you were a shot in the dark
and aimed right at my throat
Lilliana has made far too many leaps in her life to suggest anyone else do the same. The last time she had been with her cousin, Elena, she had finally urged caution. No more cliff-dancing, as she had called it. The chestnut mare seldom takes them these days. Her leaps of faith are now limited to ones that can be contained. If she falls (fails) now, she runs the risk of a scraped knee from patrolling in Taiga instead of falling from heights that she can't catch herself from.
The girl dances forward and it summons the small smile on Lilli's face to grow as she approaches. She is all unpracticed delight and it is a beautiful, shining thing to Lilliana. Innocence like this rarely lasts long in Beqanna, she thinks.
"I come from Taiga," she explains and then turns her head towards the direction that she had come from. "From the North," she corrects herself, remembering that Taiga is the same now as the Isle or Nerine. "It's a large forest," she adds, "but there are cliffs if you venture towards the ocean and if you enjoy water, there is an Isle that you could visit." It's a journey, her silence says. (Lilliana has made it once and that once has, so far, been enough for her. The sleek-coated mare has never enjoyed the feeling of icy ocean wrapping around her.)
Her ears prick as she waits for a reply and Lilliana shifts her weight from one hip to another, trying to alleviate the pain that always seems settle in her joints with each pregnancy. The filly, in all her youthful enthusiam, splashes forward with her excitement and it even drenches Lilliana. While it doesn't make her laugh, something sparks behind her blues eyes and she takes a step forward where the girl had stepped back. She apologizes (and some part of her despairs at that), "You have nothing to be sorry for." Lilliana says gently.
Lifting her head, she asks with a returning smile, "How about offering your name instead? I am Lilliana."