The air is rife with chaos and Magic.
It's a testament to Straia's power that she cuts through it with such ease. It could be alive, the Magician tells her. (And how that hums, how that sings in her veins. She had always been told that had she been born in Paraiso, she would have felt the golden valley flowing through her. That the Falls would have presented answers to questions in times of trouble; that the Magic of her homeland could manifest itself in times of great crisis, in times like these, to protect and defend those within it.)
Straia's mouth curls around a firestarter smile and Lilliana watches her.
She doesn't force herself into Lilliana's mind. She asks and so she is granted permission. Most of the places she is shown are unfamiliar; kingdoms gone and though she holds her breath for a glimpse of the Dale, it doesn't come. There is no mention of the Neutral Mythic kingdom that her ancestors once called home. Its a glimmer of the Deserts (that place she still dreams about, that dying sun and the way that the life left Craft's eyes) that makes her start to pull away. It's a glimpse of (what she assumes) is the Chamber that places the thought of Taiga in her mind, a memory of someone once telling her that the Redwood Forest might be the Chamber reincarnated. That makes her retreat from Straia's Magic, the way that the remembering sears her mind.
Her blue eyes lift to the painted Magician's with an answer.
Lilliana's heart is breaking into a million pieces. It all turns to dust - to ash - in her chest. The place she has called home meets flames and Nerine descends into turmoil as Brennen and his magic ebbs away like a tide. (She looks to Brennen with sorrow in her gaze; she wishes that there is more she could do.) His barricade finally falls and then so goes the former Champion of Nerine.
The chestnut mare doesn't miss that those fighting are some of the youngest residents of the North. A voice rings out when the beach erupts and Lilli can't hide the panic that rises from hers, "Yanhua?" Rocks come flying from all directions, cutting her and the Taigan turns her head sharply away from those gathered looking wildly for her son. Unable to see him, she turns her attention back to Straia: "A better world doesn't come from those who would use their powers for destruction." She spits, growing anxious to catch a glimpse of her child amidst the fray.
Once upon another life, she had been taught that; that there was no greater calling than to serve, to help. And in this one, she seems forever destined for lost causes. She bleeds from a cut on her forehead with no way to stop it. That ability gone with their former Champion.
It tangles her voice and when Beryl approaches the group still left, she cuts the girl off: "Gone."
And then comes Straia's rain to drench them all.
Last post from Lilli. Nothing much happens except she is angry and sad and now getting rained on.