinging, blinking back tears, and only when she glimpsed upon Arah’s fallen frame, bleak on the rime banks, was she completely shocked into normalcy. It only took her a few moments, but in those precious, gliding seconds, the fellow mare, the wonderful, furtive Impersonator, had managed to obtain mobility, standing amongst the careening bulrushes of anger, of poison, of grandeur in the heathen hills.

She couldn’t fall apart in the stead of Arah’s reach, she couldn’t unwind her treachery across the stony walls, and she couldn’t allow herself to falter anymore. In such a flutter of emotions, in such a flux of transient parts and portions she never let anyone witness, she pressed her decaying soul in front of the pale femme, dropped Imogen’s flailing form at her feet. Perhaps some vital piece of her caressed the bounty of her core strength, sensed the rawness, the passing junctures of cruelty, flickering over her quintessence, and offered the briefest of gifts – motioning over her veins was the insubstantial presence of her enchantments, coiling, tepid, muted, enough for one harmony to stroke her vocals. A bitter invocation, meant for a solo bout of mellifluous dreams, reverie and repose over the brewing satanic opus. Her words became floating gasps, short, shallow, damaged punctures of poetry, where melody was dragged from the ribbed portions of lips not burned, not kindled and incensed from the thickened hymns of savagery. Prayers and proclamations, meant for companions, of fox distinction and masked mares. Her gaze bore deeply into Arah’s, tried to find the connection of the unseen auroras, the glacial expanse, the unwinding danger they’d crossed and nearly triumphed – just a bit more (and she couldn’t help but wonder, as she sang her notes and stanzas, if her song was the worst kind, hymns and virtues stoked by vanquishing and triumph? Was this adversity or revenge now?).

“Demons hidden,
Come undone.
Bury your heart a little longer,
Thrive again.”

The golden sheen of her layered request beat over the two souls, and while minute, while small and segmented, broken immediately after, they had to offer some sort of assuaging, some sense of comfort. She was relieved when her stare came to her the dancing Imogen at her feet, seemingly restless, eager to go again, no matter the aches and pains still thriving in perilous thievery along her pelt. The songbird nearly wept again, but caught herself, allowed the slimmest smiles over her seared lips to Arah, to kitsune, and only when the harsh fall of the monster erupted over the valley did she twist her eyes away from the scene, afraid she’d expose something else over the layers and mysteries of the world without them in her sight. There was no time to ask Arah if she was well, if she had been mended from her upheavals. Instead, the sylph peered at the strange sight, of a behemoth fallen into the shambles of ice and snow, and almost allowed the ounce of success to travel over her body, over her pelt, wash away the agony and blood, but another peculiar image followed thereafter, choked her efforts. Monsters renewed, brought back to life by their mother’s sacrifice, raptors clicking and clacking, humming their heinous doldrums, their vicious chords, intending to destroy what their dam could not. Perhaps, in another moment of sacrifice, she bowed her head to the wind and caught the last, flailing tendrils of wickedness floating within her grasp. She moved her form in front of Arah, bestowed protection and annihilation in one swift gesture, lionhearted, courageous, and ominous again. A baleful warning ensued from the stern, composed stature of her taut frame, the last request she’d make of her kitsune. “Imogen, I need your fire.” The fox, though young, though wounded, was arduous, delighted to free her smoke and embers from the painful container her body currently possessed, and no matter how fragile they were, she’d pass the flames towards the newfound monsters. She parted her mouth and reached deep into her innards, summoned the glowing opulence, the wondrous grandeur, of eternal inferno, allowed it to flow across her lips, to dance across the tips of her waving tails, combustion and conflagration traveling with sinister intent towards the swarm of newfound beasts.

[After Lena and Imogen attack the monster, Imogen is sprayed with the shocking lifeforce. Lena picks her up by her mouth, and though it burns, takes her companion towards Arah. She offers them a brief healing song, and afterwards, asks Imogen to deliver flames towards the raptors.]