She had once asked Elaina why everything had to be so complicated.
On one of those lonely Taigan nights when Elaina had still been an aspiring Diplomat in Hyaline, Lilliana had sought her cousin out when she had been full of confusion and frustration. There had been so many things about Beqanna she didn't understand. She had been coming to learn the layout of the land but there was still so much that didn't make sense. The herds were structured differently. The alliances she had grown up knowing - the things she had been taught at her mother's side - were suddenly meaningless here. The politics changed as much as the seasons did and were often just as volatile.
Her mother had warned her that the horses of Beqanna hungered after power and prestige, to have their names known to the ages, in a way that the natives of Beyond did not. Beyond was idle. Beyond was content. Beyond, she has come to learn, was peace because that land slumbered. Their wars were fought beyond their borders. Their villains stalked and lurked and certainly did wreak their havoc... but considered against Beqanna's grand scale? Nothing. There is nothing that Lilliana has ever known to even compare this realm too. It's magic, the gods, the horses are such a host of originality that not even her beloved stories can illuminate any sense of it. She had asked after the Dale; what of it? It was long gone, buried under lifetimes of memories only to be remembered by immortals like Ryatah and to be eventually forgotten by the generations that came after.
The legends of her youth did nothing to capture Beqanna as Lilliana has come to know it.
Everything about her is knotted in complications. She should be alone. She shouldn't be allowed to warm her body next to Brazen or hold as tightly to her as she does. But some things aren't so easily undone - Lilliana had been a child reared on an abundance of affection and warmth and love. She's been starved for it these last few months and for a moment, it feels good to simply hold and be held. She has let herself become so tightly coiled that in the presence of @[Brazen], in their easy companionship, Lilliana simply unravels.
When she pulls away and sees how prettily her friend's eyes crinkle in the corners, Lilliana finds herself softening at the expression. Brazen should smile like that more often, she thinks. "As long as you need me, I'll be here."
It's only when Lilli sees the look on her friend's face falter does the knot return. Her brow furrows slightly and she feels it - that tingling sensation of fear as it creeps up her spine. It's not the bitter chill of the wind or the biting ice from the seaspray that crashes on the shore. Her copper forelock is blown angrily out the way as fear flashes against the vivid blue eyes of Lilliana as the dread flattens her voice, "You didn't see them?"
LILLIANA
light me up, i will blaze
like a soul you have saved