[private] a shot in the dark and right at my throat

[lilliana]

- it's in the eyes, i can tell you will always be danger -
we had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?

LILLIANA

On an autumn day that is still warm and the grasses billowing across Nerine still hold the tint of summer green in their long stalks, Lilliana treks North. Her rounds in Taiga are done for the day. It was another day of peace below the Redwoods. There was quiet. There was nothing stalking in the shadows. There were no strangers at the borders that she and the Matriarch try to keep watch on. 

Nashua grew broader each time she saw him. There was a sense of purpose that he carried with him each time he visited from the Isle. Her eldest boy - who had a spinning compass before - is given direction and Lilliana thinks that he thrives on the instruction that he receives. Yanhua grows taller each day and she thinks its a gift given to him from the Redwoods. Her youngest son towers over her now and the days that he had pressed himself into her side seem as intangible as he could make himself. 

Aela troubles her. The quiet troubles her. The vision she carries of Brazen makes her ache. The knowledge that Ghaul's children seek asylum in the North unnerves her.

She comes North to find Neverwhere (as is so often the case). Her mind is running away with her again and she needs the dappled woman’s practicalities to help rein it in. (And perhaps, even after all this time, Lilliana just needs to see for herself that the Nerinian is still here.) Nev will tell her that not to mind the quiet. Nev will remind her that children grow and leave. 

And one doesn’t need to see to know what will eventually become of one of their dearest friends. 

Lilliana comes North looking for Neverwhere but what she finds instead is him in the middle of the moorland. The chestnut spies Leilan’s roan coat glinting in the daylight. She calls out to him as she approaches, a smile already warming beneath the fall sunshine. "Don’t tell me you’ve lost my wayward son.” She teases, knowing full well that Nashua could be anywhere in Beqanna. It’s good @[Leilan]'s come, she thinks. It's been sometime since their last meeting. By the time that Lilliana has stopped in front of him, her troubles have been left and lost (for now) somewhere in the meadowgrass behind her. 

image credit to rigardatta