[private] you used to be such a lion

[lilliana]

Lilliana had never considered the end.

When she had been young, she had imagined what her future might look like many times. (There were different versions but all of them contained Elena.) And then they changed one home for another, separated from each other when her cousin went to the Woodlands and she to Culloden, before coming back together again only to drift away in the vast realms of Beyond; they had reunited in Beqanna, only to lose each other again and again. Valerio's red-gold daughter had considered so many things, but even in her wildest daydreams (or perhaps they were nightmares), she had never considered that there could be so much loss.

That she would lose Elena, and then Brazen, and then Neverwhere.

That she would lose a child.

She is considering her end as she stares out over a calm sea, where the winter gray sea barely breaks above the rocks. Lilliana knows what she has to do next; she had come to the petrified forest and exorcised one of her ghosts. Wherewolf had said that Neverwhere had gone to Tephra, and if what Ciri had claimed was true, there would be another waiting for her there. Her friend might consider venturing there as reckless, foolish, and unnecessary, but her mind was already made up. If she was to be immortal, better to use that infinite amount of time for something than waste forever doing nothing.

It might not even be an ending she finds in Tephra, but after losing track of Neverwhere and after her last conversation with Leilan, she doesn't want to think about what might come after this. So she closes her deep blue eyes and listens to the cadence of the surf, choosing to listen to it rather than her own thoughts. She had spoken to Nashua, made sure that he understood the (very) few things of what she remembered of Paraiso so that if the need ever arose, they would know how to search for the ancient valley. It was where Yanhua might have taken his own family, and she had to believe that.

When the damp had finally penetrated her copper coat, and the moon had risen high enough to gleam silver through the bare Taigan branches, Lilliana left her spot along the coast. She left behind the rocky beach and made towards the Nerinian border, a spot that she had often frequented when her children had been small.

It is nearly dawn by the time she reaches it, and when she arrives, Lilliana finds that she is not alone.

Her eyes flick first to the familiar heart on the young mare's forehead (how foolish Lilli was to think she had broken her own heart when it always waiting for her - safely kept - on her cousin's golden brow), but what should be gold isn't. Those expectant eyes peering at her are blue like her sons, like her father, and something twists in her soul at seeing something so familiar on an unfamiliar face.

"Oh no," she says softly, knowing who the girl is immediately, and shakes her head. "You shouldn't be here," speaks the flame-marked mare. "You should be with your mother, where you will be safe."

@Elliana

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disclaimer in case anybody actually reads this: this thread is from ages ago, and i am just very slowly, slowly catching up