12-03-2019, 12:19 AM
<p align=justify>The fog of Taiga is no different than any other fog she has known. Thicker, maybe. It can hide the craggy outline of Nerine to her right. It can hide the giants that linger in the forest behind her. It can hide the most obvious of things - those things she would rather not shed light on. And what better place to hide those obvious truths than under mysterious veil of fog that rolls in from Beqanna's sea? Out here, where the world begins and ends, it is just Lilliana and all those wild dreams that each tide brings. She measures her days by the pulse of it, by the way the waves come crashing in and swiftly going out again.
She has heard stories. She knows the tales as they all do, as all the children of her clan had been warned. Mist Meadows had fallen to the fog. Paraiso became forgotten behind a wall of it, an ominous warning issued to those caught on the other side. <i>Only a pure heart will find it,</i> Lovelace had said. And Lilliana had fretted - still ties her heart in knots - with the realization that she will never be able to go back home. The finality of that hits her hard some days, that there is no returning to a life that she had known. That lives, an entire existence, whole stories, could be wiped away behind something as guileless as simple fog.
Lilliana should be afraid of the fog.
It should make her shiver. It should make her soul recoil in terror.
It does not. Lilliana pays no heed to it. Her attention is held by the waves and she finds solace in each one that comes cresting towards the shoreline, that comes reaching towards her. The chestnut mare takes one certain step after another. She walks towards the waves and yet - the waves never find her. The smell of salt, the brine that has become almost constant in her nostrils, becomes fainter and fainter the closer she tries to draw into the ocean's embrace. Lilli can hear it still - <i>in and out</i>, it whispers, <i>in and out</i>.
The sand beneath her hooves is damp, heavy with the centuries of ground stone that have been crushed against the rocky coast. <i>In and out,</i> it beckons. One step, two, three more and she grows confused. Her head turns to look from one end of the beach to the other but there is nothing; nothing but the sound of crashing waves against a seashore that no longer seems tangible. Something about the fog seems peculiar - another kind of tang all together that mingles in the salt air - a metallic, bright tang that seems unusual for this beach. For <i>her</i> beach.
Suddenly, she can no longer find the beginning or end of her coast. It has become lost in the fog, she thinks (but not her). Lilliana does the only thing she knows how - she keeps moving forward.
The chestnut times her breath by the waves, keeps an even pace with it as she continues ahead. Eventually, the water has to break somewhere. Eventually, the sea has to find the shore. Two steps become three and then five, five become ten until there are no waves to time her breathing by. There is only fog, this disillusionment that she is <i>somewhere</i> and yet nowhere. Her breath catches, quickens, panics in her throat as it burns with the knowledge she is not where she should be.
This is not where she should be.
This is not home.
Those certain strides become unsteady as the sand below her shifts. It becomes softer as it sifts away from her in a way that she is unaccustomed too. Then she falls. She is stumbling. She is caught in a current that is a wave but not - this is dry fire on her skin and plummeting. This is losing control in a way she would never let herself do if she was still in Taiga. This is letting go.
One white sock presents itself forward as Lilliana rises, as she tries to stand beneath the shadow of a mighty dune.
Lilli stares up, momentarily stunned and blinded by sunlight.
In this shadow, the heat makes its demands known. It is insufferable - suffocating - and she knows she cannot stay here. <i>Move</i>, whispers the wind and so she follows. She climbs up the steep bank of one dune to stumble down another. She rises and keeps going, refusing to let this Hell swallow her. The sun ascends these heights with her and the day continues with temperatures that climb higher than she can. That chestnut coat darkens, becomes coated with sand and sweat. There is a cut on her front right leg that bleeds, a scrape on her left flank from a rock that hid beneath the desert when she fell again.
The sun peaks and the day gives no sign of relenting. Her throat is raw. Her whole body yearns for her beach, for.. water. Her stomach clenches with the thought of it and yet, Lilliana sees nothing. Dread sets in like that mysterious fog. It is only the empty miles of dunes and her. She continues on, continues to fall and go in circles. There are birds that circle above her. An ominous sign and yet.. if there are birds, water? A source has to be nearby. <b>"Hey!"</b> she calls, a demanding voice that rings against the acoustics of the desert and sand dunes. The birds circle, watch and then fly away the more she shouts, apparently perturbed by the noise. <b>"Wait!"</b>
Lilli tries to follow but as she comes to the top of another dune, she loses her footing and she falls. Down and down, she goes. There is no one to catch her. She falls to the very depths of this desert, through the sand, down, down into nothing. An empty abyss... until her eyes open. There is a shadow. It moves. It speaks? The chestnut mare lifts her head, tries to see the dappled ghost clearly through her confused stare.
A wisp? An apparition?
And then she smiles. <b>"Mama,"</b> she breathes, relieved. Lilli brightens and stands, dizzy and slightly unstable but she stands. <b>"You left the mountaintops."</b> She is so <i>glad</i>. Her mother is safe - she is here! Lilliana presses her head into that dappled neck, finally safe, before she pulls away again.
The chestnut mare tilts her head as her mother frowns, as she shakes her head and says something that Lilliana can't quite comprehend. <b>"Where are we?"</b> Aletta looks disgruntled. She can't remember ever seeing her so angry.. except. A whisper, <b>"He can't come here, can he? His magic would never work here."</b> A debt owed, a debt that still needed to be collected. She shivers despite that her body is damp and dark with sweat, rank with it, in all this unbridled heat. A heat she no longer feels.
The ghost - her mother - moves. She leads Lilli over dunes though she continues at a slow pace, though she continues to fall and small cuts line her body, sores forming where her skin protests against the sand. Up and down, (<i>in and out</i>), up and down. At some point, her mother hides her. <b>"Frostbane?"</b> she asks, as she huddles against the silver of mother's specter. They seek shelter behind something solid. A rock? A frozen wall? An ice storm is raging, her troubled mind concludes. The Prince of Winter has found them, she thinks. After all this time, he has finally found them. Even as she moves into the warmth of this ghost, she smiles. (Elaina is gone, she triumphantly thinks, and he will never find her. A silver lining in this desert.)
It will all be over soon.
He will bring down that frozen vengeance he promised.
(And somehow, she feels nothing. She is not afraid.)
The wind and ice cease. The blizzard stops.
And suddenly, her mother is leading her. They are going home! Her heart soars and though she is so tired, though she is so sore and everything about her wants to sleep, the ghost tells her not too. It tells her to follow. So Lilliana, the dutiful and obedient daughter she is, follows where the apparition leads her. Lilliana smiles through her delirium, raises her head to thank the ghost. But it is gone. Her lips press together and frown as she glances around, wildly searching for the Regent. <i>Sleep</i>, says a disembodied voice.
So she does. For once in her life, she falls and simply doesn't care how the pieces will shatter.
Her mind still isn't clear when her eyes open again. There are spots where memory doesn't exist at all and yet she knows the body next to her. Knows the smell of jagged cliffs and blunt words. Neverwhere. Not her mother. Tenderly, she nudges the sleeping body. Lilli wants to speak but her throat burns and the words don't come. They have turned to sand in her mouth and nothing comes. Together, they rise and together they go over the remaining dunes.
Against the breaking of dawn, the horizon shows a glimmer of hope. It is the clear, bright scent of a dream. It is water. An oasis in the wasteland.
If her body would allow, if every part of her didn't cry out in anguish for each step they toiled, she would run. But Lilliana follows the mare in front of her watching as the golden dunes come alive with the coming day. Each breath feels like a ragged, struggling thing that is an accomplishment in itself. The dreamer journeys on, step by agonizing step. Only when Neverwhere stops, does she. She comes to stand alongside her as Lilliana stares longingly at the oasis that presents itself so luxuriously before them. The scent of it rises and wafts to her flaring nostrils where it almost drives her to the point of desperation.
Drink, her body begs.
Don't, her heart warns.
<center>Lilliana gets lost and falls... alot. She gets heatstroke and then dehydration. Her mental clarity dwindles until she hallucinates as she ambles around. Neverwhere comes to save her though she thinks Nev is her mom. They deal with a sandstorm and rest until nightfall. They travel all night until they find the Dewdrop Deserts at dawn.
Lilli is for Taiga. #gotwigs
She has heard stories. She knows the tales as they all do, as all the children of her clan had been warned. Mist Meadows had fallen to the fog. Paraiso became forgotten behind a wall of it, an ominous warning issued to those caught on the other side. <i>Only a pure heart will find it,</i> Lovelace had said. And Lilliana had fretted - still ties her heart in knots - with the realization that she will never be able to go back home. The finality of that hits her hard some days, that there is no returning to a life that she had known. That lives, an entire existence, whole stories, could be wiped away behind something as guileless as simple fog.
Lilliana should be afraid of the fog.
It should make her shiver. It should make her soul recoil in terror.
It does not. Lilliana pays no heed to it. Her attention is held by the waves and she finds solace in each one that comes cresting towards the shoreline, that comes reaching towards her. The chestnut mare takes one certain step after another. She walks towards the waves and yet - the waves never find her. The smell of salt, the brine that has become almost constant in her nostrils, becomes fainter and fainter the closer she tries to draw into the ocean's embrace. Lilli can hear it still - <i>in and out</i>, it whispers, <i>in and out</i>.
The sand beneath her hooves is damp, heavy with the centuries of ground stone that have been crushed against the rocky coast. <i>In and out,</i> it beckons. One step, two, three more and she grows confused. Her head turns to look from one end of the beach to the other but there is nothing; nothing but the sound of crashing waves against a seashore that no longer seems tangible. Something about the fog seems peculiar - another kind of tang all together that mingles in the salt air - a metallic, bright tang that seems unusual for this beach. For <i>her</i> beach.
Suddenly, she can no longer find the beginning or end of her coast. It has become lost in the fog, she thinks (but not her). Lilliana does the only thing she knows how - she keeps moving forward.
The chestnut times her breath by the waves, keeps an even pace with it as she continues ahead. Eventually, the water has to break somewhere. Eventually, the sea has to find the shore. Two steps become three and then five, five become ten until there are no waves to time her breathing by. There is only fog, this disillusionment that she is <i>somewhere</i> and yet nowhere. Her breath catches, quickens, panics in her throat as it burns with the knowledge she is not where she should be.
This is not where she should be.
This is not home.
Those certain strides become unsteady as the sand below her shifts. It becomes softer as it sifts away from her in a way that she is unaccustomed too. Then she falls. She is stumbling. She is caught in a current that is a wave but not - this is dry fire on her skin and plummeting. This is losing control in a way she would never let herself do if she was still in Taiga. This is letting go.
One white sock presents itself forward as Lilliana rises, as she tries to stand beneath the shadow of a mighty dune.
Lilli stares up, momentarily stunned and blinded by sunlight.
In this shadow, the heat makes its demands known. It is insufferable - suffocating - and she knows she cannot stay here. <i>Move</i>, whispers the wind and so she follows. She climbs up the steep bank of one dune to stumble down another. She rises and keeps going, refusing to let this Hell swallow her. The sun ascends these heights with her and the day continues with temperatures that climb higher than she can. That chestnut coat darkens, becomes coated with sand and sweat. There is a cut on her front right leg that bleeds, a scrape on her left flank from a rock that hid beneath the desert when she fell again.
The sun peaks and the day gives no sign of relenting. Her throat is raw. Her whole body yearns for her beach, for.. water. Her stomach clenches with the thought of it and yet, Lilliana sees nothing. Dread sets in like that mysterious fog. It is only the empty miles of dunes and her. She continues on, continues to fall and go in circles. There are birds that circle above her. An ominous sign and yet.. if there are birds, water? A source has to be nearby. <b>"Hey!"</b> she calls, a demanding voice that rings against the acoustics of the desert and sand dunes. The birds circle, watch and then fly away the more she shouts, apparently perturbed by the noise. <b>"Wait!"</b>
Lilli tries to follow but as she comes to the top of another dune, she loses her footing and she falls. Down and down, she goes. There is no one to catch her. She falls to the very depths of this desert, through the sand, down, down into nothing. An empty abyss... until her eyes open. There is a shadow. It moves. It speaks? The chestnut mare lifts her head, tries to see the dappled ghost clearly through her confused stare.
A wisp? An apparition?
And then she smiles. <b>"Mama,"</b> she breathes, relieved. Lilli brightens and stands, dizzy and slightly unstable but she stands. <b>"You left the mountaintops."</b> She is so <i>glad</i>. Her mother is safe - she is here! Lilliana presses her head into that dappled neck, finally safe, before she pulls away again.
The chestnut mare tilts her head as her mother frowns, as she shakes her head and says something that Lilliana can't quite comprehend. <b>"Where are we?"</b> Aletta looks disgruntled. She can't remember ever seeing her so angry.. except. A whisper, <b>"He can't come here, can he? His magic would never work here."</b> A debt owed, a debt that still needed to be collected. She shivers despite that her body is damp and dark with sweat, rank with it, in all this unbridled heat. A heat she no longer feels.
The ghost - her mother - moves. She leads Lilli over dunes though she continues at a slow pace, though she continues to fall and small cuts line her body, sores forming where her skin protests against the sand. Up and down, (<i>in and out</i>), up and down. At some point, her mother hides her. <b>"Frostbane?"</b> she asks, as she huddles against the silver of mother's specter. They seek shelter behind something solid. A rock? A frozen wall? An ice storm is raging, her troubled mind concludes. The Prince of Winter has found them, she thinks. After all this time, he has finally found them. Even as she moves into the warmth of this ghost, she smiles. (Elaina is gone, she triumphantly thinks, and he will never find her. A silver lining in this desert.)
It will all be over soon.
He will bring down that frozen vengeance he promised.
(And somehow, she feels nothing. She is not afraid.)
The wind and ice cease. The blizzard stops.
And suddenly, her mother is leading her. They are going home! Her heart soars and though she is so tired, though she is so sore and everything about her wants to sleep, the ghost tells her not too. It tells her to follow. So Lilliana, the dutiful and obedient daughter she is, follows where the apparition leads her. Lilliana smiles through her delirium, raises her head to thank the ghost. But it is gone. Her lips press together and frown as she glances around, wildly searching for the Regent. <i>Sleep</i>, says a disembodied voice.
So she does. For once in her life, she falls and simply doesn't care how the pieces will shatter.
Her mind still isn't clear when her eyes open again. There are spots where memory doesn't exist at all and yet she knows the body next to her. Knows the smell of jagged cliffs and blunt words. Neverwhere. Not her mother. Tenderly, she nudges the sleeping body. Lilli wants to speak but her throat burns and the words don't come. They have turned to sand in her mouth and nothing comes. Together, they rise and together they go over the remaining dunes.
Against the breaking of dawn, the horizon shows a glimmer of hope. It is the clear, bright scent of a dream. It is water. An oasis in the wasteland.
If her body would allow, if every part of her didn't cry out in anguish for each step they toiled, she would run. But Lilliana follows the mare in front of her watching as the golden dunes come alive with the coming day. Each breath feels like a ragged, struggling thing that is an accomplishment in itself. The dreamer journeys on, step by agonizing step. Only when Neverwhere stops, does she. She comes to stand alongside her as Lilliana stares longingly at the oasis that presents itself so luxuriously before them. The scent of it rises and wafts to her flaring nostrils where it almost drives her to the point of desperation.
Drink, her body begs.
Don't, her heart warns.
<center>Lilliana gets lost and falls... alot. She gets heatstroke and then dehydration. Her mental clarity dwindles until she hallucinates as she ambles around. Neverwhere comes to save her though she thinks Nev is her mom. They deal with a sandstorm and rest until nightfall. They travel all night until they find the Dewdrop Deserts at dawn.
Lilli is for Taiga. #gotwigs
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind