He reminds her so much of her father that she can't help the tenderness that slips into her gaze. Noble and stoic Aten. The expressions appears almost instantly when he slips into her field of vision and Lilliana smiles, warm and sincerely glad to see him looking so hale after the winter. She closes the space between them and relaxes as she comes to stand before him, her ears pricking forward and the chestnut mare dips her head in greeting.
His first words give her pause and the glimmer of a grimace spreads across her delicate features. That flame burns again - that anger sparks - and the gentle smile stills as she exhales quietly. Lilliana looks away from Aten then and looks instead to the sunbeams that break through the branches above, where sunlight trickles down in lovely golden ribbons from the blue sky above. Her nostrils flare once in exhalation before she turns her blue eyes back to Aten, "I've heard that its been an.. eventful winter." She presses her lips together and gives a small shake of her head, "Mine was relatively quiet," she muses. "What of you and Lethia? And your children?"
She allows him a moment to speak, considering his words before her head dips. "I came to apologize," comes a quiet answer. "I felt that I spoke too harshly that day in Meadow," that day she had been so frustrated. Nerine and Loess, Antares message of change and all the upheaval of the previous autumn had brought back so many buried emotions: ancient scenarios revisited her in ways that she couldn't have imagined and the ghosts of her past lingered too close. Aten might not have held her words against her but it was one more mark of things she had done wrong, poorly as her friend Neverwhere would say.
"And for the other day with Ruth," she adds. It had been a brazen thing for her to do and yet Aten had taken the girl home with him and Kalil that day while she, Eurwen and Brine had ventured north towards Nerine. "It was rude of me to suggest such a thing without asking your permission." There was more to that situation to explain but it isn't her story to tell and so she has to hope that steady Aten will accept her apology in its stead. An ear flicks to the side as she tilts her head curiously, "How is she doing? Is she settling in alright?"
@[Aten]
His first words give her pause and the glimmer of a grimace spreads across her delicate features. That flame burns again - that anger sparks - and the gentle smile stills as she exhales quietly. Lilliana looks away from Aten then and looks instead to the sunbeams that break through the branches above, where sunlight trickles down in lovely golden ribbons from the blue sky above. Her nostrils flare once in exhalation before she turns her blue eyes back to Aten, "I've heard that its been an.. eventful winter." She presses her lips together and gives a small shake of her head, "Mine was relatively quiet," she muses. "What of you and Lethia? And your children?"
She allows him a moment to speak, considering his words before her head dips. "I came to apologize," comes a quiet answer. "I felt that I spoke too harshly that day in Meadow," that day she had been so frustrated. Nerine and Loess, Antares message of change and all the upheaval of the previous autumn had brought back so many buried emotions: ancient scenarios revisited her in ways that she couldn't have imagined and the ghosts of her past lingered too close. Aten might not have held her words against her but it was one more mark of things she had done wrong, poorly as her friend Neverwhere would say.
"And for the other day with Ruth," she adds. It had been a brazen thing for her to do and yet Aten had taken the girl home with him and Kalil that day while she, Eurwen and Brine had ventured north towards Nerine. "It was rude of me to suggest such a thing without asking your permission." There was more to that situation to explain but it isn't her story to tell and so she has to hope that steady Aten will accept her apology in its stead. An ear flicks to the side as she tilts her head curiously, "How is she doing? Is she settling in alright?"
@[Aten]
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind