WE ARE ALL JUST FRAGILE THINGS /
SOFT AND SMALL /
BUT ALL THE BROKEN CAN FIND /
HOPE IN THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES /
It had been accident coming across Wherewolf.
She had spent weeks searching for his mother - Neverwhere - alongside the River and had even spread her search out to the other Common Lands, to the Meadow and the Field. But there was no trace of her bald-faced friend, and as the cooling breezes of autumn began to blow across Beqanna, Lilliana grew more anxious to find the former Nerinian. Once winter set in, her search would to halt until the coming spring.
But she had found the son of her oldest friend in Beqanna, and the gold-dappled pegasus had suggested Tephra or her islands. (Neverwhere wouldn't have returned to the place she had died, they had both agreed on that.) Broch - either having returned to his wandering ways or having decided it was better that he remained a memory - hadn't returned to their shared grove in days. And Lilli in her search couldn't wait for another ghost from her past.
It was something that had changed in her, after dying.
No more waiting. Not for anyone, not for anything.
As life waited for no one.
It is dark by the time she reaches the Tephran border, and the bruised shades of dusk streak across the deepening sky. Lilliana waits with the overbearing Taigan trees behind her, reminding the chestnut that Neverwhere isn't the only horse she needs to find. There are her children, and Brazen as well. She glances back, studying the familiar treeline as she waits, and waits, and waits.
As the forest shadows lengthen and finally disappear underneath the veil of darkness, Lilliana knows something is wrong. Warden or Wishbone should have approached hours ago. But as the slender chestnut weaves through the tropical plants, underneath ferns and through jungle fauna, she finds neither of the Tephran siblings. She resumes her searching, looking for three friends instead of just one and worries more about how the world has changed since her death.
A familiar orb of light emerges, beaming down on the nearly-silent mare.
Leonidas, she thinks brightly through their shared bond and the star hovers downward, lighting the Tephran trail that she had been following. She laughed out loud, happy to see the sight of her bonded but the mood of the reunion quickly shifted as the silver-blue ball of light began to flash, and urgently moving about her. Lilliana, you shouldn't be here. The star says, pulsating with light. Her obscure brow furrowed as she tilted her slender head towards Leonidas, What do you mean?
It isn't safe. It's a path you aren't meant to cross.
And then there are more of him - more of them - stars surrounding them both.
Lilliana - who hours earlier had been proud of herself for not flinching at Wherewolf's bristled mane or the haughty stare he gave - freezes. These stars are beautiful, as beautiful as the ones that she remembers that night in the Forest. But the man who had summoned them had also done everything he could to burn them down.
You need to leave, Leonidas pleads with her.
The star rises towards the trees, with his limited glow traveling towards the water edge where it reveals a shape. She takes a step back, but Leonidas stayed above the other horse to reveal a winged mare. Fear had made Lilliana's heart race, and though she wanted to run, she stayed as the glowing orb circled the other female. What Leonidas tells her shocks her (injured, the star solemnly thinks, trapped like Arawn), because though her companion is a star, it has been another lifetime since the former Taigan has come across another like her foalhood friend, Orani.
These stars surrounding them aren't here as a warning, then.
"Are you a startalker?" she asks over the lapping waves, suddenly thinking of the blue roan mare who had been a dear friend. Wondering if this mare was injured - a star made mortal - how they might help. Thinking of her brother and the Afterlife and all the ways that their lives were like constellations, connecting them together.
Lilliana, the star pleads again. You need to go.
@Ciri
fragile things (reprise) - megan hilty
image credit to footybandit