The faith Aquaria has her in still developing parenting abilities feels misplaced, like so many other things about her, but Lilliana just smiles. It seems impossible that there will come a time when she doesn’t feel so exhausted, when the days don’t stretch for hours and hours and the dark nights don’t hang long and looming.
(She always worries if she is doing right by them. It’s almost a paranoia with her, another festering thing that sits poisoning in the back of her mind.)
"Maybe,” she finally relents though the doubt lingers behind the word.
Her colts are occupied but it doesn’t mean she takes her eyes off them. They are fascinated and absorbed in the window that the Ischian mare has so kindly offered them. Nashua nearly knocks his brother into a wave, eagerly looking down. Yanhua gives him a brotherly shove back. The practiced smile she wears softens, edges with something wilder - something closer to Nerine’s stormy seas and proud cliffs. Lilliana’s real one - the true one that flickers in and out these days - is unmastered; a wild spark that still has the ability to burn.
Recognition of the name Oceane pulls her away from children and Lilliana feels the start of a frown. Oceane, the opalescent mare from Loess? Her sparring partner had been the one stolen? Worse, it had been her young son who had been stolen first. The chestnut mare feels an old companion, an awful fear, creep along the tired lines of her face. It’s an apparent one as she gazes at the two flaxen colts.
Life with them, when they had only been fluttering heartbeats and Kagerus had crafted them out of dreams, had seemed unimaginable.
Life without them? Impossible.
The red mare can’t offer much. What she can give is something similar to what she gave that day with Straia - a gentle press of her shoulder against Aquaria’s, a touch of reassurance against the doubt that was straining her voice. "Duty to home can be a hard lesson to learn when so young,” comes her quiet answer. It’s easy to imagine that her son - Cormorant - might feel angry for leaving what felt like the only home he had ever known. She had been. Her blue eyes linger on her two rambunctious boys, visibly torn.
"Cormorant will find where he belongs,” Lilliana says, attempting to comfort the fellow mother. There is something in her words that imply that it might not be Ischia, might not even be Beqanna where he finds it. It sounds like something that Aquaria, the more experienced mother, already knows that though.
It’s a lesson that Lilliana is still apparently learning.
She blinks, wishing she had even an ounce of Aquaria’s hardwon confidence. It’s easy to project and Lilli knows the comparison is made often enough. Calm, collected, composed. The firebrand part of her soul longs to rage, wants to rail, and beat against the facade. It’s a question she asks herself enough times and she finds herself sharing it with the nereid, "And for your sons? You don’t think they’d benefit from having their father in their lives?” She turns her head to look at the champagne mare, studying her because she doesn’t know the answer to it herself. How does somebody else possibly answer that?
Lilliana catches herself, quieting her voice. "I'm sorry... if that was too personal,” she adds. "I just,” she pauses, apprehensively watching the shadowed outline of Beqanna beyond them. "I want so much for them,” her voice finally breaks. "I want the world for them and then some,” that practiced grin comes back, the one learned from years of diplomacy and hiding away all those stolen parts of herself.
It looks far too brittle on her face. Something prone to breaking.
Kagerus had told her that her best would always be enough but the way she watches them, with a look that kindles hope and doubt alike, give away her fear: that she will never be enough for them.
"You are so strong, @[Aquaria].” She swallows her fears back down, blinks away the shimmer that catches on the Ischia sunlight in her blue eyes. Lilliana has said this once before but the Handmaiden deserves to hear it again and again. "Ischia is fortunate to have you. And your boys.” Lilli - not Lilliana - reaches out towards her as Aquaria grazes her shoulder. "Thank you,” she murmurs.
(She always worries if she is doing right by them. It’s almost a paranoia with her, another festering thing that sits poisoning in the back of her mind.)
"Maybe,” she finally relents though the doubt lingers behind the word.
Her colts are occupied but it doesn’t mean she takes her eyes off them. They are fascinated and absorbed in the window that the Ischian mare has so kindly offered them. Nashua nearly knocks his brother into a wave, eagerly looking down. Yanhua gives him a brotherly shove back. The practiced smile she wears softens, edges with something wilder - something closer to Nerine’s stormy seas and proud cliffs. Lilliana’s real one - the true one that flickers in and out these days - is unmastered; a wild spark that still has the ability to burn.
Recognition of the name Oceane pulls her away from children and Lilliana feels the start of a frown. Oceane, the opalescent mare from Loess? Her sparring partner had been the one stolen? Worse, it had been her young son who had been stolen first. The chestnut mare feels an old companion, an awful fear, creep along the tired lines of her face. It’s an apparent one as she gazes at the two flaxen colts.
Life with them, when they had only been fluttering heartbeats and Kagerus had crafted them out of dreams, had seemed unimaginable.
Life without them? Impossible.
The red mare can’t offer much. What she can give is something similar to what she gave that day with Straia - a gentle press of her shoulder against Aquaria’s, a touch of reassurance against the doubt that was straining her voice. "Duty to home can be a hard lesson to learn when so young,” comes her quiet answer. It’s easy to imagine that her son - Cormorant - might feel angry for leaving what felt like the only home he had ever known. She had been. Her blue eyes linger on her two rambunctious boys, visibly torn.
"Cormorant will find where he belongs,” Lilliana says, attempting to comfort the fellow mother. There is something in her words that imply that it might not be Ischia, might not even be Beqanna where he finds it. It sounds like something that Aquaria, the more experienced mother, already knows that though.
It’s a lesson that Lilliana is still apparently learning.
She blinks, wishing she had even an ounce of Aquaria’s hardwon confidence. It’s easy to project and Lilli knows the comparison is made often enough. Calm, collected, composed. The firebrand part of her soul longs to rage, wants to rail, and beat against the facade. It’s a question she asks herself enough times and she finds herself sharing it with the nereid, "And for your sons? You don’t think they’d benefit from having their father in their lives?” She turns her head to look at the champagne mare, studying her because she doesn’t know the answer to it herself. How does somebody else possibly answer that?
Lilliana catches herself, quieting her voice. "I'm sorry... if that was too personal,” she adds. "I just,” she pauses, apprehensively watching the shadowed outline of Beqanna beyond them. "I want so much for them,” her voice finally breaks. "I want the world for them and then some,” that practiced grin comes back, the one learned from years of diplomacy and hiding away all those stolen parts of herself.
It looks far too brittle on her face. Something prone to breaking.
Kagerus had told her that her best would always be enough but the way she watches them, with a look that kindles hope and doubt alike, give away her fear: that she will never be enough for them.
"You are so strong, @[Aquaria].” She swallows her fears back down, blinks away the shimmer that catches on the Ischia sunlight in her blue eyes. Lilliana has said this once before but the Handmaiden deserves to hear it again and again. "Ischia is fortunate to have you. And your boys.” Lilli - not Lilliana - reaches out towards her as Aquaria grazes her shoulder. "Thank you,” she murmurs.
LILLIANA
all that i'm after is a life full of laughter
(as long as i'm laughing with you)
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind