She blinks at the recognition.
She blinks because it has been a lifetime and then some. Lilliana had known that Brazen resided in Nerine. They had even ventured here together in hopes of finding Heartfire once. So it shouldn't be shocking to find her here because she has encountered far stranger things on these lonely beaches that she accumulates like seashells. But she turns and she is so sure that she is alone that the initial knowledge that she is not is the very thing that does unsettle her.
Her blue eyes are wide and wind-wild, a hurricane soul reflecting out of them.
But it's only a moment and then the chestnut mare falls to her first instinct as she meets Brazen's gaze. The way that the smile embraces the edge of her mouth feels comforting. It feels like proof that despite everything that has changed in the time since they have last seen each other, this has not and it is a comfort to know that some things can still remain the same.
There is a glimmer of the girl who emerges at the use of her childhood name and the affection writes itself all over Lilliana's face. No need for hiding her emotions, no need for guarding or protecting herself. Despite the dormant and bitter season that keeps the world slumbering, something awakens in the copper mare and she brightens with all the warmth of sunbeams emerging from behind the clouds. She casts that light towards her friend and moves forward, her dark maw reaching out for Brazen.
Lilliana is so focused on greeting her that she fails to notice the way that the magic beneath her copper skin is collecting and it calls out to the cracks and tears on Brazen's armored body like the moon calling on a tide. There is no thought at all as the magic seeks to heal and brushes gently against the sorrell coat of her friend, the way that it tries to bond the bone and skin back together.
It tries and its only when she feels that unusual sensation (that bright emotion that magic yields, pooling silver and striking lightning against the edges of her consciousness) that Lilliana understands what is happening. But she doesn't. What little that she does know of this unpracticed power does something entirely different this time. Where the light goes, this time she follows. A second (a lifetime) is where it leads. The Taigan mare isn't prepared for it at all and when time finally releases her, when the open cut on Brazen is just a pink line of tender skin, Lilliana is looking to her friend, confused.
"Brazen?" she asks, "And beautiful?" Lilliana repeats, intoning the words that the armored man had murmured to the newborn.
@[Brazen] let me know if you want anything changed
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind