[open] Into Paralyzing Silence-any

[lilliana]

you got a cold hard truth
i got a bottle of whiskey but i got no proof

It’s a nice night, the starwearer says.

Lilliana considers this; it’s hard for her to find a summer night that isn’t pleasant. As long as the storms don’t thunder, so long as her dreams remain empty, the nights during the warmer months are easy. Life takes on a tone of leisure and it’s easy to lull a horse into a sense of contentment when bellies are full with lush field grass and the days end to nights like this one.

Where the only thing to consider is the cricket song and the company that a mare might keep after sunset.

"If only they could,” the chestnut mare says and there is something mournful in the way that she speaks it, like she is already grieving the absence of the moon. She doesn’t dread the dawn - the opposite - but there is something about the moon that enchants and she has felt it magnetic pull so many times from her lonely beach in Taiga.

It calls more than just to the tides and it makes her smile a little to think that maybe somebody else hears it too.

"I’m Lilliana,” she finally offers, though she doesn’t hear her name in the evening music. She hears whispers and echoes of things gone with daylight - the grass as it dances in silver moonlight, leaves rustling tenderly in a sweet summer breeze. The loudest silence of all? Her stars.

The grey mare huffs in her direction and Lilliana turns her slender head to look at the girl, her ears pricking kindly and a soft smile starting to glow across her face. "Arantha,” she says, finding her name sweet, graceful even. "And Jenger,” she turns her attention to the fallen star, "are you both of Beqanna?”

Or somewhere else? she doesn’t ask. Maybe a lost piece of sky, she thinks looking at Jenger. Maybe a quiet, peaceful place in a spring forest, she thinks looking at Arantha.

    LILLIANA