Every day and every night., strained and afflicted, similar souls interlocked and intertwined with pieces and slivers of anguish and torment; his seemingly locked away from her songs, and her own pieced and etched along the corridors of her heart, flowing past the silent void, the singsong arias. To what more did the philosopher ail from, and how could she offer him more comfort, more soothing bells, more assuaging streams of light and heaven, when this had not been enough? But he didn’t seem inclined to ask, to yearn, to twist and desire more, and so she placed the memory into the folds of her sentiments and images, poised it aloft as one more creature layered and lacquered with the remnants of brutality, where the tinsels, the notes, the syllables didn’t reach. The answer to her pressing, daunting query, finally spun from a sage’s mouth, addled and rankled the seraph, until, flummoxed and burdened again, she stared at the sand beneath her silhouette, the burdened waves rustling past the shore. The power to change is within yourself. Scorched and simmering, canvasing the platitude of all the things she held near and dear; the persevering, stalwart enterprises, the enlightened grins, the ebullience waning and waxing along woven threads, laced and plaited, secured and promising, shattering and conflicted splinters and scraps of seasons lost. Was she not enough now? Did she not contain enough power, secured into the vital creed of her chest, of her mind, of her convictions and certitudes? And how, when she could barely muster the oaths, the reasons, the vile bile rushing past her lungs and curling into the chasm of her enigmatic quandaries, could she acquire more? And if her alterations were unending, bending, fraying and wilting over time, what would she change into next? Would she rise from the fountain of adaptions as a beast, cretin and infidel, pursuing the next relentless upheaval, following nocturnal iniquities and haunting entropies? Would she flail, stumble and crawl from a hole, quiver, shake, shudder at every sound, remember the vicious plunge of her sword towards another’s flesh, recoil from the unearthly beat of war? What was she now, and what should she strive for? Hadn’t this been what she feared – becoming utterly, wholly incapable? Molded into silence, and thinking it rude of her to become so hushed, she uttered the gratitude trapped in her mellifluous, fluid voice, raising her eyes to meet his (unsure again, of their familiarity, what passed across them), then ceased. “Thank you. You’ve given me much to think about.” Another hymn and hum of adversity, struck the portals of one who’d already seen it again and again.

Stuck, mired, the nymph almost asked him, nearly pried open the unrelenting bedlam of her persistent questions, seeking wisdom, guidance, answers to all of her chaotic shambles, but thought better of it, closing her jaw and merely staring at the earth again. The sylph was all too aware that she was entering another trial, and would have to entangle, ensnare, trap and attach the remedies to herself, couldn’t selfishly ask another to do it for her. Her eyes fell upon the orb nestled by his feet, innocent, unabashed, unashamed by the world it had not yet entered, already enchanted and allured into the seams of virtue. Imogen paid careful attention to it as well, her blue stare riveted, allured, beguiled, by the smallest of movements and the slightest sound, providing her own curiosity within Lena’s mind, taking away from the portions of arduous soul-searching. Hatch? The femme, incapable of deciphering an adequate riposte, followed the tiniest, minute decibels, the slight, fragmented motions, swindling back and forth, restless and eager. She wondered if he’d sensed it, and merely tried to extend her comforts before glancing upon the active sphere, but she was instantly overcome with curiosity, with excitement, with anticipation, that her vocals couldn’t be ceased by the former pattern of thoughts. “Your orb, sir, I believe its almost ready.” A slight grin returned to her features, a wild bob of her head from his gaze to the brilliant, luminous globe by his hooves; rebirth and renewal in the warm finality of a new life, ardent, fervent.

@[Kirottu]