"Maybe,” Lilliana considers thoughtfully. She hasn’t seen the horned stallion recently but then, she hasn’t seen much of anyone. She's made sure of that.
There are other things to discuss.
"I have plenty of ideas,” the chestnut mare says. With a rueful smile, she adds, "I think that’s half my problem.” A dreamer and as such, she gets too many ideas. She’s prone to the whimsical and the fanciful. She dreams too big and broad. "Speak with Lethia and Leilan and Neverwhere.” Lilliana pauses, "I think that the North should operate much of the way that I had thought for Taiga. Kingdom, territory, herd - the names should matter little if we can work together. A group of collective voices.” But those voices need to come together.
A trinity forms in her mind; Taiga could be as it once was, for family. It could foster. Nerine could be for the sisters and the Isle could be for the brothers. Not the Jungle or the Tundra - those lands had been casted away by the Mountain - but perhaps some semblance of those lands from the Beqanna of old.
And then there is no time to explain her requests, to explain the monster because Ghaul lands into her view.
The buckskin stallion circles them and Lilliana follows him with her eyes, never releasing the Pangean leader from her sight. Her brow furrows slightly. Plotting? A discussion about the future of the North, yes. Those same ideas that she has harbored for some time now - before her captivity in Pangea - and while the full scope of them hadn’t been imagined yet, there had been statements between herself and Neverwhere that something had to change.
They both had known that much.
"It’s been sometime since we last spoke,” she says with a brief glance at Eurwen before looking up to Ghaul. "So I’ll use them now. Thank you.” She assumes that he has his own motivations for going to Nerine and he reveals it; he enjoys Neverwhere and had Lilliana not been so tense, she might have smiled at that.
"Your games have been,” Lilliana searches for the right word, "interesting.” The theft of Brine and Brinly (and then she had played along, hadn’t she? Stealing him?). Challenging Taiga and then deciding to take only Craft and Anatomy. He hadn’t been responsible for her theft but the reputation that Pangea builds for itself is chaos. What is one missing Taigan against the grand scheme of Beqanna? "You’ve had word of her?” Lilliana suddenly asks, brightening. Hoping that Ghaul wouldn’t say these things if the Nerinian Queen was still missing. What would be the point? The expression on her face is certainly that - hopeful.
"Nobody is taking Neverwhere’s crown,” the chestnut firmly states (though her concept of titles and diadems is somewhat blurred - does Ghaul truly carry more weight than the support of his pillars?). They move the focal point, that’s all. "Nerine keeps her Khaleesi. The North gains the advantage of dragonfire for their capital.” The copper mare turns her head to look at @[Eurwen], seeing if the spotted mare has anything to add.
Perhaps she lacks the tact (and tongue) expected of a diplomat for speaking so plainly with @[ghaul] but Lilliana is so utterly tired of her secrets.
LILLIANA
if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions