[open] show me where the light is, any

[lilliana]

There had been an old saying in Paraiso: Where the wind blows, so I go.

She had been about Roselin and Oren's age when Lilliana had first heard it, murmured beneath the ancient pines and the noble oaks. It's hard to recall now the exact memory of where she heard it first; those native-born in the ancient valley frequently spoke it. It was her father, Valerio, that said it with something akin to reverence. Her sire was the epitome of what a hero should look like -  a strong golden stallion in his prime, muscled and scarred from experience, with striking blue eyes that Lilliana had thought he could pierce a soul with.

He could, she believed. In the year that she would spend in the cradle of the Legacy line,  Lilliana would grow bold and brave enough to believe that her father could vanquish any evil. The character from her foalhood stories had been made invincible; he had been crafted and molded into an immortal shape through his daughter's wild imagination, through the stories and borrowed memories of her siblings and cousins since Lilliana had none of her own.

He surprised her - this herculean character who was her father when he finally came into her life - with his gentleness.

With the small acts of kindness towards the elder members of their clan. For those with aching joints (or even an aching heart), he might say: 'I'll send Lovelace by with one of her poultices later. Should you need anything more, please seek me out.' For the foals that romped and raced on Paraiso's banks, Valerio could kick up his heels with the most agile of them and erase away years in a matter of thundering hoofbeats. With her mother, with serious and reserved Aletta, all it took was a glance from him and it was like watching the ripples dance across their mirror-glass lake. She softened into somebody else entirely.

And when she heard him say that old proverb - Where the Winds blow, so I go - that surprised her too.

Sometimes, he'd later confide to Lilliana when she could no longer conceal her curiosity about the phrase and the way he spoke it, it leads me nowhere. He would laugh and say that he once found a flock of angry geese; got lost in a thicket of tangling, skin-tearing brambles; took a climbing path towards their waterfall that took him to a dead-end instead of the top.

But sometimes, (and there it was, that soft look on his face that seemed so contradictory for the strong presence he always emanated to a young Lilliana, like he was already thinking of rambunctious colts and the still-healing members of their tribe and Aletta and then, finally, of her), it blows you in the right direction.

In the seconds she has spent remembering, Leonidas hovers up and then keeps going - up and up and up, as if he might rise to the silent embrace of his brothers and sisters. His lingering light at the corner of her vision brings her back to the present and Lilliana smiles, answering Borderline with "Roselin and her brother, Oren, are coming yearlings." She leaves the pale mare with the implication that twins are common in her bloodline (and they are - her mother delivered one set while her brother sired two and aurelian Valerio sired three!).

"My youngest, Reave, is Memorie's age." She adds with a nod towards her shadowy granddaughter. Lilliana could explain that her youngest is adopted but the chestnut decides against it. He is as much hers as he was Brazen's. And the thought of her old friend is a still-healing wound, pain that won't abate even in the presence of magic. A fitting penance for herself, she thinks, because she had failed Brazen; she had been so sure that they would find a cure until they ran out of time.

For a moment, she becomes suspended (tangled) between past and present. Lilliana laughs and tosses her lovely head, entwining herself in the game that Memorie and Leonidas have created. "Foe!" the Taigan declares of the star as it pivots from behind her back to the filly. Her granddaughter is giggling and Lilliana isn't far behind her, falling into a peal of ringing laughter at the thought of calling Leonidas a 'blackguard'. He darts up and then dives back down, heading towards @[Borderline] where he attempts to spiral between her slim forelegs.

Lilliana stills and then glances sidelong for her granddaughter, waiting until the little girl has quieted before asking, "What do you think?" The older mare whispers, "Approach with caution, or do we summon the gusts and gales to blow him back to the heavens?"

And if they did, if Lilliana could summon the wind like her forefathers, comes the creeping thought: Would I follow?

Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?

you got a novel, sorry lol