Adapting. Leilan says and for a moment, Lilliana is studying him intensely. The dragon-horse has been one of her dearest friends, too. And she is reminding herself of that as she regards him from where she stands.
Watching Leilan, she finds nothing of the basilisk or hydra or wyvern. For her love of legends, for her once-dreams of fantasies, the Freyr doesn’t change the expression on his face despite the skin he has just shed. Taking isn’t the right word, he tells her.
Lilliana looks away at that. She exhales - long and slow - before looking at him again.
"I trust you,” the Taigan mare finally says. It sounds more like a reaffirmation to herself than to him, she thinks. Why should he trust you? a voice taunts. Why should any of them trust you when you have been so full of secrets? Lilliana closes her eyes briefly, taking in the scent of salt and snow, of dormant pine overhead. "I do,” she says again, softer.
She looks out at the ocean, staring over the breaking waves and her eyes burn, not from the cold, but from remembering. "We were always taught that things had to be in balance,” Lilliana explains. "The oldest law of Nature and Magic,” the red mare chimes, repeating the phrase she had heard Aletta speak so often. Something that she has strived to pass along to her sons.
"For everything the Magic gives, it has to take from somewhere.” Lilli turns to look at Leilan again, hoping he might understand what she is trying to say.
Maybe there is some truth to it, because what she is proposing has to start from somewhere. It could start with trust. Maybe, Lilliana could start.
"The Monster came North because it’s children - it’s sons,” she states and Lilliana nearly chokes on the admission. "Were here.” Taiga, she means. "Nashua and Yanhua, my sons.” The Monster went further North and it seems most of Beqanna knows that.
@[Leilan] can change his face. Well, her straightforward gaze says when she looks at him, here is the other side of hers. Lilliana has known monsters. The Dragon of the North is not one of them, her face plainly says.
Her history has been like gravity. Something that has kept her weighed down. "So, perhaps, the question should be can you trust me?”
LILLIANA
if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions
this went nowhere near intended either lol