It shouldn't be so surprising that of all places in Beqanna to call home, Lilliana has chosen Taiga (perhaps Taiga chose her, who knows).
It might not be a realm full of wildflowers or fierce warrior women. It might not be the Dale, the setting for so many of the stories she had been told as a filly. It might not be the rolling foothills of Loess or Ischia with its heavenly beaches and even lovelier nereids. Even though Hyaline has a tender spot (for several reasons) in her beating heart, it is Taiga that is held firmly within her chest. Time has nurtured a loyalty in the auburn mare and Lilliana intends to repay this forest in every way she possibly can.
It had been a girl who had stumbled across Kagerus lying in the river; it is a woman who wanders through the mists now. The curves have fulfilled the promise of the lovely creature she would become and the light in her eyes burns a little brighter, more determined to drive out the shadows that a flame creates. The girl who had found Kagerus hadn't known her place yet, hadn't yet discovered her bearings on a world that remained shrouded in mystery. The woman who walks through the fog of Taiga knows exactly where she is in this place, knows exactly the ground she walks on and knows this is precisely where she belongs.
It shouldn't be surprising that Lilliana, who cradles a dreamers' heart beneath her ribs and who sees the world with wishing eyes, calls the Taiga her home. In this fog, it blurs the lines of the outside world. It softens all of those angry, jagged edges that life would otherwise drag along all of their hearts. (Bleeding hearts can be eased and comforted inside this forest. Serrated edges will find no purchase in this territory, at least that is what she dreams). The world doesn't need to be so hard in Taiga, so complicated.
Ah, but those are certainly lofty aspirations and Lilliana knows that. She only needs to look inwardly to know how convoluted life can become.
So it's much easier if she doesn't look inward. Instead, she focuses all her energy on the outward, on the physical because Taiga is a tangible thing and that counts for everything in a world that can shift so quickly - where kingdoms crumble and allegiances shatter and life changes too fast for a soul to really recover. (It is entirely too easy to drown when the waters of change go from a trickle to a torrent.)
Lilliana likes to wonder in the fog. She likes to imagine the iridescence of Smidgen's wings as they hit sunlight; the silver light that pools of Tyr's star as he shares a secret. In this in-between place, Lilli likes to go between the trees and tries to find the places where sunbeams intertwine with the mist. There is magic in the places they meet, she has always thought. Light and unknown coming together to make their own dawn, creating possibilities where there had only been uncharted and undiscovered shadows before.
It's fitting that this is where the dreamweaver and the crimson woman discover each other again.
It is a call, a familiar one that she has heard in the illusions and softness of her dreams, that parts through the fog. Lilliana stops her imagining and turns her attention towards the direction that the cry had pierced from. "Kagerus?" comes a hopeful answer, dancing through the clouds and the pines. Her crimson ears prick ahead and Lilli continues forward, propels herself through the swirling mists towards the overo mare. When a bay shape illuminates through the fog, her features brighten with recognition and a pleasing sensation presses against the shadows of her soul, floods it with light: relief.
The Kagerus she had encountered had been sick, troubled. This version who stands here is healthy, is whole and Lilliana feels happiness as it brushes and pulses against her tender heart. She has found Solace then; they are two halves of the same circle again. Despite the pale light, Lilli beams against it. The crimson woman smiles whole-heartedly. "Kagerus," she breathes. "I've missed you," the Taigan admits. "And your dreams." Her elation crinkles at the corner of her blue eyes, curves the tenderness of her heavenward smile as it lifts towards those dreams that the dreamweaver creates. "You are well? And Solace?"
@[Kagerus]
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind