Oh, the grief.
She hears Brazen's and it hitches in the back of her throat. Lilliana catches it (she is so careful with her emotions these days) before it can escape. 'I know', her friend says and like so many things with Lilli, she can't help herself. The copper mare pulls the embrace a little deeper, holds Brazen a little tighter despite the bones that dig into her skin. Brazen's protection hurts her. The jagged edges of her bone make the chestnut mare acutely aware of her pulse, of the distant echo of a heartbeat from deep within her chest. For a moment, she is grateful for the pain. The emotion feels genuine - a shred of something sharp and real when the past months have just been a haze of shadow, a dull blur of a life that just floats by.
Just another ghost lost in the Taigan fog.
She feels the edge of her cheek pressing against the bone of Brazen and she doesn't care. Lilliana knows she is standing at the precipice again, continuing to ignore a rift in her soul because she doesn't know what to do with the darkness and the crevices. They've always been there - life leaves nothing unscathed. It has jagged claws at times. Sharp edges, things that she always tried to soften (because if not her then who? if she didn't then who would?), have been scarring Lilli long before her days in Beqanna. She keeps trying, trying to turn that proverbial corner in her soul and find her way out of the ways she has tangled it.
And then life likes to offer her another curve.
Another challenge that dares the firestarter in her soul and the dreamer stokes it to life because she can't help it. This could be a whole new way of shining, could shed a whole new light on something waiting to be found.
"I wish it wasn't that way for you, Brazen." Lilliana feels the Nerinian withdraw and so she loosens her grip. The chestnut mare blinks and steps back, adjusting herself to the sudden chill that comes between them. "You deserve so much more." It's there - a wistful smile that comes because who is Lilliana without it? It is so often there that to be without it leaves her feeling naked, as exposed to the elements as a lonely crag on these shores. It's the smile that marks her as a fighter in her own way, that tries to defeat the heaviness that drapes itself around them. Lilliana refuses to give in to the full weight of it.
"It'd be nice to be stuck with you," she states. "Nev might tell you otherwise but she's stuck with me too." And there are others - she realizes. Aten and his family. Ruth. Tyr. Smidgen. Kagerus. Not traditional or bound by blood. But perhaps, she thinks, it makes the bond all the deeper because it was made by choice. The knowledge is something steady against the volatile storm she battles against, something that leaves her feeling so sensitive as she stands there with Brazen.
"I don't know how anything works," she teases as Lilliana feels the steadying swell of companionship building between them. "I'll try to figure it out with you though," the chestnut clings to the lightness that Brazen tries to bring. The smile brightens in response to it and Lilliana desperately wishes to give Brazen the illumination she seeks.
When the knot in her chest starts to loosen, Lilli finally decides to ask: "How did you do that? Before.. with your family? How do you bring visions to life?"
@[Brazen]
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind