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LILLIANA
Has someone tried to steal your heart yet? Elena had teased her one summer night in Hyaline. Lilli had laughed and tugged at the fine cornsilk of her cousin's mane, a playful rebuttal to the question she asked. It was an old game between them, a foolish banter that they had done during their days in Murmuring Rivers and Culloden and Paraiso.
One that when it resumed beneath the shadow of Hyalean mountains, the pair was happy to wrap themselves in the familiarity of.
(It was also far easier to be with her cousin than to dwell beneath the Taigan canopy where the presence of a pair of olive-green eyes lingered in the back of her mind; it had been far easier to go to Hyaline and slip into the warm embrace of Elena instead.)
As the years had gone on, she had wondered about that question. In the beginning, it seemed ludicrous that hearts could be stolen. Lilliana had grown up loving her family. They had always been apart of her and the thought that someone could just.. take that love away seemed impossible. It wasn't until Nashua and Yanhua had been born that she (thought) finally understood.
Her love for her children had been swift and quick and the easiest surrender of her life; if there was ever theft of her heart, it had been them. Glancing down at her grandchildren, it happens again. Lilliana yields to the surge of love already wanting to pull her closer to them but their grandmother stands still, allowing the foals to make their own choices in how close they wished to come. The chestnut lowers her head in hopes that they might come forward before glancing up to Yanhua and @[Amarine] when her son mentions that they have ideas for Taiga.
They. It takes her a moment to process the word but she blinks and tilts her head, hoping that the young stallion might elaborate more on the 'adjustments' for their home. There is a shadow that flickers across her slender face at the mention of the Mountain (Lilliana still hasn't forgiven it for the last command it gave; part of her has always resented at being told that it has to be this or that). She glances briefly to Ama to see if the bejeweled mare has something to add.
"What kind of flora and fauna?" she asks, peering back up to @[Yanhua] from beneath her curling forelock. "So long as you're not looking to remake Taiga into something it's not," but they all know it's not really how the Northern Forest looks that matters. (The secret they know is how these woods feel.) Lilliana has learned that the Pangeans could come back to raze it, that it could be cursed back into the ocean again and so long as the little family before her remains intact, nothing else matters. They could dismantle Nerine boulder by boulder, uproot Taiga tree by tree so long as the family before her had somewhere to go, could stay together. "So long as your both careful," she murmurs at the end, revealing her worry where it concerns Magic.
She looks down at Reynard and Cheri again, her expression softening to the twins and their antics. Lilliana wants a Taiga that stands for something, that is strong enough to still be here when they are grown and have children of their own.
"I'm afraid my adjustments aren't quite so grand," Lilliana finally says with a rueful smile to the pair. "As soon as Reave is old enough to make the journey, I plan on venturing to Tephra to formalize an alliance there. I'd like to extend something more formal to Ischia as well," she thinks out loud. "My grand plan was a hope to broach some kind of agreement with Islandres." If the West could provide a united front with the North, then perhaps Leilan's kingdom might enjoy the continued peace.
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind