Lilliana takes another step back and says nothing. She doesn’t say anything about what she wants or wishes or hopes for this child. Hope is a foolish, dangerous thing. She stays silent and grows more uncomfortable the closer that Celina comes, something that is shown in the way her skin shakes. Like she tries to hold herself so tightly together that her body physically resents it, like there is only so much more fracturing it can take.
(There is only so much more that she can take.)
Her mind moves oddly slow. She watches the frown on Celina's face, watches the way that she takes her lie and turns it over in mind. It makes her stop a few steps short of the canyon wall to her back and Lilliana wonders if she might actually be believed. Could it really be that simple?
Could it really be so simple that Celina believes her and the predatory mare accompanies her past the Pangean border? Having those sharp teeth turned towards the creatures that patrol the perimeters would certainly be in her favor. Lilliana’s luck is questionable at best and her own abilities feel limited but the day she asked Ghaul to go North had made her realize something; she might consider herself lacking in her own magical abilities but there was power to be found in aligning with others more ‘powerful’ than herself.
She needs Celina and her sharp-teeth pointed away from her, not at her.
The pale mare comes lunging forward when the lie fails. That alliance she had been trying to breach crashes against her copper skin in voracious anger. Even if Lilliana hadn’t been so advanced in her pregnancy, Celina is quick and sure-footed. Her movements are precise and speak of a skill that is both primal and yer practiced. The pegasus has years of practice where Lilliana had always skirted around her sparring lessons.
A flash of searing pain. That bright, awful smell of copper.
The copper mare knows enough to protect her throat as she lowers her chin. Her eyes search frantically behind Celina as if there is a simple answer behind her - a way out. If she could get around her, she could hide again among the Acacia trees. She could find the canyons again. For a fleeting moment, she thinks she could even run.
"No!” Lilliana thinks out loud. She doesn’t trust the wind in her stride. Not anymore.
The Taigan’s shoulder that faces Celina has a deep gash and the blood already pools. It has already started a steady trickle down towards her elbow. Looking angrily at the younger mare, she seethes. (Desperation makes her narrow her eyes, pin her ears.) "I need to get to the River,” Lilliana says through clenched teeth. A painful grimace shadows across her face - a rippling pain through her that is not the girls’ doing.
Let Celina make what she wanted about that statement; her flared wings keep Lilliana pinned between her and the rock wall that she has pressed her other shoulder against. Another contraction makes her wince and harshly stamp a hind hoof in an attempt to release the painful tension building in her stomach like a coming storm.
LILLIANA
if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions