Nine maidens roam the great realms as one; their paces' aims are far and wide,      
to race every last slow turn of tor and stand in the rush of every of tide. 
But return, steadfast, all midnights struck under the lit watch of Orion’s moon 
and, as the sun crests in oft ashen skies, when sacred peals call out each noon,
to spin steps amid old friends-brothers ever mourning past time of blood and bone,
fore the ring of 16 hearts caught restless one moment, were cast for all the rest as stone.
Early divined the hex cannot be undone, the ennead intone still their spells in song;
their moot gift of hope, compassion’s lie, as without it, eternity can feel too long.

Desolate air stands in stead of another, a rogue wayward ere banished to lonely exile
after his kiss, turned down with grace by elusive lips turned up in gentle smile,
unleashed a rage, til as she slipped away, did he, a dart more deadly than his aim.
Missed its mark, fell lame to grass; left him a seen snake teeming venom without fang.
As his shame stained 32 finer led feet too, for its shadow shaped by their ancestral tree, 
his sole branch, yet lush in life, was hewed clean so theirs could again breathe free.
Then dropped to man wistful wood, one dripped in dewy cascades of emerald green;
yet while he could liken its beauty to a land of faeries to help unforge a golden ring, 
his only blanket, a layer of guilt, a quilt ever colder than lingering nights were warm;
it bladed the brittle bite of each gust of wind and deepened the dank damp of every storm.
So he dwelled in dreams of old hearths of home blazing in flickers of wisping memory,
lost to finding belonging in brotherly banter echoing ever fainter in denial's reverie. 

Vines crawled to share the chatter in solemn whispers held silent to his passing ears
of the fate after befell his bettered clan, frozen to time, unable to cry their granite tears. 
Unsown oats bound by igneous roots so sunk became both tombstone and shallow grave,
as trapped lives all but unlived in this linked cost unsighted to the price wittingly paid.
For though they rued the rot grew wild in dark, not damning the hand as tipped ungloved,
on the first 7th day past his paring, yet grieved his loathed villain overtook a kin still loved.
And afar the deafening roar of absence, rang music all minds too so to not go unnoted,
but as it yet stirred legs idly in time, in time sworn sole to idol devotion solemnly doted,
old gods false scorned scorched their ground; in a beat, wrath welded poor souls in place;
turned each being near as if, by mischance, their own locked a gorgon's mythical gaze.

The damsels' ancient magic grew pure from love, and pure love is their strongest to share,
yet unable to break the curse of invisible infinite vanities, all-seeing in over-clouded air, 
their loyalty bronze, aged unstained, as they recall, tender, the loyalty ever clear shown,
and it matters naught, in this, they were then, and now are, well able to defend their own. 
So cross each day, one arch to see new towns of heirs to thrones and one to see them home
to dub their grey knights, but a short throw of being together, and for it, feel more alone,
in a moor else shared only by blissful ponies grazing, unaware of who wait ever there.
Then the maidens dance as the lads did once in error to honor theirs to chart stars unfair
and jinx fortunes ill of any trespassers to dare try unsettle what peace they may still hold,
yet will the world will turn in wake to elegize a legend one, just, has true and full told.