06-22-2020, 03:01 PM
It had been frightening without her.
It had been so terrifying because for so long, Elaina has clung to Lilli when she no longer had her own parents to do so. She has held on so tightly to Lilli that Elaina sometimes forgets that her crimson exists without her, continues her life on an entirely different plane. She grew, she had children, she became a diplomat, an ambassador. Elaina realizes that all this happened after she had left Beqanna. It happened after she was gone, when that hold upon Lilli had finally been released, and Elaina, the careless cliff dancer, had finally leapt.
It is in this moment that Elaina realizes, once and for all, she cannot stay. She will visit, will meet Lilli’s children, will walk the Taigan forests, a quiet golden ghost to the rest of its inhabitants, her name nonexistent without being said in the same breath as Lilli’s own.
She cannot stay.
Elaina would never be so self deprecating that she would say she was a rogue anchor, dragging Lilli down from the bottom of the sea. But she was a line to a kite that had never wanted to be tired down. Without Elaina here, her cousin has soared. (She was never a kite after all she realizes, but a bird.) And my how high Lilli has flown.
And this thought, it could be this alone that ties a smile on Elaina’s face. And like a proud parent, she watches Lilli take to the skies and thinks, if she can fly on her own, fly much higher than Elaina ever had, than she had done what she could.
She will soar right out of sight until Elaina can no longer see her, of this, she is certain.
The land Lilli imagines is beautiful, and had Elaina been able to see it, she would never have wanted to leave. It is a fantasy, but in the end, hadn't it all been close? So close. So damn close. “Well, then I will name her Elliana, and pray she does not have as a poor a sense of direction as her aunt,” she would have retorted. Elliana. For an aunt that would give the world to this child, just as she had given Elaina.
Elena would give her life for anyone that asked and do so without question. Not because she has nothing to live for, or because she is so caring, she just knows that, when push comes to shove, some things are required of her. She has only one lifetime to give away, but she would do so gladly - for anyone.
But especially for Lilli. Elaina would steal the very breath from her own lungs and pass it over fields of flowers until it found Lilli’s lips.
She is crumpled into Lilli, bowing her head to her with silent confessions and Lilli is her sanctuary. She only raises those blue eyes when her cousin speaks. “Lilli,” she says so softly, her tears beginning to dry. “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful your heart it?” It was stained glasses of churches, colorful gemstones, and glistening snowcapped mountains. “And thank you for always finding me amongst the ashes.”
“Kensa, from Hyaline.” Such a simple introduction.
“Hyaline is more home to me than the land to which I was born.” But, it never became that for Elaina. It had always been Lilli, it had been Lilli that had given her that. And Elaina realizes it now, that it is Lilli alone that can take it away from her.
tried to keep her quiet, but she's screaming inside me