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LILLIANA
Wolfbane had been a (waking) nightmare.
She doesn't reflect on it (it, she always corrects herself, what it called itself does not matter) often and when she does, it's always on the end. There are things to keep Lilliana anchored to the present - Taiga, her children, Neverwhere - but sometimes that past comes crashing back in violent waves and she gets transported to that day by the ocean, stuck somewhere between the dunes and the gull cries above to remember the day she lost Aela.
But to go to the end means coming back to the beginning and that is where her trouble started. He had laughed and something in her had lifted with the sound; he had spoken about a future, something Lilliana had desperately wanted. (And she should have paid better attention, should have known better because Aletta had always said that the stars were heralds of change. That they were bringers and makers of Destiny. It never occurred to Lilli that they could have been a warning sign.)
Whatever it had been at the beginning or became at the end, it had become so twisted that the story no longer made a circle. It was a knot, tangled and mired in dark emotions like anger and resentment, and if Lilliana were capable of it, hatred.
Their children are far better than she deserves.
Her grandchildren are a gift that she can hardly fathom.
Lilliana smiles as she watches Reynard come forward and she encourages his boldness by reaching down to gently trace his darling ears. The boy is all of Yanhua's coloring; flaxen-maned and some part of her muses that the colt will be sprouting horns by autumn. There's even a matching gold-marking on his neck, passed from father to son. She looks again for the filly, a little girl who nearly matches Amarine. A bright, vibrant green mane and tail that makes her think of spring; of nature, and all things ready to bud and bloom.
This is what her future looks like.
It's hard to divert her attention away from Cheri and Reynard but she does to hold the blue-eyed gaze she shares with her son. He tells her that they will be careful and she exhales softly, forcing away the fearful thoughts of a mother. There are risks in Magic but glancing briefly at Ama, she knows that the pair understand this. They will be as careful they can.
"Oren and Rosey would adore them," she knows and nods to the pair of foals that had resumed their games and playful antics. It would be good for all of them, she thinks. Siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins growing up alongside each other. That had been her own childhood until her father's Magic had failed. But as she looks back to Yanhua, she wonders if the Mountain could help? Valerio had been tired and his abilities worn thin after the siege at Windskeep. There had been little to spare them when Maverick and his son came to Beyond for revenge. But what if the changes that Yanhua and Amarine brought back to Taiga could help in preventing the challenges that might come in the future?
If it's not something that the Mountain could provide, Lilliana means to try with an Alliance to the West. It was a place to start, anyway.
"Rosey does love her flowers," Lilliana says, softening at the mention of her youngest daughter. She gives a knowing glance to Ama, a mother twice over now. "Oren will most likely have a season's worth of questions but if you'd be willing to watch them so I can venture to Tephra, it would make the journey a quick one so you both can make your own to the Mountain after."
When the twins call the attention of their bejeweled dam away, Yanhua steps closer to envelop her in a hug. His muscled neck drapes over her own and she leans into the young stallion. Lilliana never wastes moments like these with her children, even the ones that have grown as tall as he has. The familiar sensation of their shared gift floods her and there it is, that cursed place: Pangea. She stiffens and a frown starts to form because the image is all wrong. It's all out of place. Elena? some part of her thinks at first, seeing the familial shade of gold. But no - the stockings are wrong (too high) and when the slender mare turns her head, her face is blazed and the eyes are blue.
A shade similar to Yanhua's. One that so closely resembles Valerio that her ache ripples through the echo.
There are still things wrong with the vision. Lilliana could feel the myriad of questions she had clawing their way to the surface, all demanding to be released. (Why was Aela in Pangea? How did she get there? What had happened to Kota?) But the sound of Aela's voice silences it. Her golden girl - the one that had so worried Lilliana with her silence, that she had let go because she refused to break apart another family - spoke and Lilliana, torn between weeping and laughing with joy, closes her eyes and finds peace in knowing that her daughter was safe.
"Thank you."
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind