If Lilliana was a smarter mare, she might have learned more about the “gifts” that Beqanna had bestowed on her.
The red mare was born as ordinary as she appears. There was nothing unusual about her when she first opened her eyes, nothing spectacular when she took her first wobbling steps. Lilliana was the result of a midnight consolation between two desolate lovers - a moon and a sun who should have never been parted.
The only gift she had ever known - the only true one that she learned to wield - was a smile that she learned to resurrect sunshine with. Storm clouds could gather on the faces that she loved and Lilliana learned that it was her sweet disposition - her radiating smile - that could chase away all their troubles.
The ones that plague her body now - that feel more like a burden than a blessing - are almost untouched. (The exception is her healing and even that is only used on a mare of breaking bone and blood. Because they have a bond that runs deeper than both.)
Her mind isn’t occupied with any of that right now. Her energy is all on @[Jesper] because of what his return to the North will mean. Whatever Loess had wanted with him can be momentarily forgotten - the entire ordeal surrounding his capture can be ignored. He has been returned and her mind firmly decides that this should be the only thing that matters.
And that thought echoes down to her very hooves, already begging to run North.
Her face is brightening - glowing with a warmth that Icarus must have felt before he flew too close to the sun - and then she falls.
The world burns.
(She can’t know it’s Juice’s fury running hot through her veins; not when she has enough hidden rage in her own.)
It’s a blaze of orange and red, a world on fire. It seethes and fumes until it shifts way to a source - a place from where the fire originates.
(A cracking voice. A plea. "Please, Lavendel, wait! You are my mom. I am your son. I am Juice. You gave birth to me and Jager, deep in the Sylvan forest. Our dad is Jesper.”)
"Please,” she says, echoing the cry that Juice once gave his mother. (Though Lilliana doesn’t know more than this - it’s only a fractured image; a memory burning beneath the anger.)
Her own slender body angles away from both stallions, trying to stop the shaking that violently wracks her body. There are other memories that threaten to undo her - a girl so recently undone and only recently weaving herself back together again.
A life leaving the eyes of a golden mare, growing empty as her body grew cold. A way that a man says her name, stifling the last of her own light. (Ruin, some part of her echoes. Ruin from the moment your name fell from his lips.)
There are two heartbeats within her and she won’t place herself in danger. That much is said when she raises her head with shining eyes, trying to keep the anger from boiling over. It spills from her eyes instead. "Jesper is needed in the North,” she says with a low voice, turning a look at the dark stallion. "The Isle has been razed. It was still burning when I last left Nerine.” The black plume had been visible for miles. Ash had fallen on the most northern edges of their iron coastline.
Turning her attention back to the sabino, she starts to glow at her fetlocks. "He is under the protection of Nerine. He might not deserve your filial duty but he is needed home.” There is an edge to her voice, a way she has learned of building it to make herself sound more controlled than she is.
As an Ambassador of the Taiga and a Diplomat of Nerine, she has some say.
What she is actually able to do physically is limited but perhaps with the might of Nerine behind her words, it might do something. Or it might not do anything at all. He could do as his Father asked - hear him out. Her expression softens as she tries to count her heartbeats, as she reminds herself to breathe. A silent invitation to @[Juice] that says that could come with them too, that perhaps he could learn something. Just no more violence, Lilliana begs.
The chestnut finally dims, watching for his choice, wishing she could tell him that it might only come once. That fathers could leave as easily as they never existed.
The red mare was born as ordinary as she appears. There was nothing unusual about her when she first opened her eyes, nothing spectacular when she took her first wobbling steps. Lilliana was the result of a midnight consolation between two desolate lovers - a moon and a sun who should have never been parted.
The only gift she had ever known - the only true one that she learned to wield - was a smile that she learned to resurrect sunshine with. Storm clouds could gather on the faces that she loved and Lilliana learned that it was her sweet disposition - her radiating smile - that could chase away all their troubles.
The ones that plague her body now - that feel more like a burden than a blessing - are almost untouched. (The exception is her healing and even that is only used on a mare of breaking bone and blood. Because they have a bond that runs deeper than both.)
Her mind isn’t occupied with any of that right now. Her energy is all on @[Jesper] because of what his return to the North will mean. Whatever Loess had wanted with him can be momentarily forgotten - the entire ordeal surrounding his capture can be ignored. He has been returned and her mind firmly decides that this should be the only thing that matters.
And that thought echoes down to her very hooves, already begging to run North.
Her face is brightening - glowing with a warmth that Icarus must have felt before he flew too close to the sun - and then she falls.
The world burns.
(She can’t know it’s Juice’s fury running hot through her veins; not when she has enough hidden rage in her own.)
It’s a blaze of orange and red, a world on fire. It seethes and fumes until it shifts way to a source - a place from where the fire originates.
(A cracking voice. A plea. "Please, Lavendel, wait! You are my mom. I am your son. I am Juice. You gave birth to me and Jager, deep in the Sylvan forest. Our dad is Jesper.”)
"Please,” she says, echoing the cry that Juice once gave his mother. (Though Lilliana doesn’t know more than this - it’s only a fractured image; a memory burning beneath the anger.)
Her own slender body angles away from both stallions, trying to stop the shaking that violently wracks her body. There are other memories that threaten to undo her - a girl so recently undone and only recently weaving herself back together again.
A life leaving the eyes of a golden mare, growing empty as her body grew cold. A way that a man says her name, stifling the last of her own light. (Ruin, some part of her echoes. Ruin from the moment your name fell from his lips.)
There are two heartbeats within her and she won’t place herself in danger. That much is said when she raises her head with shining eyes, trying to keep the anger from boiling over. It spills from her eyes instead. "Jesper is needed in the North,” she says with a low voice, turning a look at the dark stallion. "The Isle has been razed. It was still burning when I last left Nerine.” The black plume had been visible for miles. Ash had fallen on the most northern edges of their iron coastline.
Turning her attention back to the sabino, she starts to glow at her fetlocks. "He is under the protection of Nerine. He might not deserve your filial duty but he is needed home.” There is an edge to her voice, a way she has learned of building it to make herself sound more controlled than she is.
As an Ambassador of the Taiga and a Diplomat of Nerine, she has some say.
What she is actually able to do physically is limited but perhaps with the might of Nerine behind her words, it might do something. Or it might not do anything at all. He could do as his Father asked - hear him out. Her expression softens as she tries to count her heartbeats, as she reminds herself to breathe. A silent invitation to @[Juice] that says that could come with them too, that perhaps he could learn something. Just no more violence, Lilliana begs.
The chestnut finally dims, watching for his choice, wishing she could tell him that it might only come once. That fathers could leave as easily as they never existed.
LILLIANA
all that i'm after is a life full of laughter
(as long as i'm laughing with you)
let me know if you'd like anything changed!
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind