"She has children of her own now," Lilliana adds to Wishbone's comment that Eurwen had been a girl last time they met. It makes her wonder other things - where the former Nerinian queen had been, how she had passed the years between Eurwen being a girl to the spotted mare becoming another ghost lost somewhere along the moorlands. There is a glimmer of something dark across her lovely face - worry for where her spotted friend is because it has been months since she has last been seen - but Lilliana banishes the shadow. "My twin boys were raised alongside her girls," the smaller mare explains rather whimsically. She and Eurwen had entered that terrifying realm of motherhood together and Lilliana would always be grateful that she hadn't gone into it alone. Those days in Nerine - with Eurwen and her twins playing with Nashua and Yanhua, with Neverwhere and Amarine - are some of the happiest she has known.
Lilliana dwells there a moment, conscious of her memories and aware of the ones radiating off Wishbone. Her gift can be intrusive and as she had tried to impart on Yanhua, they had to be careful with it. It was a delicate balance - like lingering between the pull of the tide and the shore. The more tumultuous the memory, there was the threat of drowning in them as they surged forward. The calmer, more contented ones were easier to fall into. Those memories could be as inviting as the warmth of the summer sun on your back. It was easy to close your eyes and bask in the glow of memories like that; of finding happiness in moments that weren't their own.
A smile quirks against her dark lips because Lilliana can feel the radiance coming off dark-and-gleaming Wishbone. She doesn't press further with her magic. However the former Khaleesi had come to dwell beneath Tephra's volcano, the memories were happy ones.
There is a sharp inhale from her companion and concern furrows her copper brow. Lilliana peers up to the ebony mare from beneath her curling forelock. But it's wiped clean the moment that Wishbone looks out to their surroundings, to the tropical jungle and the imposing volcano. This place isn't so different from the home of her ancestors; the humid climate settles easily around her sleek coat and the jungle plants that brush against her lithe sides feel familiar. They aren't unlike the primordial ferns of Taiga and yet the feel of them reminds her of the clinging vines and thick vegetation of lush Paraiso. The Paradise of her ancestors. It reminds her of so many days spent in the sun; golden days that had been filled with laughter and so much happiness that Lilliana once thought it couldn't be contained in mere mortal shapes.
Their childhood days aren't so different. The gold-and-blue that Wishbone remembers crafts itself into the souls that Lilliana had known all her life. Where Wishbone's best friend is masked, Lilliana's is heart-marked. Remembering Elena always makes her bold, as her cousin always was. The chestnut tilts her head to Wishbone and the smile that tugs forward is the one that often got her into trouble, that had earned her the nickname spark to the flame that was her palomino (blazing) cousin.
Lilliana looks away from @[Wishbone] and towards the looming volcano that waits in the distance.
"Did you ever tell him that maybe he worried too much?" Lilliana teases good-naturedly. The long-legged Tephran seemed more than capable of climbing the peaks and some part of her even supposes that those native-born to this place might consider it a right of passage.
The wind tugs at her wavy mane and she glances back to the dark mare. The thought is ludicrous when it crosses her mind and yet-
And yet, there is a conspiratorial spark in those blue eyes, kindling for the wildfire grin that starts to emerge. "So you've never been to the top?"
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind