must have been the wind; leilan

[lilliana]

It is the bated breath of winter that waits at the back of her neck.

She should be sleeping but the hours of night have crept along to the hours of early dawn. The shades of indigo blue lighten as the sun rises, still buried beneath Taiga's winter wood. That frigid chill bares it teeth and sends an icy shiver up her spine. All these years later and she can still remember. The hard, frozen sheen of his green eyes (like shards of ice, sparkling with all that malice and promise of disarray) as he had stared at them with the magic of ice and snow pooling menacingly around them.

Cruelty. Chaos. Discord. That gaze had promised.
Destruction. Ruin. Death.

Run, comes the fierce whisper of the flame next to her.
No, comes the stubborn reply of the girl she had been. 

Lilliana tries not to think of him; she longs for the day when winter will no longer bring the shadow of fear and the trepidation that he was out there, waiting. It had been years since that bleak day by the river but Lilli will never be able to fully believe that Maverick's heir had succumbed to the rage and fury of a winter storm.

There had been a debt owed to him, he'd said. And then his gaze had fallen on her beloved Elaina - the one he had come to collect.

If there is redemption in winter, Lilliana has never found it.
But still, she tries.

In these early morning hours, she slips away from her little grove of trees. They have become as familiar to her now as old friends - a reassuring presence that sheltered her from the brutal bite of the frostbitten air. (Generations of her kin have dwelled in the lush, tropical climate of an ancient valley. Her blood refuses to grow a true winter coat, refuses to bow to the elements so easily and so she shivers against the icy nip of winter.) The world is pale, variations of gray and bleak daybreak as the sun pushes further in its heavenward ascent past the massive redwoods.

The chestnut mare finds herself heading towards the northern part of the woods. The forest has thinned out here, warning that Nerine isn't so far off. She has no desire for the scenic vistas of ocean and granite cliffs or a waiting reprimand. No, Lilli prefers to be alone with thoughts that are no longer just her own. There are flurries of them, thoughts that scatter just like snowflakes from a coming storm. In the face of a gray morning, they fall now and dampen spots along her crimson coat.

She raises her head to study the clouds, wondering about the intensity of the coming storm. Should she head back to her little grove? An ear flicks backward as an unfamiliar scent rolls in the with the nip in the air. Lilliana turns her head, her blue gaze guardedly searching through the trees for its source and deliberately stating, "It's considered poor manners to lurk."

@[Leilan] here ya go. sorry for the awful starter.