i hear hurricanes blowing; Lilliana

[lilliana]

A melancholy autumn breeze passes by them, unsettling the curling tendrils of her copper mane before it disturbs the redwoods behind her. Her question is a simple one and Lilliana finds herself silently hoping for a simple answer. She hopes that whatever pieces of this puzzle she isn't able to fit together are because of her ignorance. She waits in silence as Lepis shrugs her wings and the crimson girl found herself wishing that she could escape the knot that formed at the back of her throat, that she could wash away the dread that was building like an August storm. 

Lilliana gets her simple answer - Lepis states the most obvious thing first. A somber admission but there it was. 

But as so many things are in this life, it wasn't a clear-cut statement, something that could be portrayed as black or white. What Lepis explains is so many shades of gray that Lilliana feels the color drain from the world around her. Nerine was once a great land, she says. They boasted strength from an era that has gone and what Lepis explains is a new chapter in Beqanna's history: Taiga now holds the strength and should wield the power of the North. The next statements that the Comtesse makes causes Lilliana to blink but otherwise, she listens closely and with a keen expression on her crimson face.

There is much here that Lepis says that she agrees wholeheartedly with. She has no desire to see Taigans forced into conflict - even deeper than that, she has no wish to see any conflict at all. But even idealistic Lilli knows that with this life comes all kinds of struggles and turmoils, a price demanded a beating heart. 

But the brutal ultimatum that Heartfire has given Lepis leaves Lilliana's mouth dry, gives it a metallic taste - like iron, like blood.

"Is there any way to.. reason with Nerine?" After a threat like that, something that sounds like a final warning, is there really any going back? Still, Lilli tries. "To let Heartfire keep her title and to let Taiga have a less.. feudalistic relationship with the North?" She searches her mind for something else to say but she keeps coming back to these questions. If Taiga was given her own choices, her own say on what battles she did and did not want to fight, then let Heartfire keep the title of Queen. Was such a thing even possible?

Perhaps these are too optimistic of aspirations. Lilliana might be asking questions to hands already long dealt and the game could be over before she even sat down at the table. Still, she desperately wants a solution. Lilliana keeps searching for a way through the maze of kingdom politics that Lepis has shared with her. For a way that leaves Lepis unharmed and at the helm of Taiga. For a way to appease Heartfire enough that she would even allow such a thing. 

The dun pegasus offers a faint smile and despite the uncertainty she feels, Lilli offers a small one of her own.

@[Lepis]