[private] a shot in the dark and right at my throat

[lilliana]

- it's in the eyes, i can tell you will always be danger -
we had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?

LILLIANA

On an autumn day that is still warm and the grasses billowing across Nerine still hold the tint of summer green in their long stalks, Lilliana treks North. Her rounds in Taiga are done for the day. It was another day of peace below the Redwoods. There was quiet. There was nothing stalking in the shadows. There were no strangers at the borders that she and the Matriarch try to keep watch on. 

Nashua grew broader each time she saw him. There was a sense of purpose that he carried with him each time he visited from the Isle. Her eldest boy - who had a spinning compass before - is given direction and Lilliana thinks that he thrives on the instruction that he receives. Yanhua grows taller each day and she thinks its a gift given to him from the Redwoods. Her youngest son towers over her now and the days that he had pressed himself into her side seem as intangible as he could make himself. 

Aela troubles her. The quiet troubles her. The vision she carries of Brazen makes her ache. The knowledge that Ghaul's children seek asylum in the North unnerves her.

She comes North to find Neverwhere (as is so often the case). Her mind is running away with her again and she needs the dappled woman’s practicalities to help rein it in. (And perhaps, even after all this time, Lilliana just needs to see for herself that the Nerinian is still here.) Nev will tell her that not to mind the quiet. Nev will remind her that children grow and leave. 

And one doesn’t need to see to know what will eventually become of one of their dearest friends. 

Lilliana comes North looking for Neverwhere but what she finds instead is him in the middle of the moorland. The chestnut spies Leilan’s roan coat glinting in the daylight. She calls out to him as she approaches, a smile already warming beneath the fall sunshine. "Don’t tell me you’ve lost my wayward son.” She teases, knowing full well that Nashua could be anywhere in Beqanna. It’s good @[Leilan]'s come, she thinks. It's been sometime since their last meeting. By the time that Lilliana has stopped in front of him, her troubles have been left and lost (for now) somewhere in the meadowgrass behind her. 

image credit to rigardatta

[Leilan]

Nerine is usually ground for politics, or rather, it is to Leilan. Today it is more of a personal thing, having met the somewhat-uncanny Lumina on the Isle, and having a mind of visiting Brennen in his personal spa. Perhaps he’ll ask Eurwen if she wants to investigate - she seems to be of that nature as of late - or maybe he can question Cormorant on Ischia’s business - but it might be better if he takes his mind off of it, all in all.

He has paused, then, investigating the moors and wondering how many sheep and hares actually reside here; how many predators might it take to empty the place?

Zora comes to mind - Izora with her mind set on a draconic trait. He wonders if next time he sees her, she has a carnivorous nature. Would she taste different? He shakes his head, focusing on smaller game instead. He snarls at a bird nearby and it takes off, offended as birds are - into the very holes of its weightless bones.

Grinning, he makes off to find something else to do; as he turns, he spots a red figure meandering towards him, and so he comes to another standstill as Lilliana’s blue eyes fall upon himself, and she changes direction as well.

Don’t tell me you’ve lost my wayward son, she says and he cannot help but smile mischievously. ”Alright, I won’t tell.” Not that Nashua is actually lost - the kid knows where north is, and has never failed to find his way back - but it’s fun to tease the mare a little.

Grasses sway in the wind as he considers the flame-marked red mare before him, wondering not for the first time what goes on behind those sky-blue eyes. ”I always wondered if you don’t get too cold, up here?” he says instead - a question close enough to what he does want to know, but far enough away that he doesn’t really want to ask.

Her thoughts are her own, and probably should be, after all.

In fact, the last time he truly got to know a mare who interested him, well - he doesn’t think he’ll ever truly recover. Not even with someone new distracting him.

nothing burns like the cold

Leilan

@[lilliana]

[lilliana]

- it's in the eyes, i can tell you will always be danger -
we had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?

LILLIANA

She doesn't mean to do it so easily but it escapes from her lips before Lilliana has time to catch it. The Taigan mare laughs. She gives her head a slight shake to move the curling forelock out of her blue eyes and tries to feign a somber look for the Freyr. When her gaze rises up, she won't succeed. "You're incorrigible, @[Leilan]." The corners of her dark mouth tease and then finally lift, spark catching flame into a smile.

Something stills behind her eyes as the laughter finally fades. Her children are never far from her thoughts and so when the moment comes, Lilliana asks, "He doesn't give you too much trouble, I hope?" She broaches the subject gently. Her boys are well past their second birthday and yet she still worries over them. Her query is meant to be a polite one but Lilli is perfectly exposed in all her fire-gold glory beneath the Nerinian sun. Her eldest son might be destined for the stars but his earth-bound mother clearly misses him. Is he okay? that gaze asks. He is well?

Leilan, who seems to think Lilliana is a distraction, distracts her from furthering those thoughts.

The chestnut mare blinks once and a fine line emerges above her brow as the large roan stallion considers her. "The first winters in Taiga were hard," Lilli admits. The first the most because it had been the winter after Elena had vanished. Everything had been blanketed in desolation after that. Lilliana's world - which had always been painted in varying shades of gold - had suddenly become lackluster.

Speaking softly, she adds: "But I think I'd swelter beneath Tephra's volcano. And Ischia is lovely." There is a look of admiration on her face as she thinks of Aquaria and the island chain she rules. What she says next, though, is what keeps Lilliana in the North. "My family is here." Yanhua and Aela in Taiga. Nashua on the Isle. Neverwhere and Brazen and Eurwen in Nerine. Lethia of the Redwoods and even Leilan on his rebuilding island.

When the truth has had enough time to settle, Lilliana gives a half-shrug of her slender shoulders and tilts that delicate head at Leilan. It makes her curious if he's considered somewhere else but the ice that she has seen coating his glinting scales suggests otherwise to her. Where else would he find the cold?

One catches her attention on his shoulder, gleaming in the autumn sunshine and Lilliana catches herself admiring it. 

image credit to rigardatta

[Leilan]

Leilan

She’d be the one, he thinks to himself when the laughter in her voice and eyes becomes apparent. She’d be the one if there hadn’t been another before her. Similarities to be found, sure - more than he even knows - though the slight difference is refreshing. Distracting, sure - but he mentally recoils when he recognizes the feeling. She can’t become more than a friend. She can’t.

And yet, here she is. You’re incorrigible, Leilan. He knows it to be true. His heart is, likewise, no matter how much he tells it ‘no’. Once upon a time, a million years ago, Brennen had taught him the only thing he ever learned from anyone else. It is simple. I just love them. It had taken him long, too long at the time, to figure out what that entailed, but he knows now. He lives by the day, because it won’t help worrying about the future, because he shouldn’t linger on the past. If anything, Lilli would even be the safest choice.

But can he even take it, even if she were interested in him at all?

He doesn’t give you too much trouble, I hope? Ah, Nashua. A boy not unlike himself , though hopefully more fortunate should he fall in love. That had been his own problem after all. And Lilli’s. ”How about you stop chasing your sons and start living your own moments?” A twinkle to his eyes follows, indicating he doesn’t mind her asking, but it’s still true that he wants her to focus on something else, and most certainly will help her do so.

It’s the same thing Leilan should be doing. Didn’t he just come to that conclusion?

Considering the cold though... it’s not the question he’d wanted to ask, but certainly he finds the answer reassuring. ”So you’ve warmed up to it then?” he smirks, green eyes mischievously glinting at the shy-ish, somewhat serious-looking mare. Sweltering in the heat of Tephra though, well, he’d practically feel like melting over there. A year-round summer simply wasn’t his thing. ”Me too, I remember. I've left Ischia for Nerine, the summer after my abilities started to take a more definite ice-form,” he recalls, musing more or less at the memory. It had been his now ex-wife he’d left the Brotherhood for, of course, but it had been a happy coincidence to get away from the overload of burning sunlight. ”However, if you’re cold,” he shrugs, ”I’ve never failed to keep a girl warm when she asked me to.” At that, he outright grins, waiting for the implication to sink in.

She most likely wouldn’t even dream of it, so it’s a safe enough joke between the two of them, isn’t it?

I am the dragon
and you call me insane

Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA

@[lilliana]

[lilliana]

- it's in the eyes, i can tell you will always be danger -
we had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?

LILLIANA

"[Leilan]," she interjects and takes full advantage of saying his name. The way she wields it is with a mock severity but the truth of it is glimmering in her blue eyes, bright and clear in the autumn sunshine. Nashua and Yanhua are almost grown. Nearly stallions. They don't need her worry. They barely need her at all. And yet, she'll worry about them because that is what Lilliana does.

"If there is so much as a feather out of place on Nashua, I am holding you accountable."

He doesn't tell her how Nashua is but she takes his bantering with her as proof enough that her firstborn was fine. That out on the Isle, he was growing and (as she liked to imagine) thriving. If there was something wrong, she trusts that Leilan would tell her. It's why she lets him move their conversation away from the topic of the young pegasus.

Something twinkles in the eyes of the roan Freyr and Lilliana holds his gaze, studying his expression to see if his gaze might change color. If the shift there might reveal something of his mood, as she has come to learn of him. He smirks at her and that sparks something in her, that turns the look on her slender head into something impish. "One gets used to it," she laughs and then takes a leisurely step forward.

The smile lingers on her face when she turns back to look at him, the laughter still coloring her expression. "I'd be afraid to get used to living in paradise," she says. Taiga is home, regardless of the cold. Nerine holds some of those she cares most for, despite its frigid and icy winters. Something softens at the mention of it and trying to imagine him in Ischia strikes her, something that she can't conjure. "I can hardly picture you anywhere else." For almost as long as she had been in Taiga, Leilan had been somewhere in North. She can no longer picture him without or in it.

She starts to walk away from him, convinced that he'd follow. Lilliana only manages a few steps before she completely stops because she hears him (and thankfully, it hides her shocked expression). Maybe, he meant it as a joke. Their relationship has been made mostly of them. They tease each other often, hidden truths that emerge from the smiles that curve their lips. An ear flicks towards Leilan and then the flame-marked mare glances back at him over her delicate shoulders.

A smile quirks on one edge of her dark mouth, small and slight. "Good thing I'm not just a girl, then." It's a game he's playing at, she assumes. One, she decides, that she'll play right back. The distraction it provides is inviting and Leilan, well, he becomes something else. The wind tugs on her curling copper mane and she glints red-gold in the brilliant sunshine as she laughs. "Otherwise I'd tell you to prove it."

image credit to rigardatta

[Leilan]

Leilan

The autumn colours don’t reach Nerine, or in fact the Isle, so much as they do Taiga. The redwoods have a different canopy from above now than a few weeks back; out here, the pine trees do not show much of a difference. The north changes little in autumn, except for the breezes that catch the two of them now. The red mare is also autumn-colored, he muses (he’d always consider himself that way too, though lately he is more the embodiment of winter); he throws a glance her way when she emphasises his name, his eyes twinkling in the orange sun. He doesn’t audibly respond to her little threat, knowing perfectly well that Nashua is capable of handling his own.

She teases right back, a good thing, he thinks. ”That’s because you don’t know any better.” he says. Though, he had been a more normal-looking guy at the time, with an aura that had not changed his internal body temperature the way the dragonice had. But that’s something that would be even harder to imagine, he supposes.

She turns then, walking a few paces, probably because she wants to talk on the move, or so would be his guess. Or just to see if he’d comply and walk with her - whatever she is thinking though, his tease of a comment entices a stronger reaction than he’d anticipated. Still, he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, not when it comes to teasing and playing. He takes the few strides he needs to catch up when she glances over her shoulder, her eyes sparkling like the dawn coming over a clear winter’s day. As the wind plays with her mane and her dry comment reaches his perked ears, a devilish grin threatens to overtake his face; he changes direction and lines up next to her, their skins a hair away from actually touching. ”Would you now?” he asks, his breath hovering dangerously close over the skin of her neck, just behind her ear. ”Careful what you wish for, Lilli,” his baritone follows up in what might be more of a hum, ”I know my way around extreme temperatures, but it might become too hot for you.” At that, instead of his usual warm breath, he lets an ice-made scale brush by her shoulder before he is gone again; a mixture of aqua and a hint of yellow may be found briefly in his eyes, before he blinks the color away and gives her a cheeky, fake-innocent grin as if nothing had happened.

I am the dragon
and you call me insane

Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA

@[lilliana]

[lilliana]

- it's in the eyes, i can tell you will always be danger -
we had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?

LILLIANA

Lilliana is always on the move. It is a rare occasion to find her one place for long (she doesn't like to wander outside the North but she is often in Nerine with Neverwhere or Eurwen or Brazen, in Taiga with Yanhua or Lethy, along the beaches watching the skies for a glimpse of Nashua). And it's out of pure habit that leads her away from Leilan now, that need to keep her feet moving.

She doesn't think the brawny stallion will disagree with keeping her company. Those few steps away from him, she barely thinks at all. There is that lovely dancer's stride and she sweeps the ground beneath her with each one she takes. When he draws closer, his sudden proximity makes it harder for her to think at all. There is only the sudden chill of autumn blowing past them and his presence - a hum behind one-daintily tipped ear - that sends a similar sensation running along her spine to where the warmth of his breath pools at the back of her neck.

He is there and gone, the only remnant that had been there at all was a cold spot from where his ice had pressed against her fire-colored pelt. The chestnut mare stands quietly - perhaps too still - and that is the only thing that betrays that Leilan might still linger where he no longer stands. In her thoughts. Singing beneath her skin. Deepening the blue of her eyes. A bird flies overhead and casts a shadow below, across her and then eventually the moorlands that still lay wide and wild before them. Lilliana arches her slender neck in an attempt to gather the last of her thoughts (wits?) about her and then falls in place beside the silver roan as they walk along.

 "I would," she tells the Freyr, carefully and focusing out on the knolls ahead of them, pretending that she isn't on her words. The copper mare takes another step and then questions with a casual glance back up at him: "But what would ice know about  fire?"

image credit to rigardatta

[Leilan]

Leilan

They are like magnets, thrown at one another; pushing and pulling and twisting and dancing. Like two stars, pulled to each other and returning for another close call. One time, these magnets may twist and turn around and click. One time too, these stars may clash, and the damage of their collision may be unimaginable.

Damage he personally doesn’t want to think about; in fact, the few dancing steps away he takes are no movement to indicate he’d actually move away from her; rather the elasticity of the magnetic bond between them - gravity pulls - is going to force her to come right back to where he waits for her.

It’s possible that she is less good at hiding her feelings than she hopes; it’s equally possible he is attuned to such minimal differences in her expressions, or that his draconic vision allows him to see more than most. Perhaps he just pays attention to her in a way not many would. Nevertheless, the opportunity of chasing her wriggles its way into his mind, and when she comes back to him in all her dismissive teasing, her focus too-clearly elsewhere, he places a small nib on her withers - retreats just as easily - serpent-like, cat-quick in his movements. But what would ice know about fire? ”What, indeed,” he says, his tone somewhat distant, mulling it over as he tries to ignore the growing combination of secret wants and a far more recognisable drive for competition and winning this game that they started. They seem opposites, ice and fire. He knows better than most, that the damage the extremes inflict are the same. That ice and frostbite burn just as much as fire. That the warm-skinned have trouble distinguishing one from the other.

They seem opposites, this summer woman and the ice-bearing dragon. But things are not as they seem, are they? The red mare and the red stallion both have lured the other in, in a way that seems inexplicable to most. Stars and mirrors don’t need explaining between them, however, not right now.

The silver roan’s body moves to touch hers every now and then; purposeful glimpses for the fiery mare as to how cold exactly his skin might be. He knows his way around the temperatures - the right touch here, a hot breath there, a sharper set of teeth into a sensitive part to trigger her; all of this might warm her up so quickly she would start to crave the refreshment of his colder breath and scales.

But there’s always the danger of falling. He’s playing with fire, and thinking he might still win.

I am the dragon
and you call me insane

Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA

@[lilliana]

[lilliana]

- it's in the eyes, i can tell you will always be danger -
we had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?

LILLIANA

She is warm-skinned, sun-kissed.

Wrapped in that brilliant fire-gold pelt, what else could Lilliana be? She had spent her earliest years being called a spark. That when the sun hit her just right, she would catch flame. It happens now, here, with Leilan. Only it isn't just the sun illuminating her coat. The spark that catches on her skin lights and burns in her veins as well. He is her opposite (and her like) in many ways; in this one, where she catches fire, he chills.

It starts as a cool brush against her slender shoulder. Brief and brisk, like the first breezes of autumn. Like the wind that blows past them now. A touch that comes and goes and leaves her questioning if it was there at all. (She a daughter of Summer and so the heat comes flooding back.) Where the ice graces across her skin, the sun shines from beneath it. Two sensations warring against each other that leaves Lilliana to watch the silver roan, to regard him with that deep blue-eyed gaze that doesn't seem to end.

For the moment that she locks eyes with his - watches and waits for the way that they might change - she continues to wonder: what is he playing at? Some part of her thinks that it shouldn't be so blunt or plain. But while she waits for an answer that doesn't come, he simply asks 'what indeed?' Lilliana arches her brow at that and tilts her head, giving away that what he says certainly wasn't what she was expecting at all.

@[Leilan] has always brought the unexpected, though.

He touches her here. Another touch there. And where Lilliana might have once drawn a line, she doesn't. He is burning and melting her at the same time and she is learning that she doesn't mind. The way that she internally battles with herself is something she doesn't mind at all and so when the tall roan presses against her, she doesn't move away. She doesn't melt into him (not yet, anyways) but he draws near and she doesn't pull away. Lilliana doesn't draw a line for him not to cross.

Lilliana, who is really no different than any other soul, succumbs to the most mortal of desires. It takes the shape of Leilan below the autumn sun. He doesn't step into her path like one man had, wanting to know when he might see her again. Who had wanted to know what she wanted and Lilliana could only tell him time. Time to know her own mind, her own heart. He isn't like another who brought the stars down from the heavens.

He is the first to ask nothing of her at all.

It makes her bold.

It makes it easy to lean into him. It makes it easy for her to press here, give a touch there. It makes it far too easy for the fire in her blood to dare ask the ice in his,  "Would you like to learn?"

image credit to rigardatta

:|

[Leilan]

Leilan

Something happens underway, and in retrospect he couldn’t really explain it to anyone if he wanted to. The game they’re playing is a dangerous one, and they both know it in the back of their minds. Neither pays attention, though. Not the ice-scaled roan, who’d initiated it, nor the chestnut mare, who’d been challenging him in the first place.

Their stars are pulled together, and with every circling motion, they come closer and closer.

She asks a question. The answer is ”Yes”, breathed hoarsely into her skin. She might have felt the vibration or the heat, but chances are the word itself is completely lost. Neither of them stops, neither of them tells the other No: this crucial word is forgotten, as oblivion took their minds.

Now they come together, whether they want to or not, the warm and the cold. It’s a star collision, the stardust scattering in the endless sky. A broken dam, letting the ocean in. It is dawn breaking over the mountains. A jump into a pitch-black lake. Running into the mist and bursting out into the unknown.

There is no room for thoughts tonight. Relief follows first when heads are cleared, but when they’re both breathless and leaning against one another, the orange is not of the setting sun but of it rising. His second emotion is shock, when reality comes rushing back in in the blink of an eye. He stares at the red woman in disbelief, mouths a how?, then shakes his head. Never mind that. It takes a heartbeat longer, then a low chuckle follows, and another. Idiot, he tells himself, but he doesn’t let go of her yet, and buries his face in her mane.

What’s done is done, and he might as well cling to her smell a little longer.

I am the dragon
and you call me insane

Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA

@[lilliana]