The thing that lifts them both up and simultaneously tears them down makes her pensive frown rise against the velvet backdrop of this autumn night. She turns her head towards Elaina and regards her beneath the curl of her forelock, not bothering to fight the tide of love that churns in her chest. Every time she has looked at her cousin, Lilliana has felt that. That soul-stirring, that familial warmth glowing between them; a bond that neither have outgrown. That they never will outgrow.
It’s only looking at the last remaining member of her family (the one that came before Beqanna) that Lilliana catches a glimpse of that other universe - that alternate reality - reflecting out to her from Elaina’s blue eyes (so like her own, like Valerio).
In that other universe, they were both born children of Summer. They learned to race alongside Paraíso’s shimmering lakeside instead of Murmuring Rivers’ rapids. There was no war; Cazador never tried to conquer Windskeep and so Ramiro never came to Beyond. Benjamin and Beylani would have never died and Valerio wouldn’t have been haunted. Lilliana would have born and raised like the siblings before her. There would be no holes to fill or hearts to heal and so Lilli would be as she was intended - something daring, something wild, something free. (Every bit the descendant of Air that Valerio once claimed she was: 'We are hard to hold, Lillibird.’)
The alternate reality saw Lilli and Elaina grow up together, much as this one had. A blood bond and then something more; sisters, the Winds would proclaim.
Maybe in that other world, the two sides of the flame (the gold and the red) found themselves cooling themselves in the shallows of the lake, like they stand in Taiga’s ocean now. Maybe in that place - instead of night, it is day and the sunlight comes glimmering down on the tranquil waters around them. Their ears are distracted with the hum of the waterfall instead of the beat of crashing waves. Maybe - instead of careful smiles and guarded eyes - they are still carefree and Lilli looks over her shoulder to her golden cousin. She playfully kicks a hindleg and water goes splashing over the rounding form of Elaina: 'Are you still so sure it’s a boy?’ The copper mare would tease, 'Benji might not do for a girl.’
Perhaps, in that other life, Elaina would have let herself be loved and Lilli wouldn't get wrapped up in darkness. Maybe, Lilliana would have loved too; maybe not. (The boys come into existence somehow. There is no reality she will ever consider that does not include Nashua or Yanhua.) In that other life, they are together, always, and that is all that matters.
What might have been - what should have been - ripples away with @[Elaina]’s anger.
Lilliana’s eyes dim as the light from that life fades and they return to this one. To Taiga and her fog. To this reality and the chestnut mare steels herself with the reminder that this is the one that exists. There was no point in traveling down the trails of what might have been; it only spurs the anger that is burning across Elaina’s lovely features. Lilli tilts her head towards her cousin and she can only give it a soft shake. "I don’t have that answer,” she laments. (You know she’d give it to you, Elaina, if she could. She’d find it for you, if it was in her power to discover the reason.)
When Elaina crumbles into her neck, it is a blessing for Lilliana. It is easier to soothe than to be soothed; the guilt in her soul doesn’t want comforting, anyway.
"Who said you failed?” Lilli whispers, "I’ve told you before that they would be so proud of you, Elaina. And they are. I feel it. In the stars. In the Wind.” She turns her head closer to the palomino mare and kisses the outline of her cheek gently, wishing that her cousin could hear those whispers in the wind and know it in the silence of the stars as she did.
There are so, so many other things she wishes she could say.
In the end, it comes to only this: "Does the Phoenix fail? It burns,” Lilliana warns. "But it emerges.”
LILLIANA
if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions