i dream in blue; finnus

[lilliana]

Her mother had been a wanderer.

While the tops of the world and the deepest valleys, the bluest oceans and densest forests had all beckoned to Aletta, it was her daughter who craved routine. There is no wanderlust in Lilli. She doesn’t need to see the entire world to know what she needs can found within the borders of Hyaline. The chestnut mare has been learning Taiga, weaving and winding through the redwoods to learn what she can, to find those secret places where the ordinary and extraordinary come together.

A doe and her fawn come regularly to her corner of the wood. She loves seeing the growth in the smaller creature as he becomes steady and strong on his leggy form. Lilli has another spot where she likes to linger, a place that when the sun finally finds its morning zenith, the forest floor becomes illuminated with light. It gives the otherwise seemingly empty and vast wood a lovely glow and highlights the beauty beneath the canopy: the vivid green of the ferns, the alluring tangle of mosses and greenery that hung from the towering trees and the flash of color from a bunch of azaleas, trilliums, and bleeding hearts.

It is in the silence of those moments, in the simple beauty of it that Lilli has started the journey of trying to rebuild. The crimson mare is coming to learn that there is no future without a past and while her past is.. while she so desperately wants to leave it behind her, to run as fast as she can so that it might not ever catch her, Lilli is coming to understand that each moment forward takes her further from Lilli of Beyond and towards Lilliana of Beqanna, whoever that might be. She hopes that the peace she and Elaina have longed for has finally arrived.

So while the daydreamer is not a wanderer, the autumn forest does call her today. The well-loved trail that takes her from Taiga to Hyaline takes her in the opposite direction today. Instead of turning for home, Lilli follows the river that flows from Hyaline towards the Forest. The deeper she goes, the more the allure of the trees invites her further. The sound of the trickling river hums in the background, easing her mind and the chestnut is distracted in her thoughts of the autumn foliage that blazes in all its glory. Winter would be returning soon but for today Lilli is just glad to admire what is here, what is in the present.

She is alone on this trail but the solitude isn’t surprising. The sun is still rising, light breaking through the trees and making the vivid hues of yellow, orange and red all the brighter – beautiful flames of autumn waving in the branches above. It distracts to her the point that the trail she thought she had been blazing turns has vanished and the mare finds herself aimless in the forest.  A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach reaffirms that the inevitable has finally happened. She is lost.

Not the first time, Lilliana thinks wryly. The chestnut mare tries to come back the way she came but the similar trees and their cover make it almost impossible for her to discern which way that was. While still beautiful, there is little variation in them when she is trying to remember which ones she has passed before. It all seems hopeless until-

A flash of gray beneath the trees brings a surge of relief. ”Hey!” she calls out to the unfamiliar form as she brings herself to a brisk trot, determined not to lose sight of the other horse. Lilli moves determinedly through the remaining trees and branches until she can see the grullo form is that of a stallion. When she is within a few yards of him, she slows and sends the morning exertion through her nostrils. Lilli finally stops and then offers an apologetic smile, hoping that she wasn’t interrupting his morning. ”I’m sorry to disturb you but I’m afraid I’m lost.” A rather embarrassing development in her day and she tries to shrug it off in a roll of her shoulders as her smile turns into something of rueful grin. ”I was hoping that you have a better sense of direction than I do.”

LILLIANA

i left home on account of snow
(it buried all the things i know)

@[Finnus]

[Finnus]

Looking at him now, you wouldn’t gues it, but there might have been a time where he had known kingdom life and the in’s and out’s of herd politics.  It had been practically centuries that he had been a part of that scheme.  Hierarchies, deadlines, missions, squabbles of various ranges - for example, something as trivial as ‘Hey, you can’t put your stick there, man.  It’s 60% outside of your kingdom territory.’ Followed by an “I can’t control where the sticks fall, Kevin.”  But that’s all theoretical, of course.  It’s not like that actually happened.  Although if it did, Kevin sounds like he was just jealous he hadn’t gotten that promotion.

Some people are just so full of hate, he thinks with a slow, haughtily dramatic shake of his head.

Again, all theoretical though.  Cannot implore that enough.

Kicking his walk into a lengthy trot, he picked his way around the gnarled pillars of the woods, disturbing mother nature’s smallest and noisiest (probably the angriest too at this point) as he swept past.  How thankful he was, that he didn’t have to be tied to one place, or one person anymore.  It was a freedom he hadn’t known he had been missing.

A sharp “Hey!” snatches him from his reverie, pulling him up short of the next turn in his anticipated path.  Turning back around, he waits for a lone mare to make her way through and catch up.  Quizzically, he watches her, spinning a singular ear as she tells him of the unfortunate turn of her morning.  “ ‘Fraid not,” he says, crafting a one-sided grin of his own in apology, “If I tried to give you any directions, we’d have a situation of the blind leading the blind here.”

“About the only thing I can tell you with certainty is that I’m told  this place is called,” he pauses dramatically, “the Forest.  Pretty mind-blowing, I know.”  And really he had the grumpy kid and the creepy kid to thank for that tidbit of knowledge.  Otherwise, he would’ve been left in the dark even about the obvious name for a cluster of trees.

“Seriously though, I don’t know where I’m going.  But I’d be happy to try to help you back on the right path.  I’m Finnus.”


@[Lilliana]