How utterly foolish.
Somebody had called her that once and Lilliana hears it again, standing there as something smiles at her from behind dead eyes. She sees the message clear enough, hears it as loudly as if he had spoken it out loud and yet she can’t help the chill of disbelief as it creeps up her spine. All those months and she had thought-
That’s the problem with insanity. There was no reason for the madness, nothing of predictability in it. It went against the very nature of the word; chaos is the turbulence that comes from the unexpected, the unknown, the unprepared. She still can’t quite grasp that she is struggling in the downfall of it.
She had tried to understand it. Lilliana had tried to find a source or logic or reasoning for it. In the end, though, it hadn’t mattered. Neverwhere had finally disclosed (much too late, after the madness had already descended) that the former Commandant was unwell. It all clicked into place then - revealed a picture (or so she assumed) with a clarity that hadn’t been there before.
Lilliana had gone searching for a reason and there was none. It was senseless and as meaningless as anything else she had ever known and yet she had smiled at this. She had grinned and beamed and glowed at this when she had known to leave well-enough alone every other time; he had been something different and everything in her had wanted to know why.
So, of course, she asks the question now, willing herself not to shiver and then hating the way that her body refuses to listen.
Wolfbane plays a game. He creates the rules and rigs the cards, shuffles the deck and then throws it out altogether. This is very much his playing field and the copper mare is left to quietly consider why even create the game at all. It always comes back to that infuriating question: why?
Because, a cool voice haunts from the back of her mind, you are utterly foolish.
And because this is his game, he fixes the rules again.
She isn’t given a chance to say anything. He takes away her right to explain. Worse, he creates another ring that Dante himself might be proud of. Lilliana had never been given the chance to know her father at their age. Her father had been gone, assumed that he would never be coming back and Lilliana had been raised in a home that sometimes felt more like a mausoleum than a sanctuary. An altar to everything that had been lost, a shrine to what had been and she had been so often reminded that she was the one he left behind.
His head rises and she takes a step forward, noting where both her boys stand. "I didn’t say that,” she states forcefully with a voice that chokes on the emotion. "I never said that.”
But maybe she should, she realizes.
Nashua is frowning; his young face looks from his father to his mother, not understanding why she wouldn’t want him to stay. Not understanding why she suddenly looks like that - it’s an expression much worse than the time he had accidentally snuck out of Taiga or had called his Aunt Neverwhere a rock.
His mother looks like that and Nashua is staring up into a masked face, wondering why it seemed so different than when Velkan had smiled at him. Nash, still uncertain, regards his twin before asking with an upward tilt of his head, "what kind of games?” They had played games on Ischia, perhaps this wouldn’t be so different.
Perhaps the stranger would stay, and as he glances back to his mother, he wonders what could be so bad about that?
Wolfbane taunts and torments. He has one son staring up at him while the other she can feel behind her, watching the scene unfold. Piece by piece it unravels much as his dark smile does, one that Lilli had once thought known all the answers - how else could confidence curl around his iridescent mouth as it had?
She is about to say that Aten wouldn't like it. Aten wouldn't want him here. But she suddenly can't remember the last time she saw the champagne Guardian - that could be her fault too. It isn't as if she had purposefully sought Taiga's leader out recently. Not when the sons at her hips look as they do - Yanhua with his flaxen, glowing mane and Nashua with his wings. Perhaps not outwardly recognizable to the Taigans who had come in the quiet years after but Aten would know. Lilliana didn't doubt that.
Neverwhere wouldn't tolerate it. Not him, not anywhere in the North. Rank brings privilege and that would be one she would afford herself and those under her care. (Nerine would have to crumble into the ocean first.)
The chestnut mare feels her jaw clench. She feels the tension tighten underneath the curve of it as her head lifts and her red ears flick back. One son stands at her haunch, another is ahead and Wolfbane makes a game of it.
(Of course he does.)
Nash is looking back at her again while Yan still seems to stay at her flank. Their presence softens her. (But then Lilliana would always cut herself open for her boys, would drain the blood from her body if she thought it ease the sharp edges.)
Wolfbane seemed to enjoy this - always changing the odds, constantly raising the stakes.
"And if I let you?" she challenges airily, lifting her gaze from her son to his accursed father. She asks likes it's in her power to give (it's not).
But that doesn't matter. He tossed out the rules long ago.
And in the case of her sons, for Lilliana, there are none.
Somebody had called her that once and Lilliana hears it again, standing there as something smiles at her from behind dead eyes. She sees the message clear enough, hears it as loudly as if he had spoken it out loud and yet she can’t help the chill of disbelief as it creeps up her spine. All those months and she had thought-
That’s the problem with insanity. There was no reason for the madness, nothing of predictability in it. It went against the very nature of the word; chaos is the turbulence that comes from the unexpected, the unknown, the unprepared. She still can’t quite grasp that she is struggling in the downfall of it.
She had tried to understand it. Lilliana had tried to find a source or logic or reasoning for it. In the end, though, it hadn’t mattered. Neverwhere had finally disclosed (much too late, after the madness had already descended) that the former Commandant was unwell. It all clicked into place then - revealed a picture (or so she assumed) with a clarity that hadn’t been there before.
Lilliana had gone searching for a reason and there was none. It was senseless and as meaningless as anything else she had ever known and yet she had smiled at this. She had grinned and beamed and glowed at this when she had known to leave well-enough alone every other time; he had been something different and everything in her had wanted to know why.
So, of course, she asks the question now, willing herself not to shiver and then hating the way that her body refuses to listen.
Wolfbane plays a game. He creates the rules and rigs the cards, shuffles the deck and then throws it out altogether. This is very much his playing field and the copper mare is left to quietly consider why even create the game at all. It always comes back to that infuriating question: why?
Because, a cool voice haunts from the back of her mind, you are utterly foolish.
And because this is his game, he fixes the rules again.
She isn’t given a chance to say anything. He takes away her right to explain. Worse, he creates another ring that Dante himself might be proud of. Lilliana had never been given the chance to know her father at their age. Her father had been gone, assumed that he would never be coming back and Lilliana had been raised in a home that sometimes felt more like a mausoleum than a sanctuary. An altar to everything that had been lost, a shrine to what had been and she had been so often reminded that she was the one he left behind.
His head rises and she takes a step forward, noting where both her boys stand. "I didn’t say that,” she states forcefully with a voice that chokes on the emotion. "I never said that.”
But maybe she should, she realizes.
Nashua is frowning; his young face looks from his father to his mother, not understanding why she wouldn’t want him to stay. Not understanding why she suddenly looks like that - it’s an expression much worse than the time he had accidentally snuck out of Taiga or had called his Aunt Neverwhere a rock.
His mother looks like that and Nashua is staring up into a masked face, wondering why it seemed so different than when Velkan had smiled at him. Nash, still uncertain, regards his twin before asking with an upward tilt of his head, "what kind of games?” They had played games on Ischia, perhaps this wouldn’t be so different.
Perhaps the stranger would stay, and as he glances back to his mother, he wonders what could be so bad about that?
Wolfbane taunts and torments. He has one son staring up at him while the other she can feel behind her, watching the scene unfold. Piece by piece it unravels much as his dark smile does, one that Lilli had once thought known all the answers - how else could confidence curl around his iridescent mouth as it had?
She is about to say that Aten wouldn't like it. Aten wouldn't want him here. But she suddenly can't remember the last time she saw the champagne Guardian - that could be her fault too. It isn't as if she had purposefully sought Taiga's leader out recently. Not when the sons at her hips look as they do - Yanhua with his flaxen, glowing mane and Nashua with his wings. Perhaps not outwardly recognizable to the Taigans who had come in the quiet years after but Aten would know. Lilliana didn't doubt that.
Neverwhere wouldn't tolerate it. Not him, not anywhere in the North. Rank brings privilege and that would be one she would afford herself and those under her care. (Nerine would have to crumble into the ocean first.)
The chestnut mare feels her jaw clench. She feels the tension tighten underneath the curve of it as her head lifts and her red ears flick back. One son stands at her haunch, another is ahead and Wolfbane makes a game of it.
(Of course he does.)
Nash is looking back at her again while Yan still seems to stay at her flank. Their presence softens her. (But then Lilliana would always cut herself open for her boys, would drain the blood from her body if she thought it ease the sharp edges.)
Wolfbane seemed to enjoy this - always changing the odds, constantly raising the stakes.
"And if I let you?" she challenges airily, lifting her gaze from her son to his accursed father. She asks likes it's in her power to give (it's not).
But that doesn't matter. He tossed out the rules long ago.
And in the case of her sons, for Lilliana, there are none.
LILLIANA
all that i'm after is a life full of laughter
(as long as i'm laughing with you)
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind