And I ran back to that hollow again
The moon was just a sliver back then
And I ached for my heart like some tin man
When it came oh it beat and it boiled and it rang
Oh it's ringing
Lilliana takes a few hasty steps forward, not because she thinks Leilan will actually harm Yanhua, but her maternal instincts still drive her to move towards her youngest son. He’s taller than her now and if there was any real danger, Yan probably would be able to do more than his mother could.
(And everybody in the North seems to know that Lilliana lacks all the rage necessary for battle.)
Still, the smaller chestnut mare comes sweeping forward and holds Leilan very firmly in that intense blue-eyed gaze. "Our people were in Nerine,” she angrily tells him, finally feeling all the fury from the day fill her. "I warned you,” she seethes, "I told you that Brennen needed help. That we needed to be prepared for Ghaul and the Pangeans.”
The only surprise of the day had been that the Pangean king hadn’tcome to the North. And the images that Neverwhere had sent earlier in the day had shown Lilliana where the horn-eyed leader had ended. "Our people needed you in Nerine.” She exhales long and slow through clenched teeth, attempting to prevent herself from saying more. She was one of the ones that had helped crown Leilan and so she accepts that part of the responsibility.
What was done was done. Taiga had been partly burnt and half-way submerged with ocean water. Nerine had been blasted and the barricade that had protected the North from Wolfbane for the better part of two years had fallen. Loess had burned this day as well and so Lilliana feels as if the whole world had ended. She doesn’t let the weight of that revelation sag her slender shoulders yet but it will. Once she is alone, the weight of this day will keep her company as much as her memories will.
She almost has enough of her self-restraint back that Lilliana thinks she will be able to keep biting her tongue. (It’ll be like that day with Lepis. She’ll bite it so hard that it will bleed but Lilliana will be able to keep silent.) But before the roan turns away, the words he spits out flares something in the chestnut mare. If a hurricane could take a shape, it would be wrapped in red and gold. If a storm could be summoned into a physical form, it would be Lilliana at that moment.
And those eyes, those always telling (damning) eyes of her become the literal eye of the storm. There is no hiding that she battles inwardly before flashing her lightning-strike temper at the Freyr. "I don’t expect you to care,” but she fully expects him to understand who she refers to. Lilliana has already learned that her heart is a dispensable thing and she has no intention to reiterate that lesson again. They are friends but she has always expected that Leilan knew, "but they always come first, @[Leilan].”
She means the Northerners.
Her expression turns to iron as she gives a long look at the Dragon shifter. "I expect you to care about them and if danger comes, I expect you to be the first one to greet it.” The steely glint in her unwavering eyes - gleaming like a drawn sword - says that she not only expects this of Leilan but thinks he is entirely capable of it. That is why this stings, why she feels her disappointment so keenly. Leilan is beyond and more than some petty attack on Pangea.
Lilli keeps that stormy stare on him until he turns to go and only when he turns does she feel like her knees will buckle beneath the events of the day. Tired, mentally exhausted, and aching, she simply stares at the empty place he had been after he leaves. It’s Yanhua who calls her back and blinking, she forces herself to remain in the present.
Yanhua warns her that he will remember this (and she aches at that too. Lilliana wants to warn him about remembering too much). But she is simply too fatigued to heed the warning with anything more than leaning into his touch and closing her eyes. "I love you,” she quietly tells her son while still worrying about his brother and agonizing over Neverwhere.
After the events of today, it feels like an important thing to say. Days like today remind Lilliana that even if there is no dying for her, that wasn’t true for others.
Opening her eyes, she focuses on where Leilan had been standing. She stood there for some time after Yanhua had gone, debating on whether or not to follow after the bay stallion. Her anger left her with each passing breath but she decided against going after him. She barely had a grasp on her own emotions and the North would fall apart if her leaders couldn’t find some semblance of cordiality.
The Taigan went in search of a particular tree - a grandfather in the forest of titans - and when Lilliana finds the Redwood that had kept her company during her first night in the Northern wood, she folds her legs and lets her bulk curl beneath the mammoth tree. Turning her slender head away from the trail (and so any approaching horses wouldn’t see her face), Lilli reveals her reason for searching for this spot.
Orani, she thinks and remembers her first night when she had been homesick and still heartsore. There had been a dream that kept her company that night of Orani and Jacob, wherever they had ended up. "Please,” she whispers as she shut her eyes. If Orani had sent her a dream then maybe the starwalker could do the opposite. "Please,” she says again and her voice finally broke, pleading with the only star she still trusted. Please don’t let me dream.
