must have been the wind; leilan

[lilliana]

There is a momentary pause where Lilliana regards Leilan, where she watches him carefully as he laughs. 

There is something to learn here, she thinks. Something more than what she is seeing - like so many things in Beqanna and all its magic. It seems like an endless thing that comes from the Mountain, so much that it pours over and into the inhabitants of this land. Nobody, she has learned, is ever quite as they seem. 

So she studies Leilan with that knowledge.

She is about to ask him who his niece is. The question is poised on her tongue, ready to be breathed into the winter air as silver smoke. His grin is an inviting one, ready to share something with her and Lilli can feel herself becoming more curious with each quiet breath. Her blue eyes widen as they watch his eyes change: the way that they go from brilliant blue to a fiery orange and back again. There is an exhale, a soft version of her laughter as her inquisitive mind ponders over all those shades he has shown her. Whatever he is, tree-herding seems to be something that he could easily master.

She could ask, she thinks. She could ask what he is but then she decides against it. Magic was in their world for a reason. To give it a name, to call it something, seemed to take away from it somehow. Let Leilan keep his wonder.

And then he reveals another secret. Heartfire is his niece. The Khaleesi, the Queen of the North, is his family. What a tangled web Beqanna is and Lilliana is only beginning to understand the threads that are being woven over her crimson head. Perhaps she still doesn't understand all the implications and ways that fates are being woven around her.

"Do sheep do well on Nerinian cliffs?" she teases back, choosing to ignore all the ways that lives can become intertwined. "But I imagine you are right. I doubt that Heartfire would lose count of her flock."

@[Leilan]

[Leilan]

You’re uncontrollable
and we are unlovable

For such a curious mare - curious in the way that she seems different from most, but equally curious in the way she keeps asking, not with words alone but with her eyes as well - for such a curious mare, she is remarkably good at pretending she is not. A pretender trying not to ask the questions she really wants to; all for diplomacy and pleasantness - things he could care less about. He’d have told her if she asked, but he doubts that she ever will. Oh, the irony.

In fact, he’s not prone to keep literally anything from anyone - it’s just that no-one cares or dares to ask these days. Whichever one it is, he doesn’t know, and has since stopped being bothered by. So to make up for the lack of questions, he almost carelessly says just this and that, as if he doesn’t mind who does or doesn’t know how deeply Beqanna, and with it the Jungle, the Amazons, Nerine, his family, are rooted deep within. Of course he does mind, a little - he minds his words sometimes more than others; oftentimes less than others expect. Diplomacy comes in many forms. In his case, it is a decidedly hidden one.

And perhaps they’re more alike than he initially suspected. Outgoing, noisy and nosy he may be, yet Leilan avoids the topic of close family and friends as easily as Lilliana ‘forgets’ to talk about Elaina any more. Pretenders in their own right, the two resort to light-hearted jokes. He recognizes it and decides to let her have her moment of joy and calm, in a world full of dangerous storms and predators alike.

The metaphor she uses on the Nerinians isn’t quite fitting though, and he chuckles low at the idea. ”The only sheep doing well out there are wolves in disguise.” he shakes his head, glancing directly north. ”You’re right though. Nothing eludes her.” Most certainly she will learn of this meeting one way or the other, but that’s the beauty of it. He doesn’t have to meet with her to know she keeps tab on everything and everyone. ”I’m more than certain she knows exactly everything that happens to her family and her subjects. If you want her to, just ask her to look out for Elaina.” There is an unspoken but recognizable amount of trust in her abilities, in the way he says it. It’s likely Heartfire would ask for something in return, but she knows how to keep a secret.

That conversation however, is something too close and personal for the moment. Although the male loves prodding and prying, he knows when it’s going to hurt and when it’s relatively safe to do so. A change of subject is in order, and so he glances from her to the trees. ”So may I ask what keeps you busy here in Taiga? The trees themselves aren’t much of an entertainment.” Close to adding believe me, I tried, his eyes sparkle green-ish towards the chestnut mare. Aten and Lepis are both very serious people, as far as he knows them. It’s kind of funny how Lilli has much more of a Nerinian vibe, he thinks.

and I don’t want you to think that I care
I never would, I never could again

Leilan

no. 7 | ice forged in fire

@[lilliana]
-rambles on-

[lilliana]

She is curious.

Many questions cross Lilliana's mind as she looks up to the draconic stallion. There are questions she could ask and yet she doesn't - her past shows itself clearly in the way that it prevents her from doing so. The part of her that is so eager for knowledge, that so badly wants to know about this land and its magic and all those things she has yet to learn, stands armed with her questions like a sword ready to dispatched from its scabbard.

And yet Lilliana doesn't ask.

The questions die like embers on a fire that is slowly losing kindling.
So the two stand at a crossroad; Leilan who would speak his secrets plainly and Lilliana who won't bring herself to ask because she has never known things to be so simple. Instead, they allow themselves to fall into the banter of those who live with empty spaces. There are holes, it seems, in both their lives and the things they do not say speak far louder than any joke they might share. (All it takes is the right pair of ears to listen and it seems that Leilan knows this.) A life full of laughter, some might think, but what is the laughter hiding? How big are the spaces that the laughter is trying to fill?

Lilliana doesn't know about the voids in Leilan's life - what his holes are and how they hurt him. She doesn't know if he runs or hides or buries like her but there is an unspoken conversation here. Words that are being said beneath the teasing, a knowing that surfaces from below their repartee. Perhaps she should ask, perhaps there is something that she should do to acknowledge but Lilliana lacks the social graces to know how to do such a thing.

In that way, she still much the same green girl she has always been.

His low chuckle does give her pause though, an indication that she wonders at what to say or how to say it. Diplomacy, for her, seems to be a work in progress. There is a slight arch to her neck and that curiosity sparks again behind her blue eyes, a pause at the edges of the smile she wears. Another cryptic message about Heartfire (and Lilli has heard plenty lately) and the crimson mare is about to ask aloud, to finally give life to all those things she has heard about the Nerinian queen.

Nothing eludes Heartfire.
Heartfire threatened Lepis.
In Nerine, Neverwhere can see.
Heartfire would have shown her all the best places that Taiga has to offer.

It is all such a tangled, twisted web and yet Leilan dangles Elaina in the midst of it. That's all it takes - those blue eyes sharpen with rapt attention and all those empty places in Lilli's soul suddenly hold the stallion with her keen stare. Whatever doubts she had, whatever fears she harbored, Leilan utters the word that has caused Lilliana to contemplate far worse when it comes to her golden cousin. There are worse things she has considered than what she thinks of asking Heartfire and a price never crosses her mind. If there is one, well, Lilliana had almost betrayed her brother when it came to Elaina. 

She might have done so if the Fates hadn't twisted themselves in the ways that they had.

"She could do that?" she asks as if the trees themselves could hear her thoughts. Could see the plan that starts to form in the quiet of her mind. Hope softens the expression on her face because it is all that Lilli can do on this edge of ruin that she has been dancing on lately, "Do you think she would?"

Elaina is part of the essence of the words she never says. 
About a life that should have been and never would be. A part of the life that she mourns in darkness even if she never sheds daylight on. 

And like Leilan, she realizes how close they venture on a ledge of personal feelings, of things absent and things they both would rather not remember. Things she could ask him but a gut instinct prevents her from doing so. Lilliana answers his next question with a roll of her slender shoulders, a pretender in her own right. "Well, there are the squirrels," she says with a slow drawl and a wry grin. "And I attempt this," she motions towards him with an incline of her head, "Diplomacy and the like."

A gesture that she is still very much an amateur at this game.

"What about you? Is surprising lost souls a hobby of yours?"

@[Leilan] ramble away

[Leilan]

You’re uncontrollable
and we are unlovable

On the topic of holes and emptinesses, Leilan feels like a Swiss cheese; more air than sustenance, more hole than whole. He oftentimes thinks that that is the fate of the immortal; then again, counting back the years, he is not older than 15, except to those who count the strange years in which he lived Beyond not as 3,5 years but as… what had it been? 25? Decades at least… at any rate, for him not much time had passed, and he decided 15 or perhaps 16 would top it.

So then what causes all this drama? Why couldn’t he peacefully live forever with his wife, like Shah and Ilka?

He knows the answer is his own nature: his draw towards adventures, to forbidden fruits, his incapability to hold his tongue when causing another to be only annoyed more is just too good an opportunity to let go. But one can speculate if perhaps there is some curse on him, say it’s an outside source. Why are so obsessed with me, drama?

At the crossroads then, where one Swiss cheese meets another, they hide inside the bushes to the side to the road, hoping not to be spotted, hoping not to be melted down or grated over some delicious meal.

They hide between words: prickly jokes and juicy secrets are their game, and the story of the salty sheep continues between cheese and thorns and berries.

The scaled roan shakes his crest a little. ”Not for just anyone, of course.” He tilts his head at her. Do with that what you will, he seems to tell her. ”But you shouldn’t be negotiating with me, I think.”

And so, he closes the topic, feeling that he’d already shared plenty information about his roan niece, and that it should be enough now. Murmurs and gossip wouldn’t bring Lilliana to her goal; actually verifying the rumours, just might.

The cheeses dance around the bushes some more; carefully avoiding sight in hopes of not getting stuck on the thorns they’ve thrown up between themselves and the world. ”Squirrels, hmm? Any one of them interesting in particular? I hear some can have a mean bite, but others might be sweet.”

Her question about his own hobbies make him laugh. Of course. ”I’d say so. There’s also freezing butts, irritating certain diplomats and kings alike, and scaring little children.” He chuckles, reminded of a conversation with Kensa not long ago. ”Hoarding gold and kidnapping pretty maidens. Eating the least profitable ones.” He shakes his head as he says it, but can’t help stop the stupid grin on his face. ”You know. The usual.”

and I don’t want you to think that I care
I never would, I never could again

Leilan

no. 7 | ice forged in fire

@[lilliana]

[lilliana]

There are the obvious things about Leilan that draw the eyes - his frosted scales, sharpened teeth, that intriguing gaze that changes colors. And then there are the less obvious things, these messages he conveys without saying them out loud. He brings news of one life-changing moment that alters her path and somehow in the same conversation, he offers another way forward. He points her in a direction she would have never considered. 

(For all that he is ice, he ignites a spark of imagination.)

There is an inquisitive tilt to her head as she peers up at him from beneath her copper forelock and her blue eyes brighten with curiosity again. That inquisitive tilt is held in place with all these unsaid things, to the in-between places that they do not go. Leilan shakes his head and regards her again before his answer sends a ripple of disappointment through her. It makes sense, of course, his answer. Where something is given, something else has to be taken. She knows this - it has been told to her several times. She has been reminded that no matter how much she gives, she will eventually take in return. 

(Or maybe someone takes for her. Who knows how the universe works, she won't give any pretense that she understands any of it.)

There is forced exhale of air, a huff that emerges in plumes of silver smoke between her and the draconic stallion. "Any advice then? On how to be a somebody to Heartfire?" Heartfire, who remains as much as a figment of her mind like Windskeep or Ichiro was, who gives sight to the unseeing. Who threatens and sees and knows. Magic was proving to be rather infuriating in the ways that it did or did not manifest. Of the horses who could wield and how they chose too. 

Leilan closes that part of the conversation with another one of those knowing looks - where he tells her something without actually saying it. 

And then the conversation moves again, backs to the familiar that they both know. A conversation where nothing is given and nothing is being asked. For someone like Lilliana, it is a beautiful thing and relief softens the angles of her face. Her expression had begun to turn to exasperation and the chestnut had started to turn fire-eyed. 

But Leilan has offered a reprieve and the chestnut throws him a mischevious smile, a gleam of white emerging from her dark maw. "The succulent ones are hard to find this time of year. I'm afraid the current population is rather scrawny." The smile curves as she tilts her head, "Are you any good at squirrel herding?"

He laughs at her questions and she's glad he indulges her. For all her earlier hesitance with him, she is glad to discover they share a similar sense of humor. He serves as a reminder that first impressions aren't everything and that there is always so much more than what meets the eye. The roan stallion grins and Lilliana laughs, unable to help herself. She had tried to keep a straight face to his description of "usual" but she finds it impossible. 

"And has this winter been a profitable one in terms of gold? Or just eating the least profitable of your endeavors?" Lilli shakes her head and playfully raises her brows, "You? Scare children? Irritating others? I find that hard to believe."

@[Leilan]

[Leilan]

You’re uncontrollable
and we are unlovable

For all that he is ice, it is a shell, an outside, a portrait - something that keeps the world at bay as much as his joking mannerism, as much as when he doesn’t ever fully let anyone in. He’d made the mistake of making an exception or two, once, and it had cost him.

But he’s not fully frozen, not by a long shot. He knows that now. He’s been given so many chances to discover it, it may be ridiculous that he’d only now found out - but no, it’s not that. Deep down he always knew, he just never showed anyone else. Because softies get the short sticks, and showing any sort of weakness to the wrong person can mean death in Beqanna.

It’s not just Beqanna though - in fact the fairy-ruled land is far kinder than most places, where magic runs freely - those with power gaining more and getting consumed by it, those without crumbled beneath their hooves. That’s the same everywhere. The Beqanna fae however provide a balance, by sending horses on quests like his.

To give without asking in return, at least not from them. It’s a skill he knows he possesses, he just never had truly bothered with it. Or, at least not for a long while.

Heartfire though, has no reason not to ask - not when she can gain something she needs in return. When Lilliana, in all her hidden disappointment, asks his advice, he smirks a little. ”I don’t think she minds when she gets her returned favor.” Lilliana might think she has nothing to offer now, but perhaps in the future - however long it may take; Heartfire is a patient immortal - she might be able to secure an alliance, a stronghold for the Nerinian kingdom, in some twenty years through Lilli’s help. Who knows. ”Perhaps she has something to ask of you now, though. You’ll only find out by asking.”

Of course, the chestnut would already know this, but it seems she wanted confirmation, and he’s happy to oblige. Still, the matter had better be settled by now - and the squirrel conversation proves a rightful distraction. ”Herding? Oh, no. I hunt them. But not the scrawny ones, I suppose.”

He shakes his crest, thinking that the squirrel population probably wouldn’t ever expand to Icicle Isle at any rate. The conversation doesn’t allow for daydreaming though, a quick jab from Lilliana returned to him easily. He answers with a half-truth. ”I’ve had to delve into my stock this year,” he admits. Then, he shakes his head. ”I don’t blame you for not believing me. Nobody wants to.” he grins a little; his playful mannerisms were on display now, but not everybody actually got to that stage. In fact, she had only to ask her Comtesse about him - but somehow he figured she wouldn’t.

and I don’t want you to think that I care
I never would, I never could again

Leilan

no. 7 | ice forged in fire

@[lilliana]

[lilliana]

She stares out into the silent winter wood letting the snow fall quietly around them. It drifts down in a graceful dance as they twirl and settle on the copper of her mane, on her red withers, on the discouraged planes of her face. Lilliana looks out past all those trees and wishes an answer would present itself somewhere. There is only the accumulating snow, only a brisk breeze that blows past them, only with what feels like the silence and the weight of the Taiga pressing against her. 

The copper mare only finds shades of gray. Her disappointment is returned by the pallor of the wintry landscape around them. A world waiting and she has never been good with patience (at least where she and those she cares for are concerned).

"Well," she states with a wry grin that emerges from silver smoke as she looks back to Leilan, "I foresee a trip to Nerine in my future." A shiver runs down her spine from the winter wind and Lilliana has a moment where the grin stills, wondering how the inhabitants of Icicle Isle manage on their island. "I wish you luck on the Isle," she says with another shudder of her copper pelt. "I'll send thoughts of Ischia your way."

She follows the conversation to squirrels and returns his comment with an easy smile. If allowed, Lilli could linger here all day. (Talking in circles, going round and round like their carousel counterparts.) The red woman hasn't quite figured out how to use this to her advantage yet - enough of the green girl still remains that she hasn't yet realized that deflecting and half-truths might be useful in the future for a political career. Lilliana cranes her head, mock seriousness creasing along the lines of her face as she studies Leilan's roan barrel. Leaner perhaps, given the season, but it would seem that his endeavors sustain him well enough."I doubt you've had to do much squirrel hunting." This comes out with a teasing flourish and the smile returns as she regains a comfortable posture. "It seems crime pays well."

The dragon stallion grins and Lilliana only shakes her head. He's playing with her and the amusement sparks behind her eyes when she looks back up at him. "It's easy to believe in something," she counters dryly. "It's only when your left at a ledge that you have to hope its strong enough to keep you from plummeting." Elaina had kept her from the ledge, she realizes. A lump forms in the back of her throat and the impossible weight of that earlier rockslide threatens to entomb her. 

The Diplomat softens then, wanting to steer the conversation clear of edges and falling. "Are you sure there is nothing I can do for you? I can't imagine the trip out to Icicle Isle is an easy one."

@[Leilan] i'm not really sure what this is but he's made a friend if he'd like one

[Leilan]

You’re uncontrollable
and we are unlovable

Lilliana - such a sweetling. She ends their discussion on Nerine with saying she’ll have to go there soon, and he doesn’t bother with keeping the topic alive. When she shudders in a winter breeze and wishes him warmth on the Isle, he laughs and shakes his head: ”No thank you. Ice is my element, and I’d rather not melt down.” he grins and moves his tail a little, still completely relaxed in the northern winds that seem to slowly take their toll on the chestnut mare from the redwoods.

She assesses his physique, something he never minds - if anything, it’s a compliment in a way, and he craves and gathers those where he can - ”Oh, but you know it does.” he tells her, offering her another grin. She hasn’t told him anything about her personal life, which usually means it’s either shady or traumatic, and so he doesn’t ask. But he thinks she’s learned this little thing - crime can pay - before, whatever her past. Perhaps it’s the age and sadness of her eyes, but he wouldn’t want to assess it that far.

She talks about ledges furthermore - in a way that indicates she’s on a line or has been on one recently. He tilts his head at that, shaking his head at her question if he needs anything. ”Easy enough when cold is nothing and scales slide through water.” he dismisses. ”But do me a favour and stay away from any ledges. I’d rather spend another day with you than see you lose it.” He winks a little, then shakes his mane to rearrange them after being blown through by the wind. Then, he looks her over. She’s tougher than she looks and, more importantly, than she believes, he thinks. ”You should come see the Northern Lights sometime. Autumn and spring are the best seasons for it.” he smiles a little, then turns to leave.

Time to go home.

and I don’t want you to think that I care
I never would, I never could again

Leilan

no. 7 | ice forged in fire

@[lilliana] so basically it’s an invite to visit and come see him if the world gets too tough on her ;)