09-11-2019, 08:25 PM
“You always had the best wishes and dreams, I miss hearing about them.”
Her cousin’s words are still with her a few days after their last meeting. As the day has gone on, Lilli’s thoughts keep coming back to that sentence. For Elaina, Lilli had created a dream. She had crafted one out of the places in between a sunset, a place where night never comes. The air always smelled of like the first blossoms of springs and the symphony of cricket song lingered. Lilli doesn’t know where the imagery or the idea came from but for Elaina, the least she can do is create a dream.
What had her last dream been? What had she last wished for? Hoped for?
For the last two years, her dreams have been shadowed things that were riddled with regrets. They had been filled with Broch’s whispers and her accusations. Every time that she could feel herself starting to wish or hope again, a reminder would come as to why she shouldn’t, why she didn’t deserve too. It’s still a long road yet but Lilliana is entering the sixth year of her life. She is coming to understand those senseless tragedies happen. There is no rhyme or reason to them. They happen to the best and most horrible of souls without any explanation at all.
There will always be an ache there. There should be. A life cut short, a shining star dimmed too soon should always be mourned. But the anguish doesn’t run as hot as it once had. It doesn’t rob the world of color anymore and where Lilliana once struggled to find a way forward, a path is slowly being revealed.
She can’t bring Broch back. Lilli has long accepted that fact. She can’t travel in time and find him, can’t whisper the words he had longed (and deserved) to hear or offer any kind of physical comfort the night before he goes to the Summit. There is no turning back the clock to give him something to cling to as he faces Rougaru. The crimson girl has learned that no matter how many times she revisits this particular memory, the outcome never changes. No matter how many times she might try to utter the words he wants, how many times she tries to find the courage to rise from the grasses bathed in moonlight, she always stays there. Her eyes remained shut, her mouth schooled to stay in a relaxed line to mimic slumber. She lays in that grass like a sacrificial lamb, ready for the blade to be placed at her throat.
Lilliana isn’t so arrogant to think that if she had said something, that if she might have offered him something, the outcome would have been different. Whatever her feelings had been, they were small and inconsequential in the grand scheme of fate. But she has so often twisted her heart on the thought that he had left this life angry with her, disappointed, wanting.
All because Lilli had believed that he had deserved someone better – someone with more courage, braver, something more than she was. Because she was a coward. Give something a word, a name and it can be taken from you. An old law of magic – give something a name and it can take on a whole new shape, a new meaning.
Maybe Tir had seen Lilli’s wanting, had known how much she sought retribution for how she had failed Brochturach.
And she has gotten it. In the late part of the day when the winter shadows are cast long, the crimson girl concentrates hard. Her brow is furrowed, her attention focused on the bundle of fur that tries to balance its weight on three limbs. One is held up pitifully and the little fox kit has his pointed ears flicked back while his jaw is spread wide in a toothy snarl. She feels the ancient stirring in her body, something primal that bonds her to the land and its magical pulse as she summons what strings she can.
They are stands of light and though the power is still untrained, is still unfamiliar and rages light magic in her veins, she is able to direct it to the darkness in the kit’s front paw. A fracture? A splintering of bone? Somehow the light wields it back together, fuses and knits back together what was torn. The light flashes and leaves her momentarily blinded. When the world comes back into focus, the kit is gone.
The shadows are almost gone and night beckons as the first stars emerge, a velvet spread of blue and black above. The winter wood, an already hushed and silent place, is even more still. Her blue eyes fix on the paw prints left in the snow and looming darkness. The young mare smiles, shakes her head at the impossibility of it all. ”Fey or fox?” Lilli teases the silence, her voice warm despite the frigidness of the air around her. ”Or have I lost my wits entirely?”
Her cousin’s words are still with her a few days after their last meeting. As the day has gone on, Lilli’s thoughts keep coming back to that sentence. For Elaina, Lilli had created a dream. She had crafted one out of the places in between a sunset, a place where night never comes. The air always smelled of like the first blossoms of springs and the symphony of cricket song lingered. Lilli doesn’t know where the imagery or the idea came from but for Elaina, the least she can do is create a dream.
What had her last dream been? What had she last wished for? Hoped for?
For the last two years, her dreams have been shadowed things that were riddled with regrets. They had been filled with Broch’s whispers and her accusations. Every time that she could feel herself starting to wish or hope again, a reminder would come as to why she shouldn’t, why she didn’t deserve too. It’s still a long road yet but Lilliana is entering the sixth year of her life. She is coming to understand those senseless tragedies happen. There is no rhyme or reason to them. They happen to the best and most horrible of souls without any explanation at all.
There will always be an ache there. There should be. A life cut short, a shining star dimmed too soon should always be mourned. But the anguish doesn’t run as hot as it once had. It doesn’t rob the world of color anymore and where Lilliana once struggled to find a way forward, a path is slowly being revealed.
She can’t bring Broch back. Lilli has long accepted that fact. She can’t travel in time and find him, can’t whisper the words he had longed (and deserved) to hear or offer any kind of physical comfort the night before he goes to the Summit. There is no turning back the clock to give him something to cling to as he faces Rougaru. The crimson girl has learned that no matter how many times she revisits this particular memory, the outcome never changes. No matter how many times she might try to utter the words he wants, how many times she tries to find the courage to rise from the grasses bathed in moonlight, she always stays there. Her eyes remained shut, her mouth schooled to stay in a relaxed line to mimic slumber. She lays in that grass like a sacrificial lamb, ready for the blade to be placed at her throat.
Lilliana isn’t so arrogant to think that if she had said something, that if she might have offered him something, the outcome would have been different. Whatever her feelings had been, they were small and inconsequential in the grand scheme of fate. But she has so often twisted her heart on the thought that he had left this life angry with her, disappointed, wanting.
All because Lilli had believed that he had deserved someone better – someone with more courage, braver, something more than she was. Because she was a coward. Give something a word, a name and it can be taken from you. An old law of magic – give something a name and it can take on a whole new shape, a new meaning.
Maybe Tir had seen Lilli’s wanting, had known how much she sought retribution for how she had failed Brochturach.
And she has gotten it. In the late part of the day when the winter shadows are cast long, the crimson girl concentrates hard. Her brow is furrowed, her attention focused on the bundle of fur that tries to balance its weight on three limbs. One is held up pitifully and the little fox kit has his pointed ears flicked back while his jaw is spread wide in a toothy snarl. She feels the ancient stirring in her body, something primal that bonds her to the land and its magical pulse as she summons what strings she can.
They are stands of light and though the power is still untrained, is still unfamiliar and rages light magic in her veins, she is able to direct it to the darkness in the kit’s front paw. A fracture? A splintering of bone? Somehow the light wields it back together, fuses and knits back together what was torn. The light flashes and leaves her momentarily blinded. When the world comes back into focus, the kit is gone.
The shadows are almost gone and night beckons as the first stars emerge, a velvet spread of blue and black above. The winter wood, an already hushed and silent place, is even more still. Her blue eyes fix on the paw prints left in the snow and looming darkness. The young mare smiles, shakes her head at the impossibility of it all. ”Fey or fox?” Lilli teases the silence, her voice warm despite the frigidness of the air around her. ”Or have I lost my wits entirely?”
LILLIANA
i left home on account of snow
(buried all the things i know)
(buried all the things i know)
@[Olver]
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind