[private] i had a name but they took it from me - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: Explore (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: The Common Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72) +---- Forum: Meadow (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=3) +---- Thread: [private] i had a name but they took it from me (/showthread.php?tid=30667) |
i had a name but they took it from me - lilliana - 01-23-2022 Her last memory was of the Pass, a rocky plateau that had connected them to the kingdoms of Beyond. Lilliana and her brother, Malachi, stood on a small peak with a range of mountains surrounding them. They had been arguing, she remembers that much, though recalls little else. The dream itself was sporadic, and often the memories were out of place. There was Aletta, her silver brow furrowed; but why? She would blink, and then she would be alone, looking over lonely ledges. Then there would be Elena, murmuring something about Windskeep and Aesop and having to leave. RE: i had a name but they took it from me - Ryatah - 01-31-2022 Ryatah WHEN I WAS SHIPWRECKED I THOUGHT OF YOU IN THE CRACKS OF LIGHT I DREAMED OF YOU She shouldn’t be here. She could not stay in Hyaline forever, she knew this, but she also should not be in the meadow, at least not by herself. There had been a familiar itch beneath her skin, though, the kind that she could not resist. The one that felt like a band being pulled taut, and instead of seeing how hard it needed to be stretched before it snapped she wanted to cut it herself. She had not felt it in a long time, not since being killed by Gale, and she was surprised that upon feeling it she did not feel anticipation, she felt anger. The tension had brewed like a storm in her veins and immediately she wanted to lash at it, to make it disappear before she gave into it. When the scar across her chest—the one left behind from Gale ruthlessly extracting her heart—began to burn with a phantom pain she knew the tendrils of shadow were soon to follow, and instinctively she tried to find Atrox. But in the haze of darkness that crept across the edges of her mind she misjudges where she is trying to teleport to, and when she finds herself in the meadow the shock of landing somewhere unexpected jars her even further. She stands for a long moment, her heartbeat pounding an unsteady rhythm in her ears, and she is suddenly hyper-aware of how loudly her blood rushes in her veins, of how bright her aura is even in the light of day—how she is a blinding white, glittering beacon that seems to scream for danger to look at her. When Lilliana’s voice cuts through her panic she spins towards her in a shower of stardust, the soft glow of her halo seeming to draw the worry and confusion straight from the depths of her nearly black eyes so that they might reflect clearly on the surface. “What?” She says the word without really thinking, and it takes a moment for Lilli’s face to register as someone familiar, and there is a moment of relief that floods through her once it does. She had never seen Lilliana in the void, which leads her to believe that this is real, because her mind mostly circulated the same faces over and over: Atrox and Carnage. Only, none of the words that Lilliana says make sense. She stands there in a heavy silence, the anxiety once more building in her chest as she tries to decipher what she is saying—the Pass, and how none of this is right. None of this seems right, her mind repeats, and she looks around at the meadow; the same meadow that she has been coming to for over a hundred years, the same meadow that remained one of the few parts of Beqanna that was always untouched. The meadow that was now completely not right and not real, but she looks at Lilliana’s familiar blue eyes and forces herself to speak to her as if she is. “Lilli, we’re in the meadow. Where is the Pass?” AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH — BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE @lilliana RE: i had a name but they took it from me - lilliana - 03-04-2022 She knows Ryatah’s face, but somehow, Lilliana knows something is wrong. RE: i had a name but they took it from me - Ryatah - 03-20-2022 Ryatah WHEN I WAS SHIPWRECKED I THOUGHT OF YOU IN THE CRACKS OF LIGHT I DREAMED OF YOU They stand there, their own separate realities colliding, and somewhere in the dust there lies the truth. She thinks she can see it—thinks that this time, she knows what is real and not real. As far as she knows the void had done nothing to her actual memories; she remembers everything that has ever happened to her, remembers everyone she has loved and all the mistakes she has made. It’s a gut reaction, a bone-deep instinct that tells her the Pass that Lilliana speaks of does not exist, and never has existed, in Beqanna—this place where she has been reborn and remade so many times that she is sure its dust is now apart of her bones. But how can she convince her friend of that when she isn’t sure of anything else? How can she explain that to her when Ryatah isn’t even sure if this conversation is real? “Tephra,” she repeats after the chestnut mare, still searching her familiar blue eyes, as if she might untangle the confusion if she looks hard enough. “You went from Tephra, to the Pass, and then the eclipse happened?” she says, trying to make sense of the things she says. Tephra and the eclipse, she knows—the relief at being able to remember an event and place it in the correct order of her own life was nearly overwhelming, and she can feel her own confidence surge. She remembers the eclipse; she remembers the beginning and the end of it, remembers keeping Este alive in between. And she knows, with complete certainty, that the eclipse had ended long before Gale killed her. It also happened years ago, but Lilliana speaks as if it is much more recent. She can feel her confidence begin to waver, can feel the darkness thread through the light that breaks through; that maybe this is all an elaborate illusion and that is why Lilli speaks of things that make sense tangled with the things that do not. “I think we need to retrace your steps a bit more slowly,” she offers gently, hoping that perhaps by dissecting the situation more carefully she will keep herself from unraveling into a panic. “Were you at the Pass with anyone?” her tongue snags a little on the name of the place, seeming to stumble over the unfamiliarity of it, and she decides to take that as further sign that this is not a place she is supposed to know. AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH — BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE @lilliana |