"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
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
It had taken her a long time (days) to drag her bruised and broken body to the volcanic kingdom of Tephra from the Forest. The feathers of her broken wings were crusted with dirt and debris from dragging behind her the entire time. The pain never truly subsided, a constant throb where the tentacle had snapped ulna and radius, and anytime she tried to adjust them she could feel the air rushing out of her as she gasped through the fiery pain. She sleeps as best as she can when the fireworks in her bones allows. She barely eats, finding no appetite where her anger has settled permanently in her stomach.
Her eyes had not changed back to normal nor had her stars.
She was still a ravaged angry thing by the time she finally made it to the border and her temper had not cooled even when she finally found the healing waterfall that she had heard about. This had been in the Falls once, she thinks, but she can’t tell if it’s an actual memory or one of her hazy pain dreams. She’s not sure how exactly this is suppose to work, if the waters just magically healed or someone from Tephra had to be present. She is too tired, too bruised and broken, to wait. Slowly she eases herself into the cool waters from the riverbank, gritting her teeth as she tries to breathe through the explosion of pain that follows as her wings become submerged beneath the surface.
She stands there quietly for awhile, unsure if it’s working but at least enjoying the feeling of dirt, blood, and debris working itself from her coat with the help of turbulence from the crashing waterfall before her. Her gaze is slightly hollow when she finally turns her dark head towards the sound of another approaching. She says nothing, simply gazes at them with her bloody stars twinkling around her and angry shadows dancing in her starlit eyes.
08-30-2021, 09:37 PM (This post was last modified: 08-30-2021, 09:40 PM by lilliana.)
WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES /
It had been accident coming across Wherewolf.
She had spent weeks searching for his mother - Neverwhere - alongside the River and had even spread her search out to the other Common Lands, to the Meadow and the Field. But there was no trace of her bald-faced friend, and as the cooling breezes of autumn began to blow across Beqanna, Lilliana grew more anxious to find the former Nerinian. Once winter set in, her search would to halt until the coming spring.
But she had found the son of her oldest friend in Beqanna, and the gold-dappled pegasus had suggested Tephra or her islands. (Neverwhere wouldn't have returned to the place she had died, they had both agreed on that.) Broch - either having returned to his wandering ways or having decided it was better that he remained a memory - hadn't returned to their shared grove in days. And Lilli in her search couldn't wait for another ghost from her past.
It was something that had changed in her, after dying.
No more waiting. Not for anyone, not for anything.
As life waited for no one.
It is dark by the time she reaches the Tephran border, and the bruised shades of dusk streak across the deepening sky. Lilliana waits with the overbearing Taigan trees behind her, reminding the chestnut that Neverwhere isn't the only horse she needs to find. There are her children, and Brazen as well. She glances back, studying the familiar treeline as she waits, and waits, and waits.
As the forest shadows lengthen and finally disappear underneath the veil of darkness, Lilliana knows something is wrong. Warden or Wishbone should have approached hours ago. But as the slender chestnut weaves through the tropical plants, underneath ferns and through jungle fauna, she finds neither of the Tephran siblings. She resumes her searching, looking for three friends instead of just one and worries more about how the world has changed since her death.
A familiar orb of light emerges, beaming down on the nearly-silent mare.
Leonidas, she thinks brightly through their shared bond and the star hovers downward, lighting the Tephran trail that she had been following. She laughed out loud, happy to see the sight of her bonded but the mood of the reunion quickly shifted as the silver-blue ball of light began to flash, and urgently moving about her. Lilliana, you shouldn't be here. The star says, pulsating with light. Her obscure brow furrowed as she tilted her slender head towards Leonidas, What do you mean?
It isn't safe. It's a path you aren't meant to cross.
And then there are more of him - more of them - stars surrounding them both.
Lilliana - who hours earlier had been proud of herself for not flinching at Wherewolf's bristled mane or the haughty stare he gave - freezes. These stars are beautiful, as beautiful as the ones that she remembers that night in the Forest. But the man who had summoned them had also done everything he could to burn them down.
You need to leave, Leonidas pleads with her.
The star rises towards the trees, with his limited glow traveling towards the water edge where it reveals a shape. She takes a step back, but Leonidas stayed above the other horse to reveal a winged mare. Fear had made Lilliana's heart race, and though she wanted to run, she stayed as the glowing orb circled the other female. What Leonidas tells her shocks her (injured, the star solemnly thinks, trapped like Arawn), because though her companion is a star, it has been another lifetime since the former Taigan has come across another like her foalhood friend, Orani.
These stars surrounding them aren't here as a warning, then.
"Are you a startalker?" she asks over the lapping waves, suddenly thinking of the blue roan mare who had been a dear friend. Wondering if this mare was injured - a star made mortal - how they might help. Thinking of her brother and the Afterlife and all the ways that their lives were like constellations, connecting them together.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
How many more meaningless deaths? How much more of her blood, sweat, and tears would she have to shed before this was over? She had seen wars before, as a child before the Reckoning. In the other worlds she had traveled when the portal had sucked her from this land the first time. She does not doubt that’s where all this is headed. And for what? What was the point when there was only nothing at the end of it…waiting for them all. Even the Curse must go to that endless void in its various deaths before.
How does it keep coming back? Somewhere in that question lays the key to ending this long game she has somehow been forced to play. She knows it as surely as she knows each and every name to all the stars in the sky. But the answer always feels just out of reach, just on the periphery of what she can really see. And so she keeps trying to reach for it and becomes more and more frustrated.
Until she has that answer, the Curse will continue to bend and break her bones. He will continue to terrorize the only world she’s ever truly cared about, will continue to shatter the pieces of herself until she no longer knew who (or what) she was. She vaguely remembers all the lives she had watched before when she had hung high in the sky, the visions and memories that had been shown to her in the Underneath. Had she ever truly been a star or had that been a massive manipulated lie as well?
She doesn’t know anymore.
All she does know is that she hadn’t touched her connection to the heavens in months. She had no desire to when it all felt so pointless, since the Curse had muddied it with its dark hand. All she knows is that the friends that hover around her seem just as angry as she is as they glare their obvious rage through their soft blood-red hue that covers her like a crimson shawl.
Betrayed.
Brutalized.
Hopeless.
She can’t recall ever feeling this angry before. She had been furious with Amet and Castile all those many years ago when they had each grabbed a piece of her heart and pulled, fracturing it right at the middle. She had thought to break time itself when she had been snatched from her son. But that fury was nothing compared to the hurricane that swirls and spirals in her now.
For a moment she raises her head and simply stares, not really seeing what’s in front of her. The swirls of her silver eyes still spin so ferociously in her iris’s that they blend and glow in the dark. She can feel the water against her broken wings, against the shattered tailbones, against all the places where the Curse had inflicted his dark magic this time. She thinks she sees a bright star hovering above her own crimson ones and wonders blearily if this was just another nightmare. Maybe she had never left the Underneath after all.
And then there is a voice through the darkness and it sounds kind. Startalker, it asks her and her ears pin back against her disarrayed mane despite that kind voice because for someone who has never felt more disconnected from where they come from, it sounds like an insult. There is a long pause before she finally answers, her voice sharp from the mix of pain and anger that run rampant inside her scarred body. “Yes. No.” She flares her nostrils and turns her head down to the blurry black and reddish reflection she can barely make out in the murky water before her. “I don’t know anymore.”
She pauses again before she looks for that face in the dark. "I don't know if this is working." She finally says stupidly, too proud and too angry to truly ask for help properly, as she shrugs a shoulder and visibly flinches, pain coursing through the wing she hadn't meant to move.
WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES /
The stars and Lilliana have a long history.
She had been born beneath a twinkling blanket of them. They had been the only things that wrapped around her and her grieving mother when there should have been a whole family behind them. But instead of Paraiso, instead of her father and a multitude of aunts and uncles and cousins and other relations, it had only been her and her siblings. A few of those who had been left behind because they had been like Aletta: either carrying a child, too young like her other children, or simply too old to fight.
(There are memories that Lilliana holds of sneaking away from the willow where she and her brothers and sister were supposed to be safely sleeping. Memories where the copper filly would follow her mother to an open field where the only thing to do was bare yourself to the stars above. Lilliana had grown up listening to her mother rage and grieve, laugh and mourn in their silence. She remembers sneaking out once and being seen, remembers the way that her silver mother had once whispered into her dainty ears when she drew her close: "Look up, Lilli, and know you are so infinitely loved.")
Lilliana remembers Orani, a girl who had been one of her dearest friends during her childhood. She had been a child crafted out of her mother's dreams (a dreamwalker is what Beqanna would have called Keav) and conceived from the stardust of her Immortal father. They had laughed together, and it had been that celestial girl who had taught Lilliana how to dream.
It had been that girl who had taught Lilliana how to listen to the stars.
And then after meeting Wolfbane, Lilliana had given it all up. She stopped asking the heavens for guidance; stopped looking above for help. They were the ones who had remained silent while she had pleaded every prayer she knew, while she begged for some kind of sign.
They had been as silent as stars.
After the fight with Leilan, she had stopped dreaming completely. Had begged Orani (wherever she might have gone) to take them away because Lilliana didn't want to remember any of it. Nothing of the torment, nothing of the pain, but most of all, she had just wanted to be stripped of her wretched hope. The light in her that kept trying to stay lit, remind her that the darkness never stays. The light that had once hoped she might have been worthy of being loved.
Leonidas came soon after that. She had tried to hide him from the rest of her family, because what could she say? Her heritage had been rich with stories from the stars. But then there had been another night in Tephra - another dark period that came across Beqanna - and a strange stallion had flared his white, wide wings and Lilliana - tired of recoiling, tired of the anger, the pain and the sadness - had renounced them alongside Warden.
Then she had died, and learned that the stars had been the only way that her family knew of her. How Jay - a Mystic in another realm (alongside that old friend - Orani) had known to send a star to remind Lilliana that she had never been left behind. That she had never been truly alone.
I don't know, this startalker says and despite the way that her companion keeps warning her, Lilliana steps forward.
We can't leave her, she thinks to Leonidas and he hovers above, stilling his glow so that it offers enough light for them both to sea by. She says that she doesn't know, but her first answer had been yes, and in a land that has always seemed so stranger to Lilliana, this answer feels familiar. The water lapping around both their legs glows as the chestnut mare begins to share hers with the other, glancing over the obvious injuries that need healing. They will need a Tephran for this to work. Between the shining stars surrounding them and the way that the former Taigan begins to chase away the dark, somebody will come.
"Why don't we start with your name?" she asks gently, somewhere to start while they waited for help. "I'm Lilliana."
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Her exhaustion and pain keeps her still in the water as the chestnut mare begins to descend on her from the shadows. Her gaze is wary as the silver threads of her eyes begin to finally slow, revealing small pupils that had been hidden amongst the blur. The pool begins to glow around them as she comes closer and the heavily scarred mare snorts softly, uncertain. “It’s not working.” She says again but her voice is thick and she’s no longer sure if she’s talking about the waterfall. None of this is working. This fight with the Curse, this waiting for the final pin to drop, this quest to help others when she can barely help herself.
The movement of the water stirs against her oddly angled wings and she winces again, blowing out a sharp breath of pain. The mare asks for her name, introduces herself. She throws a glare at her as her jaw clenches. She doesn’t care about formalities, does she not see the bone protruding through her left wing? Does she not see how she cannot even move her tail, how she has been rendered and fractured on the whims of an evil that nobody can truly comprehend? That darkness begins stirring in that hollowed place within her as her blinding rage begins to flare.
“Ciri.” She finally spits at her through gritted teeth. Her red stars deepen in their hue as if fighting against the bright glow above them, upset at the reminder of what they had once been. “I’m Ciri.” She states again, turning her ire towards the stirring waters around them. “I don’t have time for this. I need to get back to the North.” She finally snaps, her irritation and impatience finally getting the best of her. “If you can’t help me then leave me be.”
WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES /
There is obvious pain written on the face of the winged mare, despite the way that the dark would hide it. Lilliana can't make out the clear lines of it on Ciri's face, but she can hear the way that the other mare exhales like she is still trying to hold everything within her together. Her bonded continues to warn her through her connection - that they need to go, that they need to leave (though for some reason, he can't reveal why; all Leonidas reveals to be wary of the dark).
Lilliana knows better than most to fear the Dark, and despite those lessons, she takes another cautious step towards the pegasus.
The stars surrounding them start to turn red, making Leonidas stand out amongst the fiery heavens that accompany Ciri. Reminding herself to focus on the injured horse nearby, to not tense at the memory of having them so close, the slender chestnut keeps talking despite the terse tone of the other. (And during this time, she sees the most obvious of Ciri's injuries. The odd angle of her broken wing. The way her weight favors one side more than the other.)
This would be so much easier if Lilliana still had her healing, but that gift was gone. Taken in a trade to save the Magician who had protected her sons. "It's nice to meet you, Ciri." The former Taigan tells her, continuing in the same soft voice. "I'd like to help you, if you let me." She tells her, and comes closer to the injured woman.
"You need a Tephran for this lake to work," Lilliana says, "but I was unable to find anybody on my way in. It's unlike Warden or Wishbone to absent...," she continues, failing to hide her concern for her friends. Ciri - who had most likely been standing here for hours in pain - had probably come to the same realization. That Tephra was empty, and those still here, were most likely hiding. (From what?) Leonidas comes down again, and hovers near the two mares, illuminating the injuries of the other one more clearly. The chestnut comes closer, angling her body alongside Ciri's and motioning that pegasus could drape her injured wing over her slim shoulder.
"Leonidas," she tilts her head up to the silver-blue star that lingers nearby, "says there is something wrong here and we need to leave." It's only now that her calm voice breaks slightly, giving way to a hint of Leonidas' urgency. "Please, let me help you."
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
The mare is kind. Too kind. Lilliana. That name seems to ring a bell somewhere but it’s only a faint ting hidden in the back of her pain riddled mind. The dark mare says nothing as the chestnut begins to explain how the falls work and she drops her gaze to her blurry red and black reflection, grimacing and closing her eyes against the wave of depression that follows. Behind her eyelids flickers the image of a white mare with large downy wings. “I need to get back to the Isle.” She says thickly, catching the thread of thought that for Tephra to be so quiet wasn’t normal.
She had been here once before, she realizes. Back when she had accompanied Amet in a kingdom tour on behalf of Hyaline. Hyaline. The Heart of Hyaline.. A place that had once saved her and destroyed her. The place where she had first found a sense of home, where the creature who continued to break her apart now ruled with a violent fist. The golden scaled stallion would be crushed, she thinks, to see what his Sanctuary had become. Deep in her heart she knows the wisteria no longer stands. She doesn’t need to set eyes on the burnt remains to know it’s gone.
She raises her tired head towards the sky, looking at the mix of red and the single pure one that dances among them. As if talking. Movement to her side pulls her attention and she snorts softly although she clenches her teeth together and gasps with a wince as she pulls the wing over the others shoulder. “Both are broken. My wings.” She finally manages after the pain subsides for a moment. “Who is Leonidas?” She asks with confusion before focusing on the more important question. That something was wrong.
There could only be one thing.
No. No. Surely he had not followed her here.
Or had he tracked her like the wounded animal she was?
“We need to go to the North. Right now.” She spits out, fighting through her exhaustion and despair towards the sudden urgency biting at her hocks. “Is there a path where it’s easier to not be seen?”
WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES /
Lilliana is unfailingly kind.
It has failed her before, and it will undoubtedly fail her again.
But it's such an integral part of her, the chestnut mare doesn't know who she would be without it. Who is she, if not kind? Who is she, if she isn't trying to give pieces of herself away to make somebody else whole?
She braces against the weight of the pegasus mare, stiffening only because of the mention of the Isle. Lilliana is aware of it. Kingdom seat of the North, home to one of her dear friends, Leilan. Ruled now by her son, Nashua, and the slender female feels a ripple of guilt flowing through her that she hasn't returned home. The search for Neverwhere had claimed almost all of her time and then finding Broch...
The thought of returning home lurches her forward.
Both wings are broken, and Lilliana decides that she will have to move with enough determination to spur the pair of them forward. It will have to work, because there is no other magic that she can give to the injured woman than to let her lean into her and the willpower to carry the weight of the other out of Tephra.
"Leonidas is like you," she tries to explain, pushing herself lightly against the other mare, mindful of where her copper body presses into her so it doesn't cause further harm. And then Lilliana corrects herself, "He's a star."
She doesn't know how else to explain him, because the rest of the tale seems so fantastic. He was a star, but one that was summoned from another place. And as glances up at the hovering orb, she realizes that he is the last real connection to her life before Beqanna. He was her last tie to Orani and Jacob, to Jay and Malachi.
It makes this bond all the more vital to the flame-marked mare.
Moving away from the lake, the former Guardian pushes them towards an obscure trail that had once taken her from Taiga to Tephra. One she had taken multiple times over the years of her friendship with the former King and Queen, and as they slip under jungle ferns and through the vines, it makes her all the more grateful for that friendship. She wouldn't have been able to move this easily or guide Ciri without that knowledge.
Leonidas has dimmed his glow, making sure not to attract attention to the pair.
"Do you know anything about what is wrong?" Lilliana finally asked when they started to approach the border of the territory she had once ruled. Fearing for Warden and Wishbone, finding herself afraid of something that a star refused to reveal.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
She had once been kind. She remembers this, somewhere beneath the swirl of anger and the electric magic sparking at the center of it. Life hadn’t been though. Life had been far from kind. It had been harsh and cold and vicious. It is hard to remember all the good things still worth living for when one is so far away from them. The star that guides them is one of them though, a reminder of the power that had laid dormant for months. “How is he like me?” She asks roughly, still confused to what she meant (not daring to believe that it was true).
It is hard to let this mare help guide her when her natural protective instincts tell her these roles should be reversed. Trying to distract herself from the pain, she subconsciously reaches into her chest and runs a thumb gently over the eye of the storm. A sharp shock jolts her from the inside and she stumbles. Well the Curse had certainly been clever this time. She is still unsure of what this magic was inside of her but she had a strong suspicion that it hadn’t always belonged to him. She’s not sure how she knows that but the white mare that had come with it seemed as good a place as any to start.
First she needed to get back home. To heal and take the lecture from Nashua that was sure to come if their last encounter was anything to base it on. To check on Leokadia, a pang of loneliness momentarily sweeping through the black clouds swirling at her core. Her thoughts become distracted when Lilliana speaks and draws her attention elsewhere. Back to what was going on around her, what they were fleeing from. “You don’t want to know.” She groans softly as her hoof catches on a well hidden root. She thinks the star above her is agreeing with the way it seems to glow a little brighter.
For awhile it seems she won’t say anymore and they continue under the cover of darkness out of the western kingdom. Then, quietly, when they pause for a moment to catch their breath. “I hope it’s not what I think it is but… “ She hesitates, looking at the crimson mare who had been helping her. “If he comes for us, you must run.” The look in her starlit eyes leaves no room for argument on the matter. “Leave me and don’t look back.”
09-12-2021, 10:20 PM (This post was last modified: 09-12-2021, 10:23 PM by lilliana.)
WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS / SOFT AND SMALL / BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND / HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES /
Lilliana - for the first time since she has died - looks up to the stars for guidance. Amidst the blood-red ones, the lone silver-blue orb hovers near his bonded and the slender chestnut flicks an ear towards Leonidas. "That's all he will tell me," she says quietly, with the hint of an apology softening her already gentle tone. The star comes descends again, coming nearer to the pegasus leaning against Lilli.
"He says you are like him, heaven-born." Her refined head turns towards Ciri and she regards her with careful blue eyes. Ciri stumbles - one of her hoofs tripping over a rock - and Lilli chides herself for not taking better care of the injured mare. She arches her neck, and engaging her hind end, she attempts to take on more of Ciri's ambling weight.
While she isn't tentative about bringing the dark pegasus to the North, what might have caused her injuries does bring her worry. This will be her first time back in Taiga since she had died, and her mind is already spinning with thoughts. About being reunited with her children. About seeing Brazen and Eurwen again.
If he comes for us, and Lilliana gives a defiant shake of her head.
"What do you think it is?" she asks Ciri instead and her mind thinks of all the monsters that she has known in her lifetimes: of Frostbane and the glittering malice that reflected out from his emerald eyes. Of Ostere and his shadows, of the way that they had tried to breach Paraiso. Of Underworld and his taunting, of how she had failed to protect Elena from him. Of how she had failed Elena again, when she had come to Beqanna.
She thinks of all those monsters, but one.
That one had burned and turned to ash. That one was nothing more than a memory. That one was not allowed to terrorize her in this life. But it had taught her something. They keep moving towards Taiga, through the shadows and weaving through Leonidas' dim light, but there is no mistaking the way that something on Lilliana's face hardens when she says, "I run from nothing."
