you were a shot in the dark
and aimed right at my throat
Forgive Lilliana; she had a youth full of shining stories where the heroes always came at the eleventh hour and they shone as justly as their coats were golden. It is, perhaps, one reason that she had been such a blindly-optimistic youth. But the legends of her girlhood aren't all happy tales. She knows that the endings - when they did come - weren't as some should have been (but then, when are they?)
An uncle, alone on patrol, led devils away from the grotto that housed his pregnant mate and young son; he paid for their safety with his life. Another (yes, another) uncle bartered with a Magician for the safety of his only child - a certain palomino filly with a heart-shaped marking on her brow - and never lived long enough to see that bargain fulfilled. Her bloodline is littered with these stories. For a lineage that had always boasted its affinity with air - the wild winds, the angry squalls, the gusty gales - perhaps their naivete should be legendary as well.
Some of the stories were happier. Valerio came home with a fractured heart but his chest healed, leaving only a scar to tell them everything they needed to know about the war in Windskeep. Marcelo grew up to be as tall and strong and noble as his fallen sire. He had been given a gift (perhaps by their Gods?) to peer into the years to come and he used it to lead his family towards happier times. And though Benjamin never saw Elena bloom into adulthood, his daughter became a healer familiar with battlefields and their injuries (because soldiers are mothers and fathers, too; because there might be a child, like her, waiting on them to return).
So forgive Lilliana for her stories, for the way that she sometimes views this world. Hers has always been stitched together with threads of redemption.
This one, though, feels as if it is unraveling at the seams.
She says nothing, at first. The rain has soaked her through and the smell of woodsmoke clings to her, most likely all of them by now. Her blue eyes glance towards the taut form of Yanhua who stands before @[Leilan]. And then she looks above his well-sloped shoulder to the bay roan who seems to have received her message. An exchange between the pair where words weren't necessary.
Until, "Why?" she finally interjects, stepping forward. "Why would you do it again in a heartbeat?"
i realized that this post has maybe 4 sentences with actual movement