[open] love still binds us, family finds us - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: Explore (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: The Common Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72) +---- Forum: River (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=82) +---- Thread: [open] love still binds us, family finds us (/showthread.php?tid=29976) Pages:
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love still binds us, family finds us - lilliana - 08-08-2021 WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES / It's funny how a death changes everything. (And how typical for Lilliana that isn't her death that changes everything.) She's stayed out by the River, still searching for Neverwhere. The brute that had spoken about the little spitfire of a dappled filly could only have been talking about her oldest friend. And so she's spent the golden days of summer basking beneath the trees, reacquainting herself with the feeling of the sun shining on her back. The arrival of an old friend has brought back memories of the old days as well. Lilliana has spent the last few days laughing so much that her sides hurt again. She's smiled so much that her face aches. And perhaps, it because of all those smiles, they've finally reached her eyes again. They haven't spoken about if he will stay. The Brochturach she remembers had loved traveling and had shared stories with her from all the realms that he had wandered. Those stories - like her laughter - have returned and she's listened to all the places he's been and the things that he has seen. They've recounted the years apart and yet, for Lilliana, it's funny how the years feel like they no longer exist. He isn't dead, is thought that trails her out in these woods most often. He didn't die. It had been a grief that plagued her. Lilliana had carried it and journeyed with it and then - in an attempt to move forward - had tried to bury it. But he hadn't died. And the thought brings back so many other memories from her past. That last fight with her brother - Malachi - on the Pass when she had insisted going her own way. Elena pressing her heart-marked face against her shoulder during their last night together in Taiga. Brazen as she fought so hard to stay with Reave when he had been born. Being reunited with Neverwhere after Pangea and the way her friend refused to let Lilliana blame herself for the scars on her skin. She hadn't found Neverwhere. But like her dear friend, the gold-marked Taigan is stubborn. If not today, then there was always a chance for tomorrow. Her thoughts lead her to the riverbank and the chestnut peers down at the slow-moving water. It's something she had done often as a youth - picking herself apart for a trace of her ancestors like it might give her answer to who she might be in the future. There are Aletta's imperial cheekbones, round and graceful. The summer sun glints on her wavy forelock and the gilded hairs remind her of Ichiro, her grandsire - unrelenting and fierce. The blue eyes that stare back at her are the commanding blue of her sire - Valerio - the strongest windtalker of Legado's line. You are Lilliana, she remembers. You are the fourth child of five from Valerio the Guardian and his Queen, Aletta. Lilliana recalls, remembering the mantra she used to recite when she got lost in realms Beyond. She continues to stare down, realizing that the blue of her eyes no longer seem so deep and drowning; that is no longer the haunted gaze of her father. You are Lilliana, she starts again. You are a mother to six five, the former Taigan thinks. You have been Guardian to the Redwoods, a diplomat to the North; you belong to the herd of Neverwhere and Brazen and Eurwen. (And so many other thoughts fill her mind here as she thinks of who she is to Leilan and Warden and Wishbone; of her cousins Elena and Ori). Glancing down at her reflection, for the first time in a long while, Lilli glances back at her. Turning her copper head to the sound of an approaching horse, the slender mare smiles gently. "Can you help me?" she asks, "I'm looking for someone."
fragile things (reprise) - megan hilty RE: love still binds us, family finds us - Leilan - 08-18-2021 Leilan something so right doing the wrong thing @lilliana RE: love still binds us, family finds us - lilliana - 08-27-2021 WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES / It's such a jarring sensation to have the two scents of her past and her present mingled together. Broch is there against her skin (though not in the way one might assume; Lilliana has moved past some things, but she still harbors a fear of somebody taking what they need and then leaving her to patch up the missing pieces of herself). And then there is Leilan, much larger than she remembered, looming beside her. His shape had been hazy a moment before - something that looked more like a shadow struggling to materialize against the shining rays of the sun - but there is no denying who the scaled roan is when he comes into view. Lilliana smiles, clearly pleased to see him. "Leilan," she murmurs, and takes a small step back from the river's edge. How long has it been since she last saw him? Her mind thinks back in months, back to the Eclipse, but the chestnut knows that is wrong. Another wanderer had told her it had been years since the sun had returned, and what little she had heard of the North had been that it was ruled by her son, Nashua, alongside two of his brothers, Yanhua and Reave. (Had Lilliana knew there was trouble in Taiga, she would have returned sooner. She would have gone there first.) But her days have been spent searching for Neverwhere, a companion from her first life and the one who journeyed with her from the Afterlife, and learning about the life that the former leader of Culloden had led. And telling him about the things that he once spoke of for them - the herd, the babies, the leading - things that Lilliana had once upon a time hadn't been sure that she wanted, had happened anyway. Had happened without him. It brought along the more melancholy thoughts about what it might have been like to have those things with somebody who wanted to share them with her. But as she glances up to the former Freyr, Lilliana reminds herself that she hasn't always been completely alone. She and Leilan had come together the best they knew how - the best that two cautious hearts could - to raise their children and unite the North. And that is something she will always be grateful to him for. "And who would you be looking for?" she asks, the soft smile tugging into something much brighter for the draconic stallion. fragile things (reprise) - megan hilty RE: love still binds us, family finds us - Leilan - 09-16-2021 Leilan something so wrong doing the right thing RE: love still binds us, family finds us - lilliana - 09-22-2021 WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES / It had been an odd thing, to see herself as she had been. She had caught glimpses of her past through someone else's eyes and it was a startling revelation to Lilliana. The changes of her decade in Beqanna had always seemed so subtle to her, and while she knew that there were some parts of herself that she would never get back, Lilli hadn't thought herself so different from the girl who had come from Beyond. But there had been her past, staring right at her from a matching pair of blue eyes, and it had shown her exactly how much she had changed. Did Leilan see it? Was she altered in some way after dying? Lilliana teases him like nothing is different between them. And it isn't. She's glad to see him. If she hadn't been so focused on finding Neverwhere, he would have been one of the first ones that she would have sought out after returning to life. She glances up at him and then her eyes widen as the air beside him shifts into something made of shadow and ice. The former Taigan is mystified by the Magic - as she almost always is by others - but it starts to take the shape of something familiar and as it takes form, Lilliana recognizes herself. "You really were looking for me," she realizes and looks away from the vanishing haze. The shock of that barely has time to settle. It had been a joke - the usual banter that they had always shared - but this doesn't feel like their usual teasing or even cordial companionship that came in the years after. Lilliana has been missing from her home for so many years, and not once, had anybody ever come looking for her. She had always been the one left behind. Her copper brow furrows in disbelief. "Even after I was dead, you kept looking?" fragile things (reprise) - megan hilty RE: love still binds us, family finds us - Leilan - 09-29-2021 Leilan one minute I held the key next, the walls were closed on me @lilliana RE: love still binds us, family finds us - lilliana - 10-02-2021 WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES / She doesn't understand. There is some disconnect - something that has gotten lost along the years - of where she should realize why Leilan would have been looking for her. But nobody else has. It's a precedent that had been started by her father and all the men in her life have all taken the same path; Lilliana has seen far more of the backs of those who have claimed to love her than anything else. "Nashua?" she manages to ask and then, "Yanhua?" It wouldn't have surprised her if both of them had asked after her; if she had died and perhaps they were more like her than she ever knew, that even after she had gone, they had continued to look for her face in every stranger that crossed their path. Leilan had always known her as a worrisome dam - and had even chided her for a time or two with their own twins - and the corners of her blue eyes crinkled anxiously. How were Oren and Roselin? How much had they grown? Could they forgive her, for not returning with the light? What of her youngest, Reave? "I died, Leilan." She confides, quietly revealing what had happened to her. "And then I found my - ," she pauses, struggling against the weight of the memory. Malachi had been dark with his handsome dapples when he should have gone as pale as the moon, as their mother had. "My brother was waiting for me." He had told her no tears, that his death had been on his own terms. He had died protecting Kalina and their children. He had lived and died as only a Legacy could aspire to, in the service of others and those they loved. "He told me I could - I could go home." That clearly hadn't happened, and she has to glance away from Leilan as she admits this. Those that have come to know her, knew that her heart had been searching a long time for what had become of those who had been left behind. "But then I found Neverwhere and something went wrong." Turning her slender head towards the dragon mage, her blue eyes glittered with worry, refusing to think of the tentacles that had come grabbing towards them and shattered the little peace they had found. "I woke up here, alone, and I've been trying to find her ever since." fragile things (reprise) - megan hilty RE: love still binds us, family finds us - Leilan - 10-05-2021 Leilan told you I'd change even when I knew I never could @lilliana RE: love still binds us, family finds us - lilliana - 10-23-2021 WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES / "Is he alright?" Lilliana asks quickly. Her second son was well past the age of needing his dam, but Leilan's mention of a promise to him makes her maternal concern sharply rise. She peers up at the taller horse, suddenly desperate for news. She had been out in the Common Lands searching for Neverwhere, and hearing no news of Taiga, she had assumed that everything in her former home was fine. If something was wrong - if something had gone wrong during the Eternal Night - surely she would have heard a whisper about it in the Meadow or the River. Beqanna loved gossip, and if there was a murmur of anything about Taiga or any of her children, Lilliana had been certain that she would hear of it. "Taiga?" she continues, wanting to know about Oren and Roselin, and Reave. She continues to look up at him, but Leilan won't look at her and it makes Lilliana uneasy. The slender chestnut shifts her weight from one hip to the other, waiting for him to meet her waiting gaze. He found his sister in the Afterlife, he explains, and then wonders aloud if she had stayed there or returned to Beqanna. They had been alike in that way. They had both come from large families; both came from unions that had been love matches. Lilliana has her head tilted towards his, listening to listening to Leilan continue to speak. Would he return for this sibling, or try to figure out what had happened to her? But it isn't family that he continues to talk of. Instead, it is Wolfbane. He speaks the name so easily, and yet in the almost decade that the striped pegasus had been dead, Lilliana has never been able to say it. She stills, and her muscles grow taut for a moment. Wolfbane said hello? Her confusion registers plain enough on her face, and the chestnut pulls slightly away from him. Why would Wolfbane have anything to say to her? (And more importantly, was there anything left to say?) "I don't care what he has to say," she finally decides. Leilan even smiles that handsome grin of his, slightly mischievous, and Lilliana continues to glance up at him, trying to make some sense of what he was trying to do. She knew that he didn't intend for the message to be cruel or unkind (she might assume as much about Wolfbane, but Leilan had helped rear her children - even the ones that hadn't been his - and despite their differences, unkind would never be a word she could associate with Oren and Roselin's father). What home did she want to go to, he asks? That had been the reason for the fog, hadn't it? The filly who had been born in Murmuring Rivers, who had spent such a short time in Paraiso, who had spent a year or more on the run before coming to Beqanna, who had lived in Taiga and Nerine, where was home? "I don't know," she answers him. Her mind returns to the Afterlife and slowly, the tension between her shoulders and creasing at the corners of her blue eyes begins to recede with the memory of her brother. Malachi had once told her that home wasn't a place, but a feeling; a sense of belonging, of family. Lilliana had been careful over the years to not bring up Leilan's former spouse, not willing to cross anymore boundaries, but perhaps his mention of the man that she had once strongly cared for had already broken them. "Did you ever want that again?" and she doesn't let the memory stay overlong, but an image of Breckin presses gently against his conscious. Her voice becomes soft, because she doesn't want to upset Leilan, but here they were, talking about past loves; it seemed that Death made something abundantly clear to Lilliana. Maybe this was why she hadn't truly died. fragile things (reprise) - megan hilty RE: love still binds us, family finds us - Leilan - 10-26-2021 Leilan told you I'd change even when I knew I never could |