Lost in the deep end // star pony

[lilliana]

Her mother had been a fervent believer in the stars.

Aletta had been raised in the mountaintops, as close as a horse could get to the heavens without actually going to them and the stars had always been her closest confidants. She had poured her secrets, her hopes, her desires, her heart into those celestial beings. 

And they had answered her.

As Antares silver light illuminates where darkness once reigned, Lilliana can still remember the understanding that had crept along her spine when Orani had uttered those cryptic words. 'They have heard you, Aletta.' It is the same feeling that she gets now - a divine sense of knowing that can only come from an immortal being. How had she forgotten to listen? Or had she ever really had the ability to hear? When she had been small and Orani had washed up, bedraggled and half-drowned in their home, it never occurred to her that being a startalker might be a gift. Orani had chirped about the stars and their secrets as easily as Lilliana did about Malachi sneaking away to be with lovely Kalina or the secret spot she knew where to find her mother when Aletta thought she was invisible.

It hadn't been until Lilliana had been older that she realized that Orani possessed a gift, a true one and Lilli had turned those blue eyes heavenward. So in the tradition of her dam and granddam before her, the chestnut had poured her heart out to those silent sentinels. She had told them of her deepest desires, of the hopes she had for her future and for her family. She spoke of wishes and dreams and all the beautiful things that deserve to be sent to skyward in rapture. 

How had she forgotten to listen?

Because at some point, Lilliana had lost the things she had loved the most. She had lost her family, her home, the things she had always used to identify herself, her compass in a world that had always seemed far too large for a girl like her. At some point among the strife and upheaval, the dreams had dimmed and Lilliana had stopped listening.

"It's not so difficult," the midnight stallion shares with her. It's then when she sees the cloudiness of his eyes. She thinks of Neverwhere, her friend who struggles with physical sight and Lilliana can't help but wonder if he is like her - that he has the ability to see things clearer than most. An absence of one sense that makes the other ones so much sharper.

The silver light dances, paints shadows across the woods around them until a ball of starlight serves as a beacon before them. Lilliana is stunned into silence - she has never seen such a thing before and Antares light paints reverence across the gentle planes of her face. Tyr smiles openly at the star, with a familiarity that suggests this is not an unusual occurrence and Lilliana feels the air slip from her lungs. "How-", she starts, disbelieving as her gaze goes from the stallion to his ethereal companion. 

And then the dreamer in her smiles. "And what heavens have you fallen from?"

@[Tyr]