It isn't the South she is worried about. It isn't the rest of Beqanna she is worried about at this moment. It is the North. Looking at Leilan, that is what she is thinking about.
(She knows its foolish to not worry about the other kingdoms and the Dragon King is right. Taiga had supported his ascension because their world is full of them; those Dragon-born and mountain-made. Castile had been the King of Loess for years. Lilliana knows little about the man or his politics but she thinks that part of that peace came from the power he wielded. It was why when Ghaul had started spreading his zealous message of fires and pyres, Lilliana had thought of Leilan and his ice.)
"There is a standing friendship with Ischia and Taiga," she says, as tactfully as she can despite the aggravation she feels. "It was started with Eva and though there is nothing official, their dame Aquaria indicated that nothing had changed last we spoke." Her thoughts start to come clearer, calmer as the buckskin Matriach comes closer and the red mare is thankful for that, "and we have friends in Tephra." Lilliana thinks of Warlight and Warden. Another bond that isn't official but she looks from one side to peer at Lethia and then the dappled one, waiting to see if they had anything else to add.
Irritation furrows her brow when she glances back up at the Dragon King. He's right, of course. He had been given a crown precisely for the point he's made.
@[Leilan] asks the other Taigan what her new powers allow and Lilliana has to fight the waves of suspicion that crash through her. She understands the why of why Lethy had done it; just some part of the red mare can't quite bring herself to wholely trust that the Magic that the Mountain bestows. Beqanna had torn itself apart on that Magic before and now pooled into once place... Lilli lets herself shiver now and it runs down her spine as the chestnut woman shakes for a moment. The potency of that kind of Magic is not something she wants to imagine so she doesn't.
Lilliana becomes quiet and leans into the not-Neverwhere beside her, trying not to let the sparks leave her tongue. She stands there watching the conversation between the two Dragons, about powers and gifts. Taiga will not be known for antagonizing and she silently thinks that they will not be known for being silent, either.
"We are missing the point if that is the question we are asking," Lilliana finally says. Leilan was a figurehead (and also like Lethia and Neverwhere, a friend). What she imagines for the North is not different from the conversations she has shared with the buckskin about their Council in Taiga. "What are our expectations for this Council? What do the residents of the North need from us?" The second question is perhaps the most obvious, "Magic and gifts are well and good in this world." They certainly don't hurt, she thinks as she looks back to Leilan, "but they only go so far."
As it does now, because there is only so much that the image of Neverwhere and the calming presence of Lethia can do. He's antagonizing her, she assumes. Lilliana, who prefers to keep her so life private, has absolutely no desire to discuss it here. Even if it is amongst those she considers her friends.
Her deep blue eyes darken, like stormclouds building on the horizon. "I would presume you know how Nashua is, Your Majesty. Yanhua is still keeping watch in Taiga." Her face turns to stone then, cool and impassive, making it clear that Lilliana refuses to say anything more on the topic.
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?