Lost in the deep end // Lilli

[lilliana]

Lilliana prefers the beach. She prefers the quiet and she tries to keep to herself as much as possible. The chestnut mare has spent her winter along the Taigan coastline and she has let herself become as much a part of the surf and the shadows as any mortal horse can. There is something about all the wild places on the wind that has been a comfort. Lilli likes to imagine all the places those breezes roll in from, what worlds and what lives they had touched.

What echoes do they carry with them on their constant journey forward? On the rocky coastline, Lilliana has reminded herself that the wind never stops. It slows, it might change course but the wind never truly stops. It can be a gentle whisper, a fierce gale but it is always moving and so she reminds herself of the same thing: keep moving.

She hadn't meant to come so further inland. The smell of the salt has faded and the scent of pine and evergreen permeates everything. The rocks seemed to melt away as the snow had, hard ground giving way to the softness of newly-thawed earth and the sweetness of fresh grass that had begun to spring up in patches where the sunlight could illuminate the strongest, where it could awaken what once had been dormant and lost.

Spring has long been her favorite season - she has always loved the way that the sun warms the world after a barren winter. She loves the way that the land can come alive, the way that it hums and sings after a long winter of silence.

Lilliana is in one of those between places, where the sunlight meets the shadow and she can't quite make her mind up where she wants to be. Back to her tempestuous shore or here, where the first blossoms are starting to break through the ground? There is a reminder that gnaws in the back of her mind that she should check in with Tyr and Smidge, to see what they had made of the Taigan winter. 

And she promises herself that she will. Lilli has brought them here and so in her mind, she is accountable for their welfare.

She has done a poor job concerning it so far, she thinks. A whole winter hiding away.

It seems the Winds agreed with her because she turns her head to see the midnight form of Tyr coming around the trail, carrying.. flowers? Lilliana stands suspended for a moment, torn between wanting the comfort of the sound of crashing waves and being polite enough to address the approaching stallion. The latter wins out and Lilli has to swallow to clear her throat as she looked to grinning Tyr, "Thank you." She manages and then lowers her head, smelling the blooms that oddly put her in mind of Culloden. 

The smell brings back a memory.

"My nephews used to bring me flowers," she murmurs as she brings her head back up. "One would bring me a bouquet while the other would scamper away." They had taught sweet-faced Kildare to do it in the end, the one they knew whose gummy smile she couldn't refuse while the twins would sneak away to whatever adventure they sought. And then she sighs, "Glad that winter is finally over. How have you been, Tyr?"

@[Tyr]