She makes this trek often enough in the fading light of day.
Lilliana had tried to wait out the storm as long as she could in Taiga. But as the day went on and the winds did not die down, as the bite of the breeze chilled against her sleek chestnut hide and the damp settled down into her bones, she decided to simply go. She hides underneath her cover of cathedral trees for as long as she can - a copper silhouette that takes shelter in a small copse of still maturing Redwoods.
When the rain finally relents from a torrential downpour to a steady drizzle, she decides to go. If she leaves now while the sky still has varying shades of light breaking through the clouds then there is the chance she will make Nerine by nightfall and she won’t have to stumble in the dark. (There is even less of a chance for her to trip over a haphazardly-placed rock or small boulder while there is still light. She very rarely gets lost in the North these days but Lilliana isn’t one to tempt fate in that particular direction either.)
Her mind is primarily focused on two faces - two mares in Nerine who have started to make the nucleus of her world as it takes shape again - and as she rounds the corner of a rather impressive granite boulder (gray upon gray on this cold, rainy day in Nerine), the face that comes before her is one that makes her step back. Whatever peace of mind that Lilliana has known is gone (good) and there is a storm building behind her blue eyes as she takes in the former Comtesse.
Like Lepis, she has considered this moment time and time again. What she would do. What she would say. As always, she comes up empty. Empty of explanations. Empty of reasons. She has nothing to offer Lepis other than her own hurt and confusion. It's a prison of her own making and to share it.. to share it, she thinks, would only inflict more pain. It's precisely the reason why she has avoided her.
”Lepis-,” she starts. The words are there, ready to be spoken (what can you say, Lilli?) but before she can even say what she intends, the dun pegasus is already speaking. Something about the way she implies at her surprise seeing the Taigan mare in Nerine bristles down her spine and stiffens it but Lilliana quells her fire; her temper has already scorched enough. Lepis is not the one deserving of that, even when she throws another well-deserved barb her way.
”What are you doing in Nerine?” Lilliana asks. And like she wasn’t a girl born outside Beqanna’s borders, like she had any right to tell a skilled politician (and twice Queen) like Lepis anything at all, she does. ”You shouldn’t be here.”
LILLIANA
and i was in love with all the things i believed i was
@[Lepis]