the flicker of a candle blown

Lena

and sweetest in the gale is heard
and sore must be the storm

She listened while she tended, head bowed, handing him bandages for wounds he would rather mend, while she applied some antiseptic to the outer reaches, fumbling around, back and forth in her supplies, ensuring lacerations, cuts, and burns would be quickly on the soothing, assuaging side. October could likely do far better – but it seemed a necessity to allow him moments here in recovery, before pushing the situation.

Besides, the curiosity kept her there.

Ordinarily, Lena would be the type of individual who kept her eyes to the ground, or to the sky, not bothered or involved in another’s affairs; but this one had her cranium tilting, a soft sigh invoking through. Filth, with the state of the fluid in mind, and her eyes surveyed the remains of bottles, what would have to be picked up at some point too, before it soaked into the adornments of the sacred Temple. She immediately handed Gideon a cloth to wipe up the mess on his hands, and then her eyes spiraled back to her sister’s instinctively, relatively uncertain with the whole ordeal. “Why did you have them then?” came from her mouth, quiet and unassuming, merely striving to understand. What good would come of it?

that could abash the little bird
that kept so many warm