As she gazes back at him, Lilliana studies the changes on his dark face.
Velkan has always had a smile that she admired. It was a beaming, sparkling one that revealed the inner warmth that the Wendigo stallion always seemed to have with him. He has been endlessly kind to her and there is something in Lilliana that lightens to think that it is something that he shares so easily and so freely. Where his smile softens, hers warms in appreciation of that.
When he reaches out to her, Lilliana tilts her head with a playful smile on her lips before the chestnut gives her head a gentle shake.
"No,” she smiles as she tries to reassure him. "I promise. No ghosts will bother you.”
Her mention of a promise stills the spread of it and her expression, only momentarily, becomes worried. She has to be careful with her promises. A promise, she knows, can turn into a prison and the promise holder can turn into their own jailer. But as the concern flickers in her blue-eyed gaze when it meets the dark one of Velkan, the Taigan mare gives a light-hearted shrug of her slender shoulders and decides that he easily falls into the group of horses that Lilliana would imprison herself for.
The smile brightens and Lilliana inclines her head through the trees, having already picked out a perfect spot to show the antlered stallion. (It’s almost winter in Taiga but her mind is thinking of a place towards the east, where the River meets the border of the Redwood. Lilliana decides she’ll teach Velkan how to listen for laughter in the running currents before it finally freezes.)
The chestnut mare starts to walk and the dark stallion isn’t far behind. It’s only when the reach a part of the forest not haunted by the haze of fog does she look back and see the sunlight marking his hide. Lilliana stops, already laughing. "Velkan, look.” She angles her crimson head for her friend to look behind him to where the sunlight has broken through the treetops and illuminated his charcoal hide.
She grins, "The trees have dappled you.”
@[Velkan]
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind