05-01-2020, 08:59 PM
you got a cold hard truth
i got a bottle of whiskey but i got no proof
”Maybe you didn’t,” Lilliana replies with a small curve of a smile. It’s tentative because what they are speaking of is sons and fates and the winding currents that life tends to take. Maybe there was a reason that Aquaria needed to be in Loess; maybe there was a reason that she and her sons needed to be away from Ischia.
It’s a hard thing - to be cut adrift and swept up in changing currents. Harder still to see where the tides are tugging, the places that they are pulling from.
Lilliana stares out into the bright blue - the vivid cerulean of the sky, the stunning azure of Ischia’s tropical waters. She can hear Neverwhere in the back of her mind, reminding her that sometimes horrible things happen for the sake of simply being horrible. She isn’t so much of a fool to believe that every ending of her stories are happy ones. She herself has been on the receiving end of that - knowing that sometimes things make no sense at all.
Sometimes the hours are just that - simply dark.
Still, stars illuminate the night sky for a reason, don't they?
Her eyes spark with that and she glances back to the champagne mare, her blue-eyed gaze softening on the lovely curve on Aquaria’s cheeks, of the way her mane glistens and gleams in the seashore sunshine. "Given his freedom, he’ll figure it out.” She hasn’t met the Handmaiden’s son but Lilliana thinks that if he has an ounce of his dam’s good sense, it will be hard for him to stray far from where he was meant to go. She doesn’t need Lilli to ease her mind at all, but the chestnut still offers: "But maybe,” she attempts because there is a part of the Taigan mare that will always need her balance, "you helped point him towards a current he didn’t know he needed to swim.”
Nashua is testing his weighted wings, grazing the tips of them against an oncoming wave while Yanhua continues to watch the fish that swim, the coral and a glimpse of a world that they wouldn’t otherwise see without Aquaria’s gift.
Lilliana turns her attention back on them, keeping an ear flicked towards the nereid. She listens about absent fathers and about working twice as hard to compensate for the lack of one. ”I never knew my sire growing up,” she admits. It doesn’t excuse or explain anything; she is certainly not the first foal to be raised by a single parent. Aquaria affirms this.
There are many things she could add with this, though. That her elder siblings had been raised with him. That the sister who came after had. In the rolling memories of mind, she wonders if perhaps she would have been better off never knowing Valerio. Maybe it would have been better to know what she had missed.
Her boys, she decides, will be better off without theirs. What good can come of a man who uses the very things she loves against her? Wolfbane hadn’t given her a choice when it came to Ruth. She could go with him or he and Fiorina could keep fighting. Worse, Ruthless could have flown up into the dark, winter sky and there are still nights that Lilliana wakes up in a cold sweat at that thought.
There would have been no following her little lioness into the stars and against a flyer like the former Commandant? There would have been no chance for her, either.
No, her boys would be better off. Like she had told Aquaria, she wants every chance for them. Every possibility. If she is all they know, then they can't miss the absence of a father. If he hasn’t shown himself by now, if he’s left her alone all this time, then perhaps it's safe to go home. They can return to Taiga and get on with their lives.
The chestnut mare has lost her family once and that almost destroyed her. As she watches her boys play in the surf, she knows there will be no bearing it a second time.
Aquaria reaches over her shoulder and Lilliana leans into her touch, feeling the strength emanating from her. Like catching fire, she softly glows against the seamare’s embrace. She doesn’t know what it takes to stand so solid - so firm - but she could learn from her friend. "I don’t know how you got to be so wise,” the Taigan mare says quietly, "but whoever taught you, tell them thank you.”
It’s a hard thing - to be cut adrift and swept up in changing currents. Harder still to see where the tides are tugging, the places that they are pulling from.
Lilliana stares out into the bright blue - the vivid cerulean of the sky, the stunning azure of Ischia’s tropical waters. She can hear Neverwhere in the back of her mind, reminding her that sometimes horrible things happen for the sake of simply being horrible. She isn’t so much of a fool to believe that every ending of her stories are happy ones. She herself has been on the receiving end of that - knowing that sometimes things make no sense at all.
Sometimes the hours are just that - simply dark.
Still, stars illuminate the night sky for a reason, don't they?
Her eyes spark with that and she glances back to the champagne mare, her blue-eyed gaze softening on the lovely curve on Aquaria’s cheeks, of the way her mane glistens and gleams in the seashore sunshine. "Given his freedom, he’ll figure it out.” She hasn’t met the Handmaiden’s son but Lilliana thinks that if he has an ounce of his dam’s good sense, it will be hard for him to stray far from where he was meant to go. She doesn’t need Lilli to ease her mind at all, but the chestnut still offers: "But maybe,” she attempts because there is a part of the Taigan mare that will always need her balance, "you helped point him towards a current he didn’t know he needed to swim.”
Nashua is testing his weighted wings, grazing the tips of them against an oncoming wave while Yanhua continues to watch the fish that swim, the coral and a glimpse of a world that they wouldn’t otherwise see without Aquaria’s gift.
Lilliana turns her attention back on them, keeping an ear flicked towards the nereid. She listens about absent fathers and about working twice as hard to compensate for the lack of one. ”I never knew my sire growing up,” she admits. It doesn’t excuse or explain anything; she is certainly not the first foal to be raised by a single parent. Aquaria affirms this.
There are many things she could add with this, though. That her elder siblings had been raised with him. That the sister who came after had. In the rolling memories of mind, she wonders if perhaps she would have been better off never knowing Valerio. Maybe it would have been better to know what she had missed.
Her boys, she decides, will be better off without theirs. What good can come of a man who uses the very things she loves against her? Wolfbane hadn’t given her a choice when it came to Ruth. She could go with him or he and Fiorina could keep fighting. Worse, Ruthless could have flown up into the dark, winter sky and there are still nights that Lilliana wakes up in a cold sweat at that thought.
There would have been no following her little lioness into the stars and against a flyer like the former Commandant? There would have been no chance for her, either.
No, her boys would be better off. Like she had told Aquaria, she wants every chance for them. Every possibility. If she is all they know, then they can't miss the absence of a father. If he hasn’t shown himself by now, if he’s left her alone all this time, then perhaps it's safe to go home. They can return to Taiga and get on with their lives.
The chestnut mare has lost her family once and that almost destroyed her. As she watches her boys play in the surf, she knows there will be no bearing it a second time.
Aquaria reaches over her shoulder and Lilliana leans into her touch, feeling the strength emanating from her. Like catching fire, she softly glows against the seamare’s embrace. She doesn’t know what it takes to stand so solid - so firm - but she could learn from her friend. "I don’t know how you got to be so wise,” the Taigan mare says quietly, "but whoever taught you, tell them thank you.”
LILLIANA
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind