"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
12-12-2020, 12:12 AM (This post was last modified: 12-12-2020, 12:16 AM by lilliana.)
Do you think she is a cousin to Capricorn? Have you heard about the sea goats? How did she earn her horns?
Leonidas is humming with questions - and he brightens with each one - that fill Lilliana's head. She raises it, confused because she doesn't even know what a Capricorn is. Attempting to tell the star as much only earns a flickering pattern from the wisp before he continues to float over Memorie, mindful of his glow as to not star blind her.
"He's rather taken with her," Lilliana explains to her mother in a tone that lingers somewhere between apologetic and tender.
The conversation continues to have lapses where the chestnut mare is studying her bonded and glancing at her granddaughter, tracing the flaxen outline of her mane and always smiling when it comes to her blue tail. It's rather stunning, she thinks. There are pieces for her to find of Yanhua in the child and she can see traces of Borderline as well. Even against the enveloping darkness around them, she can see both parents shining out from the little soul who bounds up and down the beach with Leonidas.
What better way to spend a summer night?
She turns her head when the silence stays too long. Lilliana can't see the tear that @[Borderline] sheds but Lilliana had been able to sense the emotions of others long before she ever gained her Echoes. As a middle child in a large brood of siblings, she had been the one to ease the anger, to bring back the laughter, to help find the peace when the familial arguments flared. She had been the one most alone with her mother, who seemed to understand that something about the silver mare was missing even if Aletta never said what.
"If you need any help," Lilliana offers gently. Any help with Memorie. Any help with a plan. With anything at all, says the contemplative quiet that comes after.
"And no need to thank me," she mentions while glancing back towards Leonidas and Memorie. "Thank you both for the company tonight."
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?
It warms my heart to see Memorie and the star playing so happily together on the beach. The way he flickers and shines and @[lilliana]’s reactions makes me wonder if they are communicating. If they are, their conversation is as private as my own thoughts, which are still a tangled mess of emotions. I had found some peace here on the beach, but it was a temporary respite, for I still have a lot to sort out before I could truly feel at peace.
For now, however, I allow the comfort to settle in for a bit, and I watch Memorie and the star. She bounds away for a few strides, then plants one hoof in the sand, throwing her weight into it so that she pushes off in the opposite direction, begging the star to chase her. I laugh softly at Lilliana’s statement. “Well, she is smitten with him. We’ve certainly never seen anything like him. I’m not surprised, though. Memorie loves to chase butterflies. They never play back, though.”
Memorie had always reminded me so much of her dad. Don’t get me wrong, she has parts of me, too: the blue tail, my elegant shape. But she has so much of him in her: his color, his horns, his hooves, his mane, his eyes. Sometimes it had made me sad, but my love for her runs so deep that I cannot fault her for it one bit. And yet, it was always an aching reminder that she deserved to have her father in her life. She deserved to know the other half of herself. And despite the pain that spans the miles that had grown between myself and Yanhua, he deserved the chance to be a father. And so I had returned.
This little rendezvous on the beach, however, gave me all the reason to stay. I feel blessed to have shared this experience with her and her grandmother.
Just then, a part of me starts to wonder if Memorie had known that this beach was not alone, that it shared its hidden secrets with a friendly face who might bring some semblance of peace to my soul. She stops to look back at me right then, and I almost think I see her wink at me, but it could be a trick of the shadows, because then she bounds off in another direction, completely forgetting that I exist once more. I give a soft laugh at this.
When Lilliana offers her help, I give her a grateful smile. I didn’t really need help. I had proven that to myself long ago. But the offer, well, it’s hard to explain, but if I could put it into one word, that word would be “safety.”
“There’s every need to thank you, though.” I look at her with a warm smile. “It might just be two words, but those two words come from the bottom of my heart, because you have helped me in so many ways tonight.” In truth, I didn’t think thank you actually could convey just how grateful I am to the older mare. She had helped shed some light on the dark corners of my mind that I had trapped myself in.
Just then, Memorie comes racing between us with a squeal of delight. I move aside for her just in time as sand sprays up around my hooves from her running. She makes a quick pivot behind Lilliana and stops, using her grandma to hide behind. She sticks her face around Lilliana’s chestnut hindquarters and closes one eye while sticking out her tongue at the star. “I fear you have officially become part of the game.” I wink at her.
12-13-2020, 10:06 PM (This post was last modified: 12-13-2020, 10:09 PM by lilliana.)
It is always easy for Lilliana to talk about her children. There are several things (like so many others in Beqanna) that are much harder to speak of. But to ask after Memorie - an extension of her son, Yanhua - is not hard at all. Her granddaughter and the star grant the Guardian a reprieve from other thoughts that might not have been as pleasant as her current company.
"I never had either," Lilliana tells Borderline. "He just... showed up one night. We've been coming here because he likes it better than being cooped up in the woods." It's an arrangement that she thinks works for everyone; she comes out here with Leonidas and Leilan stays with their twins.
The pale mare speaks of Memorie chasing butterflies and Lilliana laughs. "Bring her around to play with Roselin," she offers. "She has a garden growing and there are plenty of butterflies for her to chase." Better yet, even if the little winged creatures didn't chase back, Oren most likely would.
Lilliana is firm - almost as firm as the shake she gives @[Borderline] - in her reluctance to accept the gratitude from the younger mare. But it slides away with a soft smile when Memorie shouts something and Leonidas abruptly changes his course on the beach with the little filly not far behind him. "You helped heal our home. And Memorie," Lilliana starts, "I don't think there are words to convey the thanks for sharing her." They manage to walk a few more steps before the beachfront game comes racing back to the pair.
Leonidas floats above - darting from one side of Lilliana to the other in search of Memorie - and the chestnut laughs. She lifts her head to look back at her granddaughter and asks, "what do you say, lass?" A daring glow emits from her pale socks and her flame tattoo starts to shimmer against the dark night, "Do we teach this star that Taigan's never surrender?"
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?
Watching Memorie play and talking with @[lilliana] as we walked along the beach made me feel eternally grateful. Grateful to be back in Taiga. Grateful to see Memorie so happy meeting her family. Grateful to feel better. I can see now that I had made the right choice to return, if not for myself, but for the little filly that was romping around with a star. And while I am eternally grateful, I’m still wary. It would take some time for me to really feel like this was my family as much as it was Memorie’s. A part of me is afraid I’ll screw everything all up again, especially now that my emotions were so…involved. And a part of me worries that I will not be able to handle sharing what I once thought was mine and only mine.
I find my mind wandering again, so I pull it back to the conversation. I smile up at the star that my child is so enamored with. I can only imagine what it is like to have a star suddenly appear and bond with you. But I imagine it makes life a little less lonely, especially on those nights where sleep is but a memory, half a breath away, but unable to quite get there.
When Lilliana invites us to come around to play with Roselin, I smile. “I think I’ll have to take you up on that. How old is Roselin?” I find it just as easy to ask about her children as I do to talk about my own. After all, now that we share motherhood in common, I can fully understand the love that she has for them.
If I had time, I would have told Lilliana that I was more than happy to help heal Taiga, and that I plan on returning my attention to the wounds that are still there. But alas, Memorie comes squealing through and hides behind the chestnut mare. She plays hide-and-seek with him, dodging one way as Leonidas bounces the other way, giggling like a wild child. And when her grandmother turns around to her and asks if they should show the star that Taigan’s never give up, she rears excitedly and shouts “Let’s show him, gramma!” I can’t help but laugh as I watch the antics.
12-17-2020, 12:31 PM (This post was last modified: 12-17-2020, 12:36 PM by lilliana.)
There had been an old saying in Paraiso: Where the wind blows, so I go.
She had been about Roselin and Oren's age when Lilliana had first heard it, murmured beneath the ancient pines and the noble oaks. It's hard to recall now the exact memory of where she heard it first; those native-born in the ancient valley frequently spoke it. It was her father, Valerio, that said it with something akin to reverence. Her sire was the epitome of what a hero should look like - a strong golden stallion in his prime, muscled and scarred from experience, with striking blue eyes that Lilliana had thought he could pierce a soul with.
He could, she believed. In the year that she would spend in the cradle of the Legacy line, Lilliana would grow bold and brave enough to believe that her father could vanquish any evil. The character from her foalhood stories had been made invincible; he had been crafted and molded into an immortal shape through his daughter's wild imagination, through the stories and borrowed memories of her siblings and cousins since Lilliana had none of her own.
He surprised her - this herculean character who was her father when he finally came into her life - with his gentleness.
With the small acts of kindness towards the elder members of their clan. For those with aching joints (or even an aching heart), he might say: 'I'll send Lovelace by with one of her poultices later. Should you need anything more, please seek me out.' For the foals that romped and raced on Paraiso's banks, Valerio could kick up his heels with the most agile of them and erase away years in a matter of thundering hoofbeats. With her mother, with serious and reserved Aletta, all it took was a glance from him and it was like watching the ripples dance across their mirror-glass lake. She softened into somebody else entirely.
And when she heard him say that old proverb - Where the Winds blow, so I go - that surprised her too.
Sometimes, he'd later confide to Lilliana when she could no longer conceal her curiosity about the phrase and the way he spoke it, it leads me nowhere. He would laugh and say that he once found a flock of angry geese; got lost in a thicket of tangling, skin-tearing brambles; took a climbing path towards their waterfall that took him to a dead-end instead of the top.
But sometimes, (and there it was, that soft look on his face that seemed so contradictory for the strong presence he always emanated to a young Lilliana, like he was already thinking of rambunctious colts and the still-healing members of their tribe and Aletta and then, finally, of her), it blows you in the right direction.
In the seconds she has spent remembering, Leonidas hovers up and then keeps going - up and up and up, as if he might rise to the silent embrace of his brothers and sisters. His lingering light at the corner of her vision brings her back to the present and Lilliana smiles, answering Borderline with "Roselin and her brother, Oren, are coming yearlings." She leaves the pale mare with the implication that twins are common in her bloodline (and they are - her mother delivered one set while her brother sired two and aurelian Valerio sired three!).
"My youngest, Reave, is Memorie's age." She adds with a nod towards her shadowy granddaughter. Lilliana could explain that her youngest is adopted but the chestnut decides against it. He is as much hers as he was Brazen's. And the thought of her old friend is a still-healing wound, pain that won't abate even in the presence of magic. A fitting penance for herself, she thinks, because she had failed Brazen; she had been so sure that they would find a cure until they ran out of time.
For a moment, she becomes suspended (tangled) between past and present. Lilliana laughs and tosses her lovely head, entwining herself in the game that Memorie and Leonidas have created. "Foe!" the Taigan declares of the star as it pivots from behind her back to the filly. Her granddaughter is giggling and Lilliana isn't far behind her, falling into a peal of ringing laughter at the thought of calling Leonidas a 'blackguard'. He darts up and then dives back down, heading towards @[Borderline] where he attempts to spiral between her slim forelegs.
Lilliana stills and then glances sidelong for her granddaughter, waiting until the little girl has quieted before asking, "What do you think?" The older mare whispers, "Approach with caution, or do we summon the gusts and gales to blow him back to the heavens?"
And if they did, if Lilliana could summon the wind like her forefathers, comes the creeping thought: Would I follow?
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?
Do you think she is a cousin to Capricorn? Have you heard about the sea goats? How did she earn her horns? 
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
