Elaina’s warmth is the closest she has felt to feeling at peace since she has arrived in Beqanna. With night obscuring the view of Hyaline and her cliffs, Lilli’s body reacts the way as it has always done. Love fills her and unable to keep it in, it pushes the lips of the daydreamer upward as she affectionately presses her shoulder into Elaina once more. The feel of her cousin’s skin next to her own, so familiar and beloved is a balm when all Lilliana has felt recently are the tugs of an ever-changing tide, a current that seems to rip her one way and then another.
Elaina serves as anchor, steadying her before she is able to caught in it again. How much clearer her head and her thoughts come here, something she knows that comes from her stalwart cousin.
If you only knew Elaina, how much she longs to be like you. How much she admires you, adores you for your spirit and your fire. How much she loves you for being her home, for being the place where her doubts and insecurities can melt away like ice meeting the spring sunshine. You have saved her more than once, have been with her when the torrents and the storms have raged and she loves you even more for being the calm after it all has passed.
When Elaina tries to tell her that she would have been fine without her, that she has made it without her, Lilli shakes her head. She refuses those words because, until this night, she has been drowning, swimming in emotions that she can’t even begin to navigate. ”But you found me,” comes her defiant reply, Elaina’s presence in Beqanna proof enough that the universe knows they had needed each other. That no matter what happens, who comes in and out of the revolving door of their lives, this bond between them is something that will see them through until the end of their days.
And then she presses her head into the arch of her neck again, ”And I will always be eternally grateful to you for that.”
The words are soft and reverent in the night, full of that gratitude that Lilli has just spoken of. When she pulls away and the cousin’s find their locking gaze again, it is Lilliana’s turn to ache for her cousin. Gently, tenderly, her nose reaches out to give Elaina a touch of reassurance. ”They would be so proud of you,” she says this with a conviction she knows to be absolutely true. She never knew Benjamin or Beylani but she had heard of their devotion to each other, to their daughter and had heard what a tragedy it had been when those two bright stars in the Legacy clan had dimmed.
She has never known them other than what Elaina has shared and Lilli believes beyond belief that they would have been so proud of their daughter. How could they not be? As a filly, she had traveled half the world by herself to escape war and Frostbane and as an adult, she knows herself well enough to know that she won’t waste her time traveling down the wrong paths. ”Your happiness would have been the most important thing to them. They wouldn’t have wanted anything less for you..,” and if her happiness means a political career instead of the tedium that Aerwir offered, instead of the shackles that he had tried to bind her with, Lilli has no doubts that they would be beaming with pride over their golden daughter, wherever they were.
Lilli only wishes she could give this certainty to the mare she considers her sister.
When the conversation comes to her father, that earlier certainty that Lilliana felt vanishes. Elaina tries to give her own wisdom on kings and rulings but the truth is, the girls have no way to make sense of the gilded stallion. Lilliana has tried to understand some his decisions and she finds her mother’s defenses rising up in her mind whenever an accusation tries to form. But at the end of it all, he is her father and she still loves him. She knows that he loved her, her siblings, their mother and that extended to Elaina, to Brynn and her children and so many others. Her cousin confirms the thought but it still casts a shadow. It hurts more knowing that she was loved and still left behind.
She can hear the plea in Elaina’s voice at her next words and it takes Lilli away from her own thoughts. Love is fickle. Duty is reliable. Both can make lonely bedfellows. Lilliana decides then that she will stay until the dawn and she will come as often as she can. She can’t bear the thought of Elaina being lonely and if she is honest with herself, a warm body would make her own sleep come so much easier. The thought amuses her and the young mare chuckles, shaking her gently. Perhaps she shouldn’t find the humor in this moment but the only other option is to find only the bleak, depressing loneliness that seems to plague them both. ”Oh, Elaina.” She whispers, her voice still light with the laughter. ”Did you ever think that of all the plans we made, this is where we would be?”
The plans had been silly, girlish ideas. For Lilli, it had been dreams of knights and valiant deeds done for the sake of love. It had meant being surrounded by her brothers and sisters, having the privilege to grow old with them and have the luxury of watching the next generation of her family blossom. As adolescents, there had been so many plans and dreams and ideas. And the universe, with its eternal sense of irony, has delivered them here. (Not the future that Lilliana had ever pictured but then, that had all gone hazy when Broch never returned from the Summit.)
That thought always threatens to send her down the precipice of guilt and remorse, of the things she might have done differently but Elaina is here. That particular chasm will wait for another night.
Her smile quirks and had it been lighter, her cousin might have seen the sadness that dwells there. Lilli misses her dreams too. It’s been so long since she can remember what those dreams had been. But for Elaina, she will summon one. She arches her neck and turns to look sidelong at her cousin, ”I had one the other day. It was a place where it was always sunset and the sky is always painted in blues and pinks and purples. You could wait all day for the colors to fade but they never do. If anything, they become brighter.”
For Elaina, she can create a world just for them. A world where it is just the two of them and that is enough.
For the two of them, she won't stop dreaming.
Elaina serves as anchor, steadying her before she is able to caught in it again. How much clearer her head and her thoughts come here, something she knows that comes from her stalwart cousin.
If you only knew Elaina, how much she longs to be like you. How much she admires you, adores you for your spirit and your fire. How much she loves you for being her home, for being the place where her doubts and insecurities can melt away like ice meeting the spring sunshine. You have saved her more than once, have been with her when the torrents and the storms have raged and she loves you even more for being the calm after it all has passed.
When Elaina tries to tell her that she would have been fine without her, that she has made it without her, Lilli shakes her head. She refuses those words because, until this night, she has been drowning, swimming in emotions that she can’t even begin to navigate. ”But you found me,” comes her defiant reply, Elaina’s presence in Beqanna proof enough that the universe knows they had needed each other. That no matter what happens, who comes in and out of the revolving door of their lives, this bond between them is something that will see them through until the end of their days.
And then she presses her head into the arch of her neck again, ”And I will always be eternally grateful to you for that.”
The words are soft and reverent in the night, full of that gratitude that Lilli has just spoken of. When she pulls away and the cousin’s find their locking gaze again, it is Lilliana’s turn to ache for her cousin. Gently, tenderly, her nose reaches out to give Elaina a touch of reassurance. ”They would be so proud of you,” she says this with a conviction she knows to be absolutely true. She never knew Benjamin or Beylani but she had heard of their devotion to each other, to their daughter and had heard what a tragedy it had been when those two bright stars in the Legacy clan had dimmed.
She has never known them other than what Elaina has shared and Lilli believes beyond belief that they would have been so proud of their daughter. How could they not be? As a filly, she had traveled half the world by herself to escape war and Frostbane and as an adult, she knows herself well enough to know that she won’t waste her time traveling down the wrong paths. ”Your happiness would have been the most important thing to them. They wouldn’t have wanted anything less for you..,” and if her happiness means a political career instead of the tedium that Aerwir offered, instead of the shackles that he had tried to bind her with, Lilli has no doubts that they would be beaming with pride over their golden daughter, wherever they were.
Lilli only wishes she could give this certainty to the mare she considers her sister.
When the conversation comes to her father, that earlier certainty that Lilliana felt vanishes. Elaina tries to give her own wisdom on kings and rulings but the truth is, the girls have no way to make sense of the gilded stallion. Lilliana has tried to understand some his decisions and she finds her mother’s defenses rising up in her mind whenever an accusation tries to form. But at the end of it all, he is her father and she still loves him. She knows that he loved her, her siblings, their mother and that extended to Elaina, to Brynn and her children and so many others. Her cousin confirms the thought but it still casts a shadow. It hurts more knowing that she was loved and still left behind.
She can hear the plea in Elaina’s voice at her next words and it takes Lilli away from her own thoughts. Love is fickle. Duty is reliable. Both can make lonely bedfellows. Lilliana decides then that she will stay until the dawn and she will come as often as she can. She can’t bear the thought of Elaina being lonely and if she is honest with herself, a warm body would make her own sleep come so much easier. The thought amuses her and the young mare chuckles, shaking her gently. Perhaps she shouldn’t find the humor in this moment but the only other option is to find only the bleak, depressing loneliness that seems to plague them both. ”Oh, Elaina.” She whispers, her voice still light with the laughter. ”Did you ever think that of all the plans we made, this is where we would be?”
The plans had been silly, girlish ideas. For Lilli, it had been dreams of knights and valiant deeds done for the sake of love. It had meant being surrounded by her brothers and sisters, having the privilege to grow old with them and have the luxury of watching the next generation of her family blossom. As adolescents, there had been so many plans and dreams and ideas. And the universe, with its eternal sense of irony, has delivered them here. (Not the future that Lilliana had ever pictured but then, that had all gone hazy when Broch never returned from the Summit.)
That thought always threatens to send her down the precipice of guilt and remorse, of the things she might have done differently but Elaina is here. That particular chasm will wait for another night.
Her smile quirks and had it been lighter, her cousin might have seen the sadness that dwells there. Lilli misses her dreams too. It’s been so long since she can remember what those dreams had been. But for Elaina, she will summon one. She arches her neck and turns to look sidelong at her cousin, ”I had one the other day. It was a place where it was always sunset and the sky is always painted in blues and pinks and purples. You could wait all day for the colors to fade but they never do. If anything, they become brighter.”
For Elaina, she can create a world just for them. A world where it is just the two of them and that is enough.
For the two of them, she won't stop dreaming.
LILLIANA
i left home on account of snow
(buried all the things i know)
(buried all the things i know)
@[Elaina] <3
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind