[private] sunrise never waits

[lilliana]

Stop.

She hears the command - it cuts clear through the winter wind and resonates in her mind instead of the ears that immediately pin. Her back had been turned and her eyes had been towards evergreen Taiga. Even as far along in her pregnancy as she is, it doesn’t take the chestnut mare long to pivot and turn.

The Magic that touches her mind feels different from the one that Draco has used; it doesn’t feel like something unseen, waiting for her to say the wrong thing. It doesn’t feel like a darkness that is hovering in the back of her mind, waiting to snatch a word. When she turns away from the gray sea and lonely sky, there isn’t anyone there.

Just a thought.

Her ears flicker forward and then back, moving forwards and ahead. Lilliana had heard something. One of those winter breezes reveals she isn’t alone. It whips down the beach, over the obsidian pebbles and past her. She isn’t alone and the chestnut mare takes a careful step back and another. One more until the seaspray flirts with one her pale socks.

Stop, please stop.

Lilliana casts one glance down the beach and then the opposite way, finding it as bare as branches for this time of year. She waits and waits.

For several minutes, the copper mare doesn’t move. Lilliana remains still and nothing comes down the jet-black bank. Her dark nostrils flare and she knows that upwind is her answer. Another Pangean that is probably best left alone, she thinks. They will only scowl and sneer if she ventures too close (and that could be considered a kindness). 

Still.

When she finally reaches the top of the knoll, the Taigan is almost blinded. A beam of light leaves her ambling forward, trying to stop but her hooves can’t seem to grasp the ground. Instinct tells her to run; when the light recedes, there is only a buckskin stallion.

Was he.. the thought-giver?

The pegasus stands still, not making any motion towards her (or appearing to have any awareness of her at all, really). Run, some part of her thinks. If she gallops now, even if he does notice her, she could be halfway down the beach and then…

Elaina lingers in her mind, arguing with her. Defend your kindness.

There was no kindness in leaving a stranger like this.

His head still hangs with his nose hovering above the frozen ground. Lilliana casts one more look down the beach and then grits her teeth together. The burn that is seared into his flesh is fresh and she can still smell it; the fading tang of his Magic as it smoldered against him.

A cold blast of air blows past him and Lilliana swallows her fear, trying to control the erratic pulse that keeps telling her to run, run, run. "I can help with that,” she offers quietly, lowering her own head as her blue eyes search to meet his. It’s only when they do that she points to the scorched skin. "If you'd like."

Nothing good will come of this, thinks the part of her that is already racing down the beach.

@[Rhaegor]