What does Lilliana's idea of Heaven look like?
Maybe this is why the fog is so strong, why it is so thick (or perhaps Lilli just misses Taiga and all the ways that she could hide there). Is her Paradise a crystalline lake, surrounded by family that she has never met? Is it the quiet bend of a creek where she spent so many hours of her youth? There could be the wide-open moors of Culloden - which had reminded her so much of Nerine - or maybe Lilliana would ascend to some corporeal mountain that belonged to her mother's people, a place so high that it was said the peaks could pierce the sky and force the stars to fall.
Whatever she might have imagined, it is not this.
She had never thought that she might get lost in the Afterlife. A thousand other thoughts are floating around her mind. Her mind is already rushing for a solution, (ignoring the folly of her youth) already searching for an answer. If she kept moving, perhaps Malachi might reappear and then-
And then?
The thought steadies as Neverwhere comes alongside her, a familiar gesture that helps alleviate some of Lilliana's unease. Their reunion is tender and Lilli dips her head to press into the dappled shoulder of her old friend. She had searched for the Nerinian for months, scoured the Common Lands, and even braced the icy waters to Leilan's Isle when Nerine and Taiga had turned up empty. Her emotions (when are they not at odds with each other?) catch in her throat and the sound she makes is a sob that battles with a laugh.
Don't be stupid, Neverwhere tells her. As pragmatic as ever.
Lilliana has always had the tendency to be too soft. When dealing with strife or struggles, her instinct had always been to soften the blows. She had learned to smile and laugh, to distract and offer a moment of respite away from the troubles. There have been times that she had wished to change that about herself but it's become a habit after a lifetime. It is simply part of who she is and to change that about herself... well, that would be like stripping Taiga of her trees or a drought claiming Paraiso's waterfall.
Some things are ingrained. Some things are unchanging.
Even after dying, @[Neverwhere] is so solidly herself that all Lilliana can do is laugh. (And this is perhaps why the bond has always been so deep and strong for Lilli. Neverwhere has always been so sure of who she is that she has never expected anything less from Lilliana.) The chestnut hadn't expected to end up here, but here she is. There is a vague memory of the thing that killed her - a monster that had swallowed her soul to the Afterlife before her flame-marked body could hit the pebbled beach. A faint echo of a scream. Her granddaughters?
"Well, that was when you were alive," Lilli banters back as she pulls away to glance at Never's face, as her (watery) blue eyes soak in the presence of the other mare. "Has your sense of direction gotten better in Death?"
PSA: this post was brought to you by sangria and ABBA, your welcome.