[open] all you have is your fire; any

[lilliana]

Lass, if ah'd known this would happen ah'd have done somethin' about ye' already.

The words roll in those perfectly tipped ears, the brogue ringing as clearly in them as they had the night he had whispered them to her. His voice sounds like a song and it lifts something in her, manages to make that heart of hers rise and rise and -

She knows he touched her. His touch is still warm against her cheek. But when those blue eyes wake, when her mind clears from the fog of memory and sleep, it is only the empty woods that surround her. The warmth of his touch that she had been so sure of had only been the placement of leg outstretching, brushing against the fine bone of her cheek as his muzzle must have surely done on that night. The velvet cloak of night wraps around her, creeping in closer and closer. The wood is silent in its winter slumber and Lilli lifts her head, trying to discern the shape of tree and brush in the shadows. An ear twitches though she hears nothing, nothing except the whisper of him still echoing in her mind.

She loses herself there for a while, remembering and longing and wishing for all the familiar things she has ever known.

How much time has passed when she stands, she doesn’t know. But the chestnut girl finds her footing and rises, accepting that sleep won’t be coming easily to her this night. A single sigh comes from Lilli as she sends the memory away and she lets the crisp breath of winter brush against her crimson coat, lets it awaken her senses as the chill passes over. The voice in her head fades, the warmth on her leg is carried away by the night air and Lilli stands utterly alone, hollow-eyed and dull with the ache of missing those she loves.

She wonders if it gets easier. She wonders if there will ever come a time when she no longer wishes for Elaina, that she could tell her thoughts and her secrets. Lilli has been accumulating all these stories of the places she has been and the faces she has encountered with every intention of sharing them with her golden cousin. But the thought often comes that she doesn’t know if she will ever see her again. It hits her again and again like a wave crashing on a rocky shore, taking a little piece of Lilli’s heart with it each time it pulls away.

The loneliness sets in as it always does, reminding Lilli that she has left a family and a history and part of her heart in a land beyond the mountains. The hours pass, long and empty, as she fills with the ache of wishing for something to soothe the pain, a balm to ease heartache and her own uncertainties. But the night only answers with its usual serenity, a blanket of stars that beam down on the winter landscape below in their silent revelry.  The night does what it always does – the darkness gives way to hues of violet and purple, of midnight and blue. The shapes become clearer and that engulfing darkness becomes something entirely.

Lilli admires the night sky and stands in silent reverence for the stars, the same ones that her dream-weaver friend has said hear everything, know everything. The same stars light the way here as they did in any place she has attempted to call home, they shine where parents are, where Elaina is. And the thought is comforting, something that the crimson girl can cling too. The ache is still there, it knots in her stomach and weighs down her heart. But the stars send a silent message, a reminder and Lilli hears it. A look of determination crosses those refined features and harden those blue eyes, chasing away the emptiness that has so often haunted them in the early morning hours.

Her head looks away from the silver sentinels. Movement from further away, shapes in the midnight blue that give way from the cluster of trees. She is too far away to hear noise but the unfamiliar scent of horse and Beqanna fill her nostrils, causing them to flare with the attempt of who (or what) they are and where they come from. She can’t tell anything about them from this distance other than there a few of them. The scents that cling to them mean nothing to the chestnut. She comes forward, leaving behind the memories and as each step takes her forward, she can see the antlers off the first figure. He is proud and natural, as much as part of this landscape as the trees that surround them. And then she sees the mares, his perhaps? Her blues eyes go from the cream to the sunset, appreciation for both reflecting in them. Part of her thinks she shouldn’t be here, that perhaps she has interrupted something.

But the night lays in wait for Lilli. It waits to remind her of everything that is wrong and  overturned. She isn’t ready to go back just yet. She waits and then a small smile attempts to break, “Perhaps you could use some more company then?”