09-19-2019, 08:13 PM
The land of her birth wasn't so different from Beqanna in terms of magic.
Her father had been an airbender, a gifted one who called hurricane and gales with only a thought, a beckon. There had been those who could shift the sand, who talked to stars and walked in dreams, who could see the past and glimpses of several different futures depending on the choices made. They had been of all kinds of colors and gifted with all sorts of things: scales, wings, horns, immortality. So there is no shock when she sees them here (but as one born without any powers or gifts, there is a touch of wonder and mysticism to it all). She thinks that maybe there is someone old enough to remember pieces of the history of the old Neutral Mythic kingdom, someone who might indulge her as she mentions the names of Solomon and Coca-Cola and Helios.
Aten seems to take her question to heart because where she expects to hear a name or two or even an apology that he has nothing more to tell her, he recites names and bloodlines with a precision that would have earned her scholar brother's admiration. But Lilliana stills and stays silent, listens with patience and soaks it in with all the hunger of someone who has longed for the first sweet grasses of spring after a long winter. She glances up at him, reciting the names internally to herself to keep them safe in her memory. Ryatah, she thinks, Magnus. She has no idea who these horses are but they come from Tephra, the place with the volcano, the place where Wolfbane had said he was born.
The impossible map of Beqanna shifts in her mind again and it starts to take on a shape. Pieces of it click into place and at that moment, she smiles up at Aten. There is a chance she might gain a knowledge of Beqanna yet. The fog of the unknown is clearing away and revealing an image in her mind.
It's a small triumph in what feels like a neverending quest to understand this place.
There are many names and many lessons here, she thinks. But the young mare is determined to commit them to memory and so she tries to make space for it in her mind, placing the knowledge alongside the other things she knows about the Forbidden Dale. Small scenes in a long reel of history but she will take whatever small snippets she can get.
But another question causes her head to tilt and the smile falters. Aten had been the leader of Taiga? She wants to ask and yet.. she doesn't. There is a reason why she doesn't and Lilliana won't reveal that even to herself. A thought forms in her mind, ready to take on a shape and to become a word, to become an image in her mind. She gives a shake to her head, refusing to let it do so. Instead, she looks away from Aten.
The snow shimmers, casting colors in the pale sunglow on the frozen ground around them. Lilliana considers it for a moment, absorbing everything Aten has told her. She peers up at him again through the waves of her forelock, concern for him casting over her gentle features: "You only left these woods for information?" Given everything he has told her, if it was a mission or job he was given by a previous ruler, he had played his role well.
But it still seems like such an impossibly lonely existence.
"I hope Beqanna knows what an excellent historian she has in you," she finally manages. "Thank you for sharing it with me."
Her father had been an airbender, a gifted one who called hurricane and gales with only a thought, a beckon. There had been those who could shift the sand, who talked to stars and walked in dreams, who could see the past and glimpses of several different futures depending on the choices made. They had been of all kinds of colors and gifted with all sorts of things: scales, wings, horns, immortality. So there is no shock when she sees them here (but as one born without any powers or gifts, there is a touch of wonder and mysticism to it all). She thinks that maybe there is someone old enough to remember pieces of the history of the old Neutral Mythic kingdom, someone who might indulge her as she mentions the names of Solomon and Coca-Cola and Helios.
Aten seems to take her question to heart because where she expects to hear a name or two or even an apology that he has nothing more to tell her, he recites names and bloodlines with a precision that would have earned her scholar brother's admiration. But Lilliana stills and stays silent, listens with patience and soaks it in with all the hunger of someone who has longed for the first sweet grasses of spring after a long winter. She glances up at him, reciting the names internally to herself to keep them safe in her memory. Ryatah, she thinks, Magnus. She has no idea who these horses are but they come from Tephra, the place with the volcano, the place where Wolfbane had said he was born.
The impossible map of Beqanna shifts in her mind again and it starts to take on a shape. Pieces of it click into place and at that moment, she smiles up at Aten. There is a chance she might gain a knowledge of Beqanna yet. The fog of the unknown is clearing away and revealing an image in her mind.
It's a small triumph in what feels like a neverending quest to understand this place.
There are many names and many lessons here, she thinks. But the young mare is determined to commit them to memory and so she tries to make space for it in her mind, placing the knowledge alongside the other things she knows about the Forbidden Dale. Small scenes in a long reel of history but she will take whatever small snippets she can get.
But another question causes her head to tilt and the smile falters. Aten had been the leader of Taiga? She wants to ask and yet.. she doesn't. There is a reason why she doesn't and Lilliana won't reveal that even to herself. A thought forms in her mind, ready to take on a shape and to become a word, to become an image in her mind. She gives a shake to her head, refusing to let it do so. Instead, she looks away from Aten.
The snow shimmers, casting colors in the pale sunglow on the frozen ground around them. Lilliana considers it for a moment, absorbing everything Aten has told her. She peers up at him again through the waves of her forelock, concern for him casting over her gentle features: "You only left these woods for information?" Given everything he has told her, if it was a mission or job he was given by a previous ruler, he had played his role well.
But it still seems like such an impossibly lonely existence.
"I hope Beqanna knows what an excellent historian she has in you," she finally manages. "Thank you for sharing it with me."
LILLIANA
i left home on account of snow
(buried all the things i know)
(buried all the things i know)
@[Aten]
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind