The brightness of Nerine blinds her and when the chestnut mare regains her sight, it is @[Neverwhere] at the center of it. Lilliana’s heart is still panicking and her sides are damp and dark with sweat. The chestnut can’t help herself. She immediately drops her attention to her right, tearing her attention away from Neverwhere.
Aela, some part of her soul is still calling. Her daughter isn’t here but Lilliana can feel the filly pressing herself into her too-thin sides. She still feels where Aela should be and there are storm clouds darkening her blue-eyed gaze when looks to Beryl - who still looks like wild wind and monsoons. Searching the expression of the younger mare, Lilliana can see the way she falters. The way she starts to crack.
Safe. It’s what the Shadows will tell the lion shifter.
(Your fault. Your fault. Your fault. The voice taunts.)
”I-,” she starts, looking back to Neverwhere. (There is panic and fear and loneliness, there is heartbreak and grief and rage in that gaze.) Lilliana is wide-eyed and blinks, not quick enough because when the dappled Queen tells her that she looks like shit, her head is on her back. It's the closest that another horse has been (aside from her missing child) in almost a year and her vision blurs as Lilli feels the tears building in the back of her eyes. For all those dark, starless nights that she had wept for her children. For Elaina and Eurwen and Brazen. For Lethy and Taiga. For pushing Ruthless away when she had come to Pangea. For the rumors that spread through Beqanna like wildfire that the Nerinian queen was missing - presumed dead.
The sound that emerges from her dark mouth is something between a laugh - because she sounds so like the Neverwhere that had kept Lilliana company all those months, that had prompted her fight back in Pangea - and a sob.
Lilliana goes to press her slightly-dished head into the silver side of her dearest friend but stiffens and stops herself when she looks down. A still-healing scar runs down the barrel of the dappled woman and Lilli can almost hear the echo of distant thunder. Lilli stares down at the mark (so different from her lovely wing tattoo), forgetting about the young Beryl who stands witness to this reunion. The chestnut breathes deeply - pushes away the hatred she feels burning in her chest - and presses her head into the scar.
Never again, she thinks. The North will never suffer anything like this again.
She keeps her eyes closed as she listens (feels) the vibration of Neverwhere's voice against her crimson skin. Brennen is the Magic that is keeping them safe. Wolfbane can't come here. In the North, they are safe. (Her mind wanders through the rest of Beqanna. What of them? What of the rest?) "No," she says roughly, something that borders on a hoarse laugh. Lilliana has proven time and time again that she is no match for the shapeshifter.
Lepis, though, might have a plan. The former Comtesse might have a plan to contain the madness, to - what? (Pteron had said he was cursed. Had warned them all and had they listened?)
"I doubt Loess will want anything to do with the North," Lilliana affirms, already alluding to what she has dreamt of Taiga, Nerine, and the Isle. Together. One. There will be a meeting - another time - where they will all come together to discuss that but that moment is not now. When Neverwhere pulls away, Lilli looks to Beryl again and tentatively reaches out towards Leilan's daughter. "Thank you for everything you did for us," the Taigan says. "He would have taken her if it hadn't been for you."
There is hope for a missing child; there isn't for one that Wolfbane would have stolen.
Lilliana follows the trademark glower to the net cast above their heads - Magic that is far above either of their abilties - and wonders: "how can we help him?"
LILLIANA
if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions