resurrect the saint within the wretch
She orders him to not get up and he, ever obedient despite the bitterness that swells in his chest, listens. He’s certain he couldn’t stand if he even truly wanted to and so he settles into the ice even further, his large wings still spilled out on each side of his auburn and ivory body. Lilliana comes to stand beside him, hovering over him cautiously. It’s nearly poetic, them finding each other again - though this time it seems that Warden is the one out of sorts, needing understanding and healing. The stallion does not refuse her when she states that she could heal him; he believes her, without hesitation, and though his eyes (through the thick black of his tangled and bloodied forelock) carefully come to rest on the unmistakable swell of her stomach, he does not find it in him to fight her on it - not today, at least. He does not have the energy to go head to head with her again.
Before he could even raise his horned head, he is basking in the golden glow that emulates from her legs and her gold-patterned marking, soft and nearly like sunlight as it pulses. Warden’s eyes flutter closed, feeling the healing warmth as it begins, finding each part of him that needs its light.
An audible gasp from Lilliana sends him startling forward, his own breath catching in his throat as the pain thrashes with the movement. He’s immediately worried for her, attempting to bring his wings to his sides like a young bird; scrambling and nearly frantic. And then, he realizes, it is not her healing that has caused this.
It was him.
Great sadness and uncertainty swirls in the depths of his ocean eyes, staring up at her as she returns to him in a staggering daze. He, of course, knows nothing of the victims he has seen - none are familiar, besides Lilliana of course, and the young stallions he has seen in days prior. But they are all nameless beings, people of Beqanna who live far beyond Tephra and its borders.
Warden is sure he can feel his heart stop when her gaze turns to him and her pleading cries stumble from her mouth.
Can you see more? Can you see them?
And he is flushed with memories - gentle this time (there is no wave crashing over him, desperate to keep him from coming to the surface for air), but panicked and quick - urgent.
He’s seen her children.
Please.
For once, his visions leave him asking for more.
Warden is normally thankful for the uncertainty in his premonitions - they’re nearly always strangers, faces he never sees once they pass his sight, and the scene can be interpreted in so many ways that it is sometimes quite impossible to narrow down any sort of solidity. But now, as his deep ocean eyes clash with the brilliance of hers, he feels helpless.
Silence engulfs them and he meets her with the same face that she had seen the first night they had met - stoic, expressionless, unwavering. And yet, in the dark planes of his face, there is sympathy. Understanding. Sorrow. But he cannot answer her pleas because he is not as powerful as she makes him out to be. He is only a Watcher; not the author. He cannot turn pages on his own - he sees only what he is given to see.
“You must go to them.” His voice cuts deep through the silence of the tall redwoods and the darkness of nightfall around them. “Now, Lilliana.” Warden doesn’t try to stand, knowing that his failure to find his feet could possibly make her hesitate. Though, in reality, her decision has already been made - he has seen her in Nerine, amidst the fire and destruction and the magicians.
And the future always comes.
@[lilliana]
