[private] Bloodfeather || Lilliana ||

[lilliana]

Only a moment, she tells herself. One moment and she will return to Taiga.

Neverwhere tells her to run, tells her to flee like she is a coward. Lilliana doesn't tell her otherwise because her earlier words still feel like acid on her tongue, burning where she sparked them to life. (But what else was Lilli to do - pinned between the beach and Never's well-aimed  arrow, knowing exactly where the chink in her armor lay?) Even as she escorts the half-blind mare back to the Nerinian border, Lilli feels everything... too closely. The fog that rolls in from the ocean, that same fog she has always likened veils of one realm to another, suddenly hoovers. Taiga's massive redwoods, something she has always prided the northern woods for, suddenly cluster together in a way that feels confining. Even the evergreen scent that has become so familiar, that one she associates with home suddenly cloys and burns at the back of her throat.

So she slips through Taiga's forest as she has done a thousand times before. (She thinks she has the advantage of time; after all, 'later' is such an elusive concept of it.)

She does this appease the silver mare but what Lilli does not say is that she will return. Taiga is her home. It is the longest amount of time that she has spent anywhere and the chestnut mare has rather stubbornly claimed it as her own, haunted forest and all. It is where Lethy and Aten are, where she has brought Smidgen, where Elaina knows to find her. Lilli refuses to let herself be cowed by her emotions, whatever they are for the Taigan Commandant.

But she just needs a moment.
Just one moment for the world to stop reeling.

So it shouldn't be a surprise where Lilli goes. She goes in search of the one thing that has always brought her comfort - the River. She thinks it might steady her, that it might somehow overrule the laws of attraction and she would no longer feel this pull.  Lilliana goes to the River where she can still feel the traces of her old life, of the place she had been born and where she had learned to be a solace for others. It's where she learned to hide behind laughing eyes and a teasing smile, where she learned to be what others needed while never giving too much of herself away.

She always been careful of that.

Its that thought lingers in her mind. She has always been careful of her feelings. Lilli gives her smiles, her laughter, her kindness as easily as she breathes. Anything more than that comes at a price that she has never been willing to pay.

But somewhere between being too careful and not careful enough, she finds herself here. She finds herself weaving through the trees, slipping beneath low-hanging branches and follows an old hooftrail that started somewhere between Taiga and Hyaline. The scents here have gone stale and so Lilli allows herself to follow the pure, clean smell of running water towards... anywhere. She follows the River like it might lead her to an answer.

But it doesn't. It flows too gently, not wild or rampant as she feels inward, and eventually, the sound of the bubbling water next to her falls away.  She leaves the River behind. At some point, the Forest surrounds her and Lilli finds herself in the quiet of the harvest woods. The stars remain obscured from covering branches above but the moon is still full enough that beams of silver light trickle through the bare patches above, an admonition of the coming season. But she isn't alone - his voice cuts through the silence of the night, ringing clear against the shadows. Lilli, not unhappy to hear him, calls back.

"I thought you liked a challenge."

@[Wolfbane]