There are so many tragedies in their family history.
All those stories - fairytales as some of her Beqanna relations have called them - are filled with heroes and heroines gone too soon. They are filled to the brim with the potential of Magic (how else had they defeated Maverick and Cazador at Windskeep?). But Lilliana has told her children over and over again that Magic has a price and she wonders if she had some proof to give them, that maybe they would understand why their mother is so wary of it.
Why she was so sparse with her own powers.
The most prominent one - the story of Zameir and Ruth - is quick to come across her mind because this is their daughter. Lilliana had learned at a young age to not mention her fallen Uncle, especially after Valerio's return. The death of his elder brother had haunted the Guardian. It wasn't until she was older, until she lost a dear friend that Lilliana thought she understood something of what her sire had felt. There was a certain kind of guilt that came with surviving, in existing after loss. She had attempted to heal Brazen and had failed. Her friend had paid with her life to bring Reave into the world and yet how often had Lilliana thought that it should be the bone-armored mare raising him, kissing his forehead each night and noting the changes as his limbs grew longer and he grew taller.
Even in this darkness when there is so much to worry about, Lilliana still thinks of the more she might have done to spare Brazen her life.
But now, here is Ori shining through the shadows and Lilliana is... the only thing she can think to do is laugh. She reaches for her cousin, wanting to embrace her and to laugh with her, and to weep at the sight of someone from home. The chestnut mare is a tangle of emotions and had the sun been shining, Ori might have seen the way that threatened to spill from her blue eyes.
It's been years since she has had word of home. She had given up dreaming and with it, so had gone her dreams of Elena and Orani. But the champagne mare tells her that everything is fine and the way her heart had started to race paces itself. The tightness in her chest eases and the copper mare pricks her ears, listening and hanging on every word that @[Ori] offers her.
Ruth smiles more than she used to. Brighid has grown. Her cousin mentions Valerio and Lovelace. At that, the dimple in her left cheek emerges. "Is she still healing?" she asks, wistful as she remembers the cave strung with herbs and flowers that the black unicorn had arranged around her den. Lilliana brightens in a way that she hasn't since Elena was last in Hyaline and had told her that Brielle and Roland shared a daughter. "Aletta was here," says her daughter. "Some time ago but a Seer like Marcelo saw it. He saw the waterfall and so she had gone...," Lilliana trails off. "Did she find him?"
(And Ori will know who she means. Who else would Aletta seek out but Valerio? He was the sun and she was his moon; the two of them were an orbit unto themselves.)
Aletta had found him. Her parents had found each other again.
Some stories did have happy endings.
"Emily," she murmurs of Marcelo's paramour. It makes her want to ask a million more questions. Had he met her and immediately saw their future together? Did it come to him in one, bright flashing moment of Fate or had it been a steady trickle, like a stream? "She sounds lovely."
"And Alvaro?" she asks, thinking of her often stern half-brother (the one that reminds her so much of Rosey). "Please tell me that he and Sutton have a brood of children," she laughs. He had been fond of the bay mare and remembers the looks he had given her and Elena when they asked after her. When they had told him the best meadows to find the best blooms to bring her.
"It's such a long story, Ori." Lilliana starts to say.
Almost as long as the lifetime that feels like that has occurred since she last saw any of them.
"I can show you," she offers tentatively. "What I've seen."
She doesn't know how to explain it. Are there words for her story? Zamier had perished outside the little cavern where a newborn Marcelo and a pregnant Ruth had rested, protecting them. Shiri and Chiyoko had faced down Frostbane and paid for it with their lives. Benjamin had offered his life to spare Elena's. So many of their fables end in death and Lilli has often thought those were the true endings.
How does Lilliana explain that the man she had loved had been the monster? How does she explain that her home had been burnt and they were rebuilding? How does she explain the Dragon King and the children they share?
The chestnut casts a glance above to where the Eclipse lingers.
"Welcome to Beqanna," she says with a shake of her delicate head. "As hospitable as it was in my mother's stories." Aletta had warned them. She had recited the tales of the Reckoning and the Plague to her children and yet Lilliana had come anyways. Had made her home here regardless. "The solstice came and then it stayed," she replies. "It's been dark here for weeks. We've been fortunate in Taiga...," she states. Her home, she means. "It's to the west of here and only a few hours by hoof."
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind