i hear hurricanes blowing; Lilliana

[lilliana]

What do you when the story runs so horribly off course that it careens off the pages? When do you realize that the ending you were searching for, if that was in fact what you were seeking, no longer exists?

Lilliana has grown up with them too - for a little girl sheltered in a tightly guarded home, a place that had served as a testament to what was instead what might be - Lilli had adored those stories. Golden kings who were nothing but noble and good, who did nothing but bring justice and light to their homes and all the lives that intertwined with them. Beautiful queens who were as regal as they were graceful, who were poised as sharply as a sword when needed in defense of their homes and who could fall in love with their royal counterparts as softly as easing into a dream. There is the knight who comes just in time to save the day, the Champion who saves them in their greatest hour of need, when the cause falls dark and all hope is lost.

Lilli knows those stories. She knows those figures as closely as she would any friend. 
They had been the companions of her youth; a hope, it seems much as it had been for Lepis, of what a future might look like.

And Lilliana knows exactly the moment that reality painted those rosy stories into different shades entirely. The golden king, the conquering hero returns, haunted by the acts of war, returns as a ghost of a man who was never able to reclaim his place among the living. That beautiful, graceful queen remains as sharp as a sword, never softening and never relenting to give into a world that she deems cruel and hard - once a starry-eyed dreamer, much like her daughter, who only found suspicion in the shadows. And the Champion, their hero, he pays the highest price of all. 

Wicked might not win. But the hero always falls the hardest. 
That is an absolute truth that Lilliana will not shy from; it is something she believes to her very core.
Lilli has no desire to see anybody fall.

Lepis huffs and the chestnut diverts her gaze to the ground, watching where the Comtesse strikes the waiting ground with an imposing hoof. For a moment, Lilliana thinks to ask her question again. Why does it matter if they secede or bind themselves to Loess? To the copper mare, neither option seems like a reasonable one. Why not find some way to mollify Heartfire enough that Lepis can keep her home and crown and why not find a way that allows Taiga to have her own voice in the decisions that Nerine makes? There might not be any heroes to take the fall but perhaps it needn't come to that. There could - must be - some way to bridge the rift that has come between the Nerinian Queen and Taiga's Comtesse. Let Taiga's strength attest for itself and let Nerine keep her kingdom seat if there might be some common ground to be found.

But Lilliana says nothing. 

She stays silent. The blue-eyed mare feels Lepis narrow her eyes on her and Lilliana peers curiously back at her, her ears flicking forward in concern.

Whatever irritation that Lepis has harbored, she regains control of it quickly. She does so with a shake of her head that causes her navy mane to dance, revealing scars that Lilliana has a hard time ignoring. "Think nothing of it," counters the crimson girl. The Comtesse gives a sardonic smile and Lilliana offers an apologetic one in return. After all, she had been the one asking all these questions. She's grateful for the patience and insight that Lepis has spared on her.

It is her next words that cause her throat to tighten.
It shouldn't but it does. 
Like she can't breathe.

And then Lepis, of all things, throws her the lifeline. 

Lilliana swallows the lump in her throat and retreats into the folds of her memories. It's an easy place for her to go. There is a pause here as her smile stills, her eyes warm. "There isn't much to tell," she offers quietly with a shrug of her shoulders. But then the smile broadens, lighting her entire expression with love. "I have four siblings. Two older brothers who never allowed me to get away with anything, a sister who wished I had been a better sparring partner and a younger one who was the best of us." 

"And cousins," here she laughs, unable to keep it to herself. She shares her laughter as much as her memories with the dun pegasus. "So many cousins. We used to joke that we were related to everybody, in some way." Lilli shakes her head then, remembering golden days that have long become her rose-colored dreams. Turning her attention back to Lepis with an inquisitive tilt of her head, before she can help herself, Lilliana asks, "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

@[Lepis] i wrote you a novel, i'm sorry