Elaina is a tether. And perhaps it would be a kinder, gentler thing for them both if one of the girls were to cut it. If they could break or twist or snap the string that kept them both tied together, maybe they could stop tugging on it when the inevitable happened. Leaving Murmuring Rivers and not being able to meet Valerio’s eyes? Tug. Trying to adjust to life in Paraiso and feeling like she never belonged? Tug. The Pass? Broch and Culloden? Beqanna? Tug. Tug. Tug. And as the years have passed, Lilliana has tugged her end of the tether more and more frequently.
Maybe it would be better if they didn’t answer the call because their hearts might have had a chance at healing in the silence. At knowing that when the inevitable came, they would have to face it alone.
Lilliana is as dangerous as her cousin in this moment; the cliff-dancer and the wind-walker are dreaming together. Dreaming of realities that don’t exist. Creating memories in their minds that will never happen. There might be a universe out there where the pair of them laughed and giggled with flowers in their manes by Paraiso’s magnificent shores with the waterfall echoing in their ears; there might be one out there where the story ran true and the heart of it stayed intact.
For now, however brief this chapter is, it runs whole.
Because this is a universe where Elaina and her boys collide, it makes her whole world light up.
Her cousin is crumpled into her crimson form and Lilliana finds it again, her courage. It’s always been borrowed from Elaina’s flame but with the frigid water breaking past her pale ankles, Lilli doesn’t feel the cold. More importantly, that numbness she wanted, that void she wished for, doesn’t come and all she finds is the comforting warmth of her childhood confidant. The Taigan mare draws it in, basks and revels in the flame they make.
She, the spark, and @[Elaina], the flame. Together, they burn in the darkness and Lilliana finds she no longer cares who might notice the soft glow that emanates from the gold marking she carries on her shoulder.
It’s so easy to be brave here. It always has been.
The palomino mare turns to look at her and Lilli smiles, finding it easily. It’s so easy for her to misplace it these days. "It gets me into more trouble than you know,” she tenderly whispers. Too little, too much. A fragment here, a shard there. Turning her head towards the mare she cradles, she says: "But I will always find you. Never fear.”
The tether remains strong and Lilliana thinks, just maybe, she could be too.
The bond remains whole and though she is broken, Lilliana finds herself clutching those pieces closer in an attempt to keep it all together.
LILLIANA
if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions