"Oh, I'm sure plenty," Lilliana muses along with Borderline with a wry smile. "My," she starts, remembering days long gone on this same beach. "My cousin and I used to love it out here. We had a few hideaways back in Taiga that we created but she loved the sea," the chestnut shares with the pale mare. "We had never seen the ocean until Beqanna," comes the fainter explanation of why the two girls from a place called Mumuring Rivers had gravitated towards this shore.
Those memories with Elena - and along with Neverwhere after - helped negate a memory along this shore that Lilliana tries not to (ever) recall.
Memorie plays chase with Leonidas and the pair of them move far enough down the beach that it leaves Borderline and Lilliana cloaked in darkness, with only the distant stars above them for any source of light. An ear flicks towards the pale mare as she listens (and some part of her aches to hear that the younger mare's family made her feel as if she had to tackle her problems by herself; despite the war in Windskeep and the years staying a stride ahead of the enemies her sire made, they had always stayed together). But there is a resiliency in the other mare to be admired. Despite the differences in their upbringing, Borderline comes away from hers with the knowledge that if she had to do things on her own, she could.
"You don't have to," Lilliana offers gently as they walk and does her best to gauge the expression of Memorie's mother. "If that's what you want," she adds. "I want to Taiga to be for family. For those who need shelter or support or," she pauses, "sometimes it's just nice not to be alone."
There had been other hopes as well. Lilliana had wanted Nerine and the Isle and Taiga to act as one; a unified North that wouldn't allow the trials of the past to happen again (at least not in her lifetime). With Popinjay taking leadership of the moorlands and the rift between herself and Leilan still unrepaired, she doesn't know where that dream stands anymore. She can only hope that an example coming from the Redwoods might set a precedent with the other Northerners.
Lilliana tries to broach the subject of Borderline and Memorie remaining in Taiga delicately. It isn't as if she doesn't know about Amarine or @[Borderline] and the situation involving her son. There is very little that happens within her home that she doesn't know about. (But what would Lilliana say? She'd take the blame entirely; her boy seems to have inherited her graceless heart along with her blue eyes.)
"That doesn't change," she shares as they continue to walk and the glow of Leonidas starts to turn in their direction from a few yards down the pebbled beach. Memorie's laughter comes chiming in a moment later. At least it hadn't changed for Lilliana - from Nashua all the way down to her youngest, Reave.
She's grateful that Leonidas' light isn't close enough to expose how her expression stills, that her granddaughter isn't near enough to feel the emotions stirring in her chest. "There is rarely harm in hoping," Lilliana says carefully. "But it never hurts to have a plan."
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