Of all the ways to wring her heart out, she never thought it would be around him.
It’s a pointless thing to wonder but sometimes her thoughts take her back there. Back to that first moment when she remembered looking at him, looking at Beqanna and thinking: this has been a mistake. When her self-loathing hits a particularly low point, she likes to wonder what would have happened if Elena stayed. Would the pair of them be in Hyaline, changing the world together like they always planned too?
What would have happened if she had just lived in the Common Lands - would the solitude have eventually eaten away at her soul like this has?
(She doesn’t even consider the day with Neverwhere; some ill-fated part of her knew by then that whatever this was had gone too far.)
Watching closely as Yanhua moves away from her, she knows it doesn’t matter. None of that matters, now. What does is where her eyes go, moving from her youngest to her eldest, trying not to betray how on edge she is. How even though Wolfbane is small, that he mimics what he might have been at the beginning, she knows it isn’t the truth.
He could shed this skin for a much more terrifying one.
Nashua’s normally bright gaze turns stormy, "Telling stories.”
Lilliana stiffens.
The flaxen colt swishes his tail, raising his head slightly at her reaction. It wasn’t one that he was expecting but nothing about this interaction has been ordinary. Yanhua doesn’t share the same expression, which is somewhat comforting, but his confused face goes from his mother back to his foal-Father. "She and Yan tell stories.”
Remembering parts of them, he happily elaborates with a rising grin. "There’s a man with a feather in his mane. And an owl. And a sky! The biggest one I’ve ever seen.” The pegasus colt lists off the things his mother has shown, the way she has used them to illustrate her stories. ”Sometimes when Yanhua and I play hide-and-seek, he shows me where he’s hiding while I look.”” A fallen log. The Three Guards at the northern border. They had been able to spread their game further out across the Taiga that way, a new way of remembering the trails and landmarks.
Nash looks to his brother, hoping that he might actually add something. That he might say something. Or if like he’s just described, show something. He’s waiting, his green eyes expectant on the lean copper build of his twin. The golden foal reaches out for one of his auburn feathers and that distracts him. Never one to leave a horse out, Nash returns the favor and playfully lips at one of the pale ones on Wolfbane’s wing.
Lilliana takes another step closer, wanting to close the distance between herself and Yanhua. He’s already gone a few steps ahead of her and the chestnut stops, agonizing over an explanation. Her eyes drop to her youngest boy before watching Nashua, "It’s-” nothing. She means to say. She means to tell him that it’s nothing. Apart from the few times that it has manifested (healing Brazen, Juice’s rage, the portal with Elena), it feels like a cheap parlor trick she has no control of.
It either consumes her or is radio static, much to the disappointment of her twins who have come to expect it during their nighttime stories.
So she chooses a memory. She has to be careful - one not too strong (though most memories he inhabits are just that) or one too weak, otherwise this won’t work. It still might not.
But she picks a safe memory (maybe he saw, maybe he already knows) of the night they were born. Enough that her heart swells recalling their newborn perfection, of how Yanhua had been the more careful one and had found his hooves first, of how Nash had brazenly toppled over several times before he could. Recalling their first moments softens her, easing through her apprehension that had been tight in her chest.
It’s only when she lets the memory go does she look up, watching the coltish Wolfbane]. Something touches at the edges of whatever it is she’s done - a flash that's there and then gone - a residue that gives her pause.
Nashua's baby teeth take a firm hold on a particularly lovely white feather, completely unaware and gives a playful tug.
Whatever passed between Lilliana and their youngest son stayed just that - between them.
It’s a pointless thing to wonder but sometimes her thoughts take her back there. Back to that first moment when she remembered looking at him, looking at Beqanna and thinking: this has been a mistake. When her self-loathing hits a particularly low point, she likes to wonder what would have happened if Elena stayed. Would the pair of them be in Hyaline, changing the world together like they always planned too?
What would have happened if she had just lived in the Common Lands - would the solitude have eventually eaten away at her soul like this has?
(She doesn’t even consider the day with Neverwhere; some ill-fated part of her knew by then that whatever this was had gone too far.)
Watching closely as Yanhua moves away from her, she knows it doesn’t matter. None of that matters, now. What does is where her eyes go, moving from her youngest to her eldest, trying not to betray how on edge she is. How even though Wolfbane is small, that he mimics what he might have been at the beginning, she knows it isn’t the truth.
He could shed this skin for a much more terrifying one.
Nashua’s normally bright gaze turns stormy, "Telling stories.”
Lilliana stiffens.
The flaxen colt swishes his tail, raising his head slightly at her reaction. It wasn’t one that he was expecting but nothing about this interaction has been ordinary. Yanhua doesn’t share the same expression, which is somewhat comforting, but his confused face goes from his mother back to his foal-Father. "She and Yan tell stories.”
Remembering parts of them, he happily elaborates with a rising grin. "There’s a man with a feather in his mane. And an owl. And a sky! The biggest one I’ve ever seen.” The pegasus colt lists off the things his mother has shown, the way she has used them to illustrate her stories. ”Sometimes when Yanhua and I play hide-and-seek, he shows me where he’s hiding while I look.”” A fallen log. The Three Guards at the northern border. They had been able to spread their game further out across the Taiga that way, a new way of remembering the trails and landmarks.
Nash looks to his brother, hoping that he might actually add something. That he might say something. Or if like he’s just described, show something. He’s waiting, his green eyes expectant on the lean copper build of his twin. The golden foal reaches out for one of his auburn feathers and that distracts him. Never one to leave a horse out, Nash returns the favor and playfully lips at one of the pale ones on Wolfbane’s wing.
Lilliana takes another step closer, wanting to close the distance between herself and Yanhua. He’s already gone a few steps ahead of her and the chestnut stops, agonizing over an explanation. Her eyes drop to her youngest boy before watching Nashua, "It’s-” nothing. She means to say. She means to tell him that it’s nothing. Apart from the few times that it has manifested (healing Brazen, Juice’s rage, the portal with Elena), it feels like a cheap parlor trick she has no control of.
It either consumes her or is radio static, much to the disappointment of her twins who have come to expect it during their nighttime stories.
So she chooses a memory. She has to be careful - one not too strong (though most memories he inhabits are just that) or one too weak, otherwise this won’t work. It still might not.
But she picks a safe memory (maybe he saw, maybe he already knows) of the night they were born. Enough that her heart swells recalling their newborn perfection, of how Yanhua had been the more careful one and had found his hooves first, of how Nash had brazenly toppled over several times before he could. Recalling their first moments softens her, easing through her apprehension that had been tight in her chest.
It’s only when she lets the memory go does she look up, watching the coltish Wolfbane]. Something touches at the edges of whatever it is she’s done - a flash that's there and then gone - a residue that gives her pause.
Nashua's baby teeth take a firm hold on a particularly lovely white feather, completely unaware and gives a playful tug.
Whatever passed between Lilliana and their youngest son stayed just that - between them.
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