To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face - Lilliana

[lilliana]

Steady, she thinks as she presses her shoulder against the silver mare.
Steady, she thinks again to the heart that teeters on the brink of racing.

The warning that wavered on the edges of her lilting voice didn't go unheeded. The dappled mare says nothing but Lilli can feel the suspicion coming off her thicker than the fog that hides away the rest of the beach. It feels like they are on the fringes of a forgotten world and the edge looms so perilously close. Lilli knows this edge. She has danced alongside it a few times now and each time she keeps coming back, almost addicted to the feel of adrenaline and the heat that fires her blood in a way that pales the world around her, that brings everything else to almost oblivion.

It almost happens this time. Almost.

But Neverwhere's barbed words pull her back from that abyss and Lilli feels the damp of the mist around her, the chill that comes flooding in where the flames once blazed. She hears the hardness in her tone, can feel the sharp edges of it brushing against her crimson coat and so Lilliana does what she always does, she tries to absolve the cutting edge and rounds it out instead with a playful shake of her head. "A wolf?" she asks impishly with those blue eyes glistening bright, "And what would that make you? A lamb?"

There is one, long lingering glance that says she knows better than to suspect that of him.

Neverwhere shakes her head and Lilliana knows that her distrust for the striped stallion grows with each step closer he takes. But all Lilli hears is the buoyancy in his baritone voice as they keep the conversation afloat. She is acutely aware of the space between them as she has been since that first river crossing and nothing in her flinches or shies from Wolfbane. She studies him from underneath a forelock that has become wavy from the moist air and softens beneath his stare,  "I'll try to keep the hellbound creatures to a minimum." More meanings beneath the words. She has no intention of purposefully trespassing on his goodwill, of taking advantage of what she perceives is his generosity.

He smiles at her and it takes all the composure she has learned in the last few months to hide the flames that lick that the back of her throat, that threaten to darken the sky blue of her eyes to a tempest storm. She almost gets away with it. A faint glow comes from the white sock of her front leg as Tir's gift lets loose beneath her copper coat, that desire of wanting to help and to ease dancing freely while Lilli focuses solely on not letting those luminous eyes betray her.

The glow is a  telltale sign against the particles of fog and her gaze drops even as the condemnation of it travels up her spine,  creeps up her neck, heats her cheeks. The light dims and dies and Lilli tries to tames the silver magic that sparks like lightning strikes beneath her skin. She can't bring herself to look at either of them and instead looks out at the ocean, regarding where mystery and fog came together to conceal what lies beyond the waves. Wolfbane speaks of old Beqanna and Lilliana feels that old want rising again. A russet ear flicks to the direction of his voice and she listens. She thinks she should feel some kind of repulsion that Taiga might have once been the Chamber. Her ancestors had been held captive there once, she remembers. And Hyaline could be the Falls.. perhaps that was why she had found peace so easily underneath their stars. She had been so close to the memory of Texas and Believer, a treasured tale from her youth.

Her earlier shame (at what? not being able to control her healing? her glowing?) lessens and Lilliana finds herself dreaming again, wondering and allowing herself to linger in a realm of infinite possibilities.

Wolfbane's voice cuts through the fog of her mind and she immediately finds herself looking at him. The Boneyard, he suggests. She's seen it from further down the beach, can recall the pale columns of the impressive trunks in her mind's eye. But only from a distance. Lilli has never felt the need to draw closer. It's always been enough to blur herself between the redwoods and the tide. Neverwhere's body, her words, are laced with barbs and razor edges in her reply that Lilli can feel scraping and cutting over every syllable. Wolfbane might feel immune from such things but Lilli feels every consonant. Her blue eyes seek out Never's and glimmer mischievously, trying again. "Scared?" she murmurs, a daring quip. "Sounds like a perfect setting for plots and intrigues." A reminder from their first meeting when they had talked about monsters and terrors, about Beqanna and her tendency for havoc and chaos.

But then Neverwhere speaks again and Lilli stills, her laughter gone with the ocean breeze.

@[Wolfbane] @[neverwhere]