Lilliana has always been this way.
Even as a girl, she has skirted around conflict and shied away from struggle. It had just been easier to focus on other things, to focus on the needs of others or more pressing issues. She has always been too eager to let personal problems slip away (or so she thought, Lilliana has since learned unresolved is harder to bury in the past).
The chestnut lifts her blue eyes to the draconic stallion, searching the outline of his face for any perceptible emotion. The pair of them have been cordial, perhaps even indifferent towards each other at times, but that has always been in the presence of their children. This is their first time alone since before the Pangean attack and she wonders if the burden of unsaid words has weighed his soul down as it has hers (but then, Lilliana has always been a mare to feel her emotions strongly and deeply).
She sighs softly, releasing the knot twisting in her chest.
"A few things," she says even softer to the Freyr. "Mainly politics." There is the hint of a smile, acknowledging that the topic (apart from their children) had been easier for them to discuss of late. The slender mare explains the presence of one of the monsters in Taiga, one that lingers in her forest home. "It sings," she mentions to Leilan and there are shadows behind her normally bright eyes. Lilliana doesn't mention the song but whatever the tune is, it is a troubling (and familiar) one to the chestnut. Her gaze shifts to the dark woods, as if speaking of the creature might summon it.
But after a moment of silence passes, Lilliana glances back to the bay roan. There are other things to talk of: she mentions meeting a mare in Tephra with a deep Nerinian history. Wishbone. She tells him. Borderline and her daughter, Memorie, help keep the grazing grounds sustainable. There is enough forage for others, she says. Enough that if Leilan or any of his band need it, there is enough to share with the other Northerners is what she means. She quiets, pausing before speaking again.
There is an undercurrent of memories, of daylight and brighter times. Of Leilan, when he once had a broader smile.
"That day," she starts, knowing he will understand. "There was so much happening," Lilliana says. Taiga had burnt. Part of Nerine had been blasted. Members of her family had been injured (and how terrifying it had been to see Yanhua leap into the fray, to see Eurwen sucked into the ground, to watch Ama bleed and she had been powerless to do anything). She closes her eyes, afraid of unleashing a turmoil of turbulent memories. "Nothing has to change," she says evenly, because maybe Leilan prefers this.
Maybe he prefers their cordiality.
She opens her eyes and looks up at the Freyr.
"But I still consider you my friend, @[Leilan]. You know that, don't you?"
