To the ends of the earth, would you follow me?
There's a world that was meant for our eyes to see
To the ends of the earth, would you follow me?
If you won't, I must say my goodbyes to thee
He hadn't reached for her mind.
Brennen had reached for Leilan, newly-crowned King of the North. He had sent his Magic reaching out through the existing bond to Neverwhere. The Magician had reached out for the other two - the two other parts of the triad that made up the North - while the third burned at her back.
She could feel the flames still sweltering behind her, growing, feasting on the young and old Redwoods. Devouring the glen that she sought shelter in. Covering the beach she often walked, that she had so often worried (and dreamed) on in ashes. She has spent years there and for as many memories bring her sorrow there, many bring her joy, too.
It blazes at her back and that anger is burning bright in her blue eyes.
Lilliana had looked for Yanhua and had been unable to find him (she hopes that he is on the Isle, anywhere but the wreckage smoldering behind her). She had cried until her voice became hoarse with the smoke for Aela, calling for the daughter who wouldn't understand why the red mare was calling her name. Who wouldn't understand that it was her mother crying out through the haze of smoke.
She hadn't been the one called but Neverwhere is gone to Loess and the other two leaders of the North aren't here. It is only Lilliana, coming after she has scoured the Redwoods for her children and leads those who want out of the hellfire forest to Nerine, that comes. Where Brennen's magic recedes from Taiga like a tide, the red mare comes upon them like the dawn. The fury on her face rivals the flames behind her when she comes upon the chaos. She recognizes one - the painted woman from the Meadow who had talked about the times before - and another who goads the water Magician. "We save this because it is our home."
There is no time to say more because the air is chaos.
There is Amarine and suddenly, there is fear tightening her chest. Lilliana remembers her every fear; from the dark when she had been small to where stands now, losing the children she has and the ones she carries. Her heart races and when she catches sight of Beryl - when the air is tainted from a spell - the copper mare looks sharply to her. A memory descends. Darkness. A void. Nothing. Shadows. (It is meant for the palomino mare but Magic is running as rampant as the firestorm around them. There is no time for precision.) With that memory comes the agony of losing her only daughter. With it comes the fear that she would never find Aela again.
With it comes the emptiness that still lingers from finding her child with another mare. That when Lilliana and Aela had finally been reunited, her golden daughter had looked on her with fear. (Maybe the pain is still so acute from that loss that Beryl still remembers it, still remembers the way the golden girl had gotten lost to the shadows.)
"NO!" she shouts to Beryl over the din.
Looking at the dark shape that lingers in the waves and finding no sign that the bay stallion is even aware of their existence (or the way that fire has started to build around them, a pyre that lights in Nerine), she looks to Straia. "What more could this be?" she asks the mare from the Meadow because Lilliana can't see past the cinders. (It sounds almost like a demand.)
He hadn't reached for her mind but she reaches for his. Along the blurred lines of Magic (a silent plea to the Mountain, to the Stars and the Winds and the Tides; a shining moment where she hopes again), Lilliana does what she has always done: she gives.
ooc: Lilliana is 'sacrificing' her light healing to Brennen, so he's able to use it (if he wants) as another element besides water to heal his physical body. Before doing that, she sent out an Echo to Beryl but she has no control of where it goes so whoever can get some desolation if there wasn't enough going on.