- it's in the eyes, i can tell you will always be danger -
we had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?
LILLIANA
Warlight’s smile fades and so does Lilliana’s laughter when the painted woman mentions that name. Carnage. The only thing that ripples between is the lulling sound of the water at their sides. She won’t ask what drove the splashed mare to seek him out but Lilliana interprets it as something dire.
It’s an experience that Lilliana knows - and she shares the revelation with her companion - that maybe these experiences aren’t so unique. Something that should, perhaps, make her sad or distressed that another soul knew ledges as she did. That sometimes the only option is to leap, with or without faith. It gives her a feeling of rapport with this mare.
At Warlight’s question, she merely shakes her head once. A reply to both questions.
To the first, she could only give a common answer: a man. To the second, she adds: "No you don’t.” It’s a firm murmur as she comes closer to @[Warlight]. So many things have changed about Lilliana over the years. She’s lost and given and taken and it makes her all the more determined that this stays the same about her. "You owe me nothing at all.” She says, gentler this time as her slender neck slips over the other woman.
"My power isn’t as strong as it used to be,” she explains into the waiting ears of Warlight. "My last pregnancy sapped most of it.” Speaking of Aela always hurts. Her heart always tightens in her chest and lodges in her throat instead. "So if this takes some time, I’m sorry.” The glowing comes back - around her socks, on the tattered flame on her shoulder - and Lilliana harnesses her light, creating a tether to wrap around herself and the Tephran.
Lilliana can feel her memories stirring and grimaces, the light around them momentarily fading. "You might see something of me,” the chestnut mare states quietly, almost hesitant, "and I might see something of you.” She thinks of Brazen and the pieces of her past that she has put together over the years. That for every time she tried to heal a crack or tear on her stoneskin, a glimmer of what was sometimes showed itself.
Think of happiness, she tells herself. It’ll make her gift stronger. It’ll make the light shine brighter. So Lilli thinks of Nash and Yan as young colts bounding through Taiga with their laughter not far behind them. She thinks of resting her head on Neverwhere and the nights that Brazen kept her company. She thinks of putting flowers in Elena’s cornsilk mane and the fits of giggles they’d fall into afterward, knowing how ridiculous they both looked.
She tries to think of happy things but there has to be balance. Light always casts a shadow.
And so the fear she felt when the alienesque horses of Pangea made their nightly patrols comes back, clicking into place much like the unknown language they spoke. She remembers being afraid when Celina’s sharp teeth ran down her shoulder, extinguishing her flame with blood. She remembers her world spinning out of control the moment that Aela ran away, a wisp of a golden girl racing down a wild shoreline with a demon behind her.
Her work isn’t done and so Lilliana clenches her jaw, trying to sort through her memories.
"I’m sorry,” she murmurs at some point, half-lost in the haze of her healing magic. "Think of happiness.”
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind