"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
We got older and I should have known that I’d feel colder when I walk alone
Taiga had been short one chestnut mare when he visited - though perhaps she’d left him alone when he got intercepted by the winged child. At any rate, it wasn’t quite the same now, pulling a prank on the misty redwoods and not having her around to see her face scowl at his redecoration (because he’s quite certain she would).
Nevertheless, he picks up her trail soon after - an interesting direction considering the fact that she had thought of Taiga as a separate entity last time they spoke. Perhaps she had gone looking for Heartfire after all?
Bouncing northwards always felt like going home to the frosted male. He picks up a trot, no longer bothering with dragon shapes and ice at the time, and goes to find his friend.
He only has a few of those. Funny how they’re all female.
Leilan
no. 7 | ice forged in fire
@[lilliana]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
02-26-2020, 08:45 PM (This post was last modified: 02-26-2020, 08:48 PM by lilliana.)
Scowling is much more common on her dappled friend - on the Nerinian queen - than it is Lilliana.
Even with the chill of the North nipping at her sleek copper coat and the rounding of Autumn bringing more changes to her world, Lilli still hasn’t managed to scowl or glower as impressive as her friend does (though she has frowned a time or two - especially after the arrival of Ghaul.) And had she known what Leilan had been up to in the Redwoods, she might not have scowled rather than purse her dark lips together.
Or perhaps she might have admired the frost, able to appreciate it before winter descended on Beqanna in all its frozen and frigid glory.
In one of the last warm days of Autumn in the north, when Lilli can still find an open space of land and the sun can warm her crimson hide, the slender mare finds a moment to herself. There are still things weighing heavily on her mind - where Brine has gone, how she can best protect Ruth and though she hasn’t been in her forest home much, she hasn’t seen Aten recently (though when has Lilliana last been home?) and his absence adds to her list of growing worries.
There are also the other worries - what are they to do with Ghaul? Is there any plan to reclaim Jesper from Loess? Has there been any word from Brennen?
The chestnut mare shifts her weight as if that might ease some of the thoughts clouding her mind. She keeps her eyes closed and tries to find a moment of rest, a moment when she isn’t dreaming of fire or memories. When the ghosts of her past aren’t trying to clamor their way into her future. A futile attempt it seems, especially when there are enough thoughts to haunt her present. Her blue eyes open and Lilliana shakes her head, trying to remove her forelock from completely obscuring her view of the moorlands.
An ear flicks towards the cadence of someone approaching, a two-beat gait that makes her turn her head to the sound of the approacher. The sight of the roan stallion chases the last of her fatigue and Lilli’s expression warms as he comes closer, a dimple forming from her lopsided smile. "I can’t believe they let you in,” she calls to him in an alto whicker. Perhaps, she thinks as the smile turns wry, he has met Neverwhere already.
We got older and I should have known that I’d feel colder when I walk alone
There are much, much less things in Leilan’s life to worry about than the chestnut mare currently does, and if he knew about it he would be insanely grateful and relieved. Nevertheless he does worry - he checks on the Isle often, and the last few times he visited, he had not seen Jesper around.
In fact the last time must have been when he’d asked him to explain how to shift to Beryl - the only other one to keep him worried, really. She had in fact inspired him to look around for potential other homes - her first year had been so hard out there; little shelter and even littler food had forced her into a survival mode, kept her in her young-lioness shape longer than she perhaps would have been, had they lived anywhere else. Had it been selfish of him not to abandon his quest then? Hmm. Well, there had been others who needed his help, so probably not. Just inconvenient.
She had however, grown into a strong young lady - the sturdy kind as Icicles were made. Leilan sometimes wonders what happened to the others - Camomila was around to raise her daughter, but not much else; sometimes canines could be smelled on the Isle as well, but apart from those… truthfully there were quite a lot of shifters among Icicle Isle’s residents, he noted. Starting with Jesper and Ardashir themselves, he wonders who else went by unnoticed, in their other forms.
Nevertheless, he had decided that it was home more than any of the other places he had visited. Hyaline had offered him mountaintops, but now that Kensa wasn’t around any more, he honestly hadn’t felt like honoring anybody with his loyalty as a resident of pretty much any land. Icicle Isle would be it, then - sister territory to Taiga for as long as that held true, and that under Nerine.
Ah, Nerine. But he wonders if the glory days are over - as much as he wonders how long Loess will be a stronghold. And, subsequently, how many horses and kingdoms he will survive.
Thankfully, the ice-scaled roan knows how to live in the moment; giving the Taigan mists a taste of winter was one thing, though most times he found some quieter way to spend his time.
Lilliana gives him a sharp comment that makes the roan laugh when he approaches her, and shakes his head. ”I have some anciennity over the newest queen.” he grins, stopping near the mare just as she seems to think if something funny. He tilts his head wondering what it is, but she asks him a question that cannot forgo a little pun of his own. ”A little ice-solated, as usual.” he says it in a tone that says you know how it is, though he knows that the Isle had been a bit too far north even for Lilliana, eo far. ”If you’re interested though, you should visit. It’s been quiet and free of political struggles and dragons claiming it, so far.” After all, wasn’t the fact that the freezing cold air and crisp snow waylaid many travellers, the reason that he loved it so much?
Leilan
no. 7 | ice forged in fire
@[lilliana] ^^
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
Ask Lilli where home is and she can conjure images of places and faces.
Her brother had once told her that home was the herd a horse surrounded themselves with. It's his proud, silver face that often comes to mind first. When she had been stripped of her family - and with them, any semblance of who she had been before Beqanna - Lilliana rooted herself to Taiga. She had started out similar to a sapling in the Redwoods and her roots are still grounded there but the chestnut mare is a mixture of air and water as well. Her mother had been a daughter of the Mountains; there is some distant part of her blood that feels at home among all the open spaces and salt air of Nerine too.
Neverwhere and Brazen and Eurwen are faces she sees almost every day. Lilliana can come North and know that they will be here. Its a trust that has been building day by day and they become as something as close to home as Taiga and Aten and Ruth are.
The roan stallion shakes his head and Lilliana grins, "So you’ve experienced the hospitality of our Khaleesi then.” Its said with a fondness warming her voice but with a knowledge that Neverwhere’s version of hospitality might be.. interesting to some. There were some horses that would move mountains; in Lilli’s mind, Nev would tell the mountains to move or go around them altogether.
The Taigan laughs at his pun - a bright, lilting sound in the cool autumn sunshine - and when she finally stops, the chestnut shakes her head at it. There was only one @[Leilan].
"And you? How have you been? Still hoarding gold and scaring children?”
There is a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t visited the Isle when he had extended the invitation to visitation - she should have, she thinks. And as a diplomat for the Northern kingdom, the knowledge of all three territories would serve her well. It’s decided then and she laughs again, inclining her head to her rounding stomach. "I will,” she agrees, "perhaps once the weather warms. I’m not sure I fancy a swim to the Isle this time of year.”
"Though,” she adds with a grin, "I might be a bit more buoyant in this state.”
LILLIANA and its harder than you think telling dreams from one another
”Oh yes, she’s a blast.” He smiles almost fondly. He already knows that she is a chagrined, stubborn mule from their one short meeting with Brennen. He desperately wants to see who is the most stubborn mule of the two, and if she is serious about the apparently upsetting things she lets fly out of her mouth.
Such a one-on-one could either go really well, or really badly, he estimates.
He grins when the red mare laughs - a bit awkwardly as it seems he got her really badly and her laugh prolongates. When she finally stops to ask her return question, his eyes still twinkle though. ”I’ve been looking for a better place to raise my lion-daughter, but you know what they say about homes and hearts.” he tells her with a benevolent shrug. ”You’re never getting rid of me.”
Nothing - not a climate less icy, not a place that’s the home of dragons or the home of lions, not even Nerine is good enough - alright Nerine might work, but why take second best? - none of the places he visited could keep him as the Isle can; not because it is physically distant from the world, but because it was the only place that resonated with him. Hyaline had been the best substitute when he refused to go home after finding out about his ex-wife, and the Fairy had ultimately directed him to where he should be.
He tilts his head at Lilli when she mentions her swollen state, then grins widely at the brilliancy of her own pun. ”Buoyant? I should have thought of that one when my wife...” he stops abruptly, his eyes suddenly grey and dull as he shakes his head. ”Never mind.” He looks to the Isle and around Nerine, but he already knows she is not here and hasn’t heard him.
”Congratulations, I think?” He already continues with a grin. ”Depending on who the father is, of course,” he teases, golden-white tail flicking away a fly.
and I don’t want you to think that I care I never would, I never could again
Leilan
no. 7 | ice forged in fire
@[lilliana]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
03-19-2020, 09:22 PM (This post was last modified: 03-19-2020, 09:35 PM by lilliana.)
Her head tilts affectionately and while blast is perhaps not a term that Lilliana would use to describe Neverwhere, her dark mouth curves upward further with the word. "So you got the royal welcome then,” the chestnut finally laughs. What she made of the draconic stallion, the Ambassador decides to ask her bald-faced friend later with twinkling eyes.
Her gaze lingers on him trying to imagine @[Leilan]'s sarcasm against the blunt wit of Nev. Whatever the conversation they shared, it must have been an interesting one.
"Lion daughter?” the Taigan mare asks curiously, her brow rising with the admission. A thoughtful glance of the roan tells Lilliana much of what she sees - scales and ice. There is nothing feline about him that she can obviously see. She is tempted to ask if that comes from the girls' mother but Lilli reminds herself that isn't her place to ask.
But with a generous shrug of his shoulders, the copper mare takes a northerly step ahead with an inviting incline of her head. "Well, good.” She grins back at him, "I can’t imagine what we’d do without you. The North would be dreadfully dull without its resident wanderer.”
Its only when she looks back at him, smiling at her own joke and covering her own admissions does she notice the way that his eyes have grown empty without their usual mirth. They grow quiet and distant as he looks away. (It’s a look Lilliana knows - one she has worn often enough - searching for a face that never reveals itself outside memories.) "Wife?” she chimes, trying to lightly tread on the topic that has visibly unsettled him.
Leilan has always smelled of so many places that it never occurred to her that there was someone who could have kept him in one place. Or perhaps she was the reason he went to so many, she realizes. The word is said loosely - an open door to talk about it if he so chooses. Lilli is trying hard these days to not bury herself in secrets and while his past might not be one, if he wishes to speak his mind, there is an openness in her gaze that invites him to do so.
When the conversation moves forward, it is her turn. Her easy nature vanishes and the Diplomat - the one that greets and recruits, the one that steals dragons - smiles demurely at him from behind hidden eyes. "Surely new life should always be celebrated,” Lilli says with all the placidity of a glowing, expectant mother.
(She might have made a pretty herd mare in another lifetime.)
It's only the mention of fathers that immediately fades the image and in her place stands a much more vulnerable creature. It’s her turn to look away from him and admit with a quiet voice, "I’m terrified.” When she looks back to him, she remembers his earlier admission of a lion child and a wife. Leilan is a father. Maybe he knows. Maybe he has known this fear. "Does the terror ever go away? Or does it get worse once they are actually born?”
LILLIANA
i met your demons and they do not scare me (they will be angels once they learn to fly)
It seems Lilliana hasn’t kept up with what was happening in the other Nerinian territory at all, and it makes the roan chuckle a bit. ”Yeah, adopted though. I guess my stubbornness rubbed off on her anyway.” he tilts her head a little, thinking of her. Either that or one of her parents had it in them just as much as Beryl herself, he thinks. She might as well be his, with how much he cared for her - if one could imagine he had mated with a palomino lion-shifting mare who also wielded the darkness. Because she got all that from someone else, besides being stubborn.
Nah. His real daughters are even worse. He’s about to comment on something of the like when the red mare admits that she would miss him in the North, earning her a good laugh in return. ”There’s others that might think differently, I bet.” But it’s not his problem. He belongs on that Isle, no matter what anyone thinks - the topic slides off him as he shrugs it off, not bothered by this idea.
No, it’s something else that unsettles him - and the soft repeating of ‘wife?’ isn’t very helpful. It’s carefully spoken, wanting to know more but knowing it is a tender subject. He shakes his head at Lilli in the moment though. Basically saying ‘no, I don’t want to talk about it’. A way of brushing off a topic that was merely brushed accidentally, something buried too deep to uncover right away. Maybe later. Maybe not. Who’s to say if Lilli will catch him in a moment when he can open up?
However, the new topic is safe enough, though still tender. He smiles ruefully. ”I have had enough children, but I’ll never forget my first. I think I smothered her with my fears for her safety though… so, no, it doesn’t go away. In fact, it needs you to constantly remind yourself that they are their own people and can take care of themselves, or you’ll do something stupid and they’ll never forgive you.” He shakes his head. ”I’m glad that some of them take after their mothers at least - Wen seems to do well.” He offers as an afterthought, or maybe even an example. See, it can go well. But it can go horribly wrong too, he knows, as he remembers Chryseis’ running away with her boyfriend, as barely adults. He shakes his head.
Even now, the fear of losing her forever, never goes away. But he knows better than to act on it like he once did.
and I don’t want you to think that I care I never would, I never could again
Leilan
no. 7 | ice forged in fire
@[lilliana]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
03-29-2020, 03:46 PM (This post was last modified: 03-29-2020, 03:49 PM by lilliana.)
She smiles at him and can’t quite catch the breathy laugh that escapes. "I feel like you could teach a rock to be stubborn.”
The poor girl probably never had a chance. Not with Leilan as her Father anyways.
Lilliana shakes her head in jest but quickly glances back up at the draconic stallion. "Oh, I’m sure there are,” she agrees. The Taigan has met her fair share of horses that have often disagreed with her way of thinking. The spirited smile that lights up her face says as much. "What fun would it be if we all agreed?” She asks rhetorically.
The differing of opinions (to her mind) - the way another horse might see the world - offers perspective and depth.
"Anybody gives you any trouble, send them my way.” Lilliana teases with a good-natured grin. It's said in jest and confidence. Of the few horses who reside in Taiga, she can’t see any of them being perturbed by Leilan. The offer is an almost ludicrous one - the chestnut is no fighter and if he was in any real danger, whatever Lilliana might be able to do is fairly limited. Especially given her current state. Still, the smile softens and so she adds, "But if you ever have need, you have friends in Taiga.”
The wind blows especially cold then and Lilli wonders briefly how he endures it on the Isle. To her, it seems like such a lonely existence. A quick glance at his scales reminds her that he probably prefers the cold as her sleek hide prefers the warmth. He probably prefers the loneliness of his Isle the same way she prefers the intrigue of Taiga. For each horse, their own calling. Each heart longs differently.
At the mention of his wife, he shakes his head and she doesn’t pry. (She never does - never will - and feels momentarily relieved that he hasn’t offered insight to the way his shining eyes had dimmed. She knows what it is to not be able to open yourself up - to extract pieces of your soul for what feels like impending judgment.)
They continue to walk along and Leilan does offer his own experiences of parenthood. An ear flicks carefully in his direction and she listens as he explains about his firstborn. How he felt he almost smothered her. Concerned, she glances up at him. "How did it go with your firstborn? Did she forgive you?”
She glances out to the rugged cliffs ahead and feels the pulse of each wave as it crashes against a coastline that lingers somewhere below their hooves. "I don’t know how you did it,” she adds. "There were five of us and I-," she stops herself, blinking away the memories of Murmuring Rivers. "I guess I should consider myself fortunate that there are only two."
And then Lilliana smiles at the mention of Wen - Eurwen - another one of his children. "You should be very proud of her,” the chestnut decisively states. "I’ve had the pleasure of recruiting with her and Nerine couldn’t ask for a better Diplomat.” Her blue eyes light up the rest of her face with a lively expression. "I take it she got that from her mother?”
LILLIANA
i met your demons and they do not scare me (they will be angels once they learn to fly)
| 
