She is far too lean for a mare expecting a child.

And yet here she is with a stomach that cradles a foal. (Pangean devil or sociopathic shapeshifter; Lilliana tries not to let her mind go there. Not when her head is already rife with horrors, she refuses to leave it open for Draco to pluck another one from.)

The demonic stallion had driven her to a lonely canyon - a forgotten corner of Pangea that even Lilliana wants to forget - and she secludes herself there. The nights are bitter and cold and the days (the endless days, how her heart yearns for Nashua and Yanhua) revel in the heat. Carnage’s country doesn’t seem to be able to make up its mind and instead tortures those who remain here - burn by day, freeze by night.

She is hiding, trying to shield herself with what little dead shrubbery there is. Lilliana tangles herself in the brambles, her normally lustrous coat dull with red Pangean clay. That lovely firebright sheen becomes ochre and whatever strength she retains for her insolence (she still manages to call Draco a goat), it goes to encompass the child.

Lilliana wraps that child in whatever healing she can muster. She has been fortunate in that gift - whatever physical scars she might have otherwise carried - have been hidden away, just like so many other things with her. Here in Pangea, she conserves it and what she does retain goes to her foal.

It leaves her auburn pelt a tapestry - a tale to be told from the wounds that haven’t yet healed, from the scars that nick and slash that copper coat she had once been so proud of.

It’s been weeks since anyone - outside of Draco - has spoken to her. It has been weeks with no word from Nerine, no hope from Taiga. The silence is the worst part of this punishment.

The magenta pegasus finds Lilliana though. Her vibrant color has been one she has spied on the horizon when she has dared to look but she blinks and the mare would be gone. Here in Pangea, in this current condition, leaves her in a state that she wishes no horse to see her in and so she hasn’t searched when she might otherwise have.

I’m going home tomorrow, the winged mare says and part of Lilliana soars to Taiga. Part of her goes to Nerine where she hopes her boys are.

She swallows those hopes, douses them out before any other soul ever knew she dared to dream about the day that she would get to leave. Her blue eyes are edged when they look to the mare, weary and unsure of what this mare intends. Lilliana flicks her ears instinctively back and part of her is ready to run. Her gaze appraises the other woman, spies the swelling of her stomach and it is a melding of ice and fire when she looks up to @[Rebelle].

(Defend your kindness, Elaina had said. Protect your courage.)

She exhales, "Two,” her voice comes out quiet, unsteady from lack of use and what feels like sand lining her throat. The guarded smile that she summons for the colorful mare is as dry as the cracked soil beneath their hooves. "If you would be so inclined.”

"When the weather turns fair and you’re able,” her slender head dips slightly in reference to her .. expecting stomach, "if you could find Leilan of the Isle.” Neverwhere might not like this - she might be even more furious with her than their last meeting after this. "Ask him to meet Lilliana in Taiga in the autumn,” her heart clenches around that and something in her express breaks away from the steeliness. (By fall, how tall would Yanhua be? Would Nashua have shed the last of his baby feathers?)

She hopes the dragon stallion will come; he has a band of raiders and an Isle to rebuild. If she offers Taiga support in moving the kingdom seat to the Isle then perhaps he can be persuaded to help her, if not as a friend then atleast as a political ally.

Her second request has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with the chessboard that Beqanna can become in a mind. "And if on your way back, tell the Queen of Nerine that-," she breaks, "I’m sorry.” There have been no introductions but Lilliana assumes that the previous use of her name could be interjected into her final request, as it finally does choke her voice and cause her eyes to burn.

The chestnut turns her head away, trying to regain the loose hold she has on her emotions before she addresses her fellow prisoner again, "Help me and Taiga will owe you a debt.”