[open] It is the nature of dreams to end // pq help needed

[Warlight]

Warlight

She had tried to ignore the truth, to fight through the symptoms, and still participate in daily life with her rowdy brood. She didn't want to admit there was a thread of fear in her - a reluctance to return to The Mountain and claim what the Dark God had only half suggested he would give her.

It was poorly timed though, she wouldn't have gone the first place if she had read the warning signs her body had been giving her; she would have never called on Carnage if she knew of the child she carried. A fourth foal hadn't been in the plans, not for years at least - not when she had just recovered her independence after two years raising the twins.

But it had always been her way to act before she thought, especially if she glimpsed a goal, and although she had cursed herself for the pain her ambition had brought her, she wouldn't change what she had done now.

Despite her own sickness, she had given birth quietly to a healthy daughter, and she had a partner who was doing more than his fair share to bring her up right. She was lucky. And she had a way to end her curse, she just had to bring herself to take the final step and put in the work.

But she had no strength for such things now, after a day of hiding her discomfort, her weakness, and being there for her daughters. She just wanted to collapse. The sun has sunk below the earth's edge, and Will walks through the purple-grey haze of late-twilight with a lowered head. The healing pool is close ahead, and she knows there at least she will find some relief, if no true healing.

— soul as sweet as blood red jam —

looking for a horse to help her! "help" can be interpenetrated pretty broadly... but it must include the use of a trait to meet the requirements of her quest

[lilliana]

Oh, the Mountain.

For Lilliana, Beqanna's pivotal peak is a physical representation of the oldest (and perhaps purest) law of Magic. She doesn't know what originally made it rise, if there was a fable behind why it stood. She doesn't know if the Mountain has been there since the creation of the land itself - that if one morning the Sunrise dawned on a newborn Beqanna and it was already there or if it rose with the land in more recent times - like the Reckoning. Maybe, she had wondered, for the years that passed, it climbed another inch into the blue-sky heavens.

(Once, Lilliana might have even wondered if the Magic fed on the wielders or if the wielders fed the Magic.)

Her first time at the Mountain had revealed Tir's gift, her healing. The second had been a calling from the Mountain itself and Lilli still dreams about Craft's death. About her sinking into the golden dunes with a blazing sun in the hazy, arid background to symbolize the life that had been leaving the palomino mare. That quest still wakes her some nights and leaves her alone in the dark, leaving her alone to remind herself that Craft and Anatomy survived.

That she had too.

Lilliana's mind isn't on those things today, however. The once-Ambassador of Taiga had a let a southerly patrol drift further than intended and once she realized that that the border of Tephra was close, the red-gold mare had lingered there before deciding to cross it. Kagerus and Solace had taken up residence in Tephra, she recalled. It was where the dream-weaver had last told Lilliana she could find her. So the Taigan had crossed the border with the hope of finding the two-toned mare. Even if the day is dying, her hope at finding Kagerus is just dawning.

The hope that lights her face - transforming the weariness that has come to rest there - is bright. All she sees is the proud outline that she assumes is the former Caretaker. Lilliana approaches with a quicker step and as her head raises, the flame-marked mare nickers quietly into the night. "Kager-," and then stops herself - both literally and physically. This is not the Dreamweaver. "My apologies," the former Diplomat offers, recovering herself. "I thought you were somebody else."

Twilight deepens around them and it invigorates her other senses. The clear, pristine scent of water lingers nearby. A sulfuric smell wafts on the wind, most likely from one of Tephra's lava streams. Her nostrils are flaring and taking this in while her blue eyes remain on the bay mare. Something about her - for as much as @[Warlight] brings an inkling recollection of someone else to mind - seems off. "Are you... alright?"

LILLIANA

if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions

[Warlight]

Warlight

The sound of hooves on stone causes Warlight's head to lift from where is swings as she walks, and her weary, black eyes catch sight of the approaching mare. She pauses, admiring the gleam of the copper coat and the ease with which the stranger travels towards her.

A soft nicker floats in the air between, reaching Will just before the warm spice of the Taigan forest does. It is a familiar greeting, full of kindness and friendship, which perplexes her for a moment. But it is not long before the mystery is solved.

"Kagerus," Will finishes for her. "Easy mistake. I'm Warlight, her daughter."

Warlight smiles as the mare apologize, her sunburnt lips curving in the same salacious way of her mother. Although Carnage had taken her antlers, there were still plenty of qualities that linked the two women. Not that Kagerus often wore the antlers these days, but it was a feature that would be apart of Warlight's mental image of the mother Will most resembled, and it was a trait she was proud to carry - one she missed now more than her teleportation.

There is a moment where the other mare seems to notice that not all is the way it should be, and Will is not surprised. While she had not lost the clumps of fur during her second run-in with the plague, there were many other signs of her sickness. Her body was thin and her breathing shallow, and there was just a general lifelessness about her that she found difficult to hide. Every movement was taxing.

"Not completely," she replies, but there is no alarm in her voice. It would be absurd to lie so bluntly to a concerned stranger, an apparent friend of her mother, but her pride makes her stand a little straighter and look a little less pitiful. But Will feels the threat of a coughing fit beginning to tickle the inside of her throat and she takes the final few steps to the waterfall's healing pool before continuing with her answer. The tangle of her forelock falls across her face as her muzzle dips into the cool water where she drinks deeply for a moment before returning her dark eyes to Lilliana.

"I made a trip to the mountain a few weeks ago, and I'm paying for it now."

— soul as sweet as blood red jam —

@[lilliana]

[lilliana]

Her disappointment that this is not Kagerus, lasts only a moment.

When Lilliana has stopped in front of the dual-toned mare, it is gone. The Taigan tilts her head to the left, admiring where the stark contrast of her coloring met. Like dawn rising above the horizon. Like Warlight’s ancestors couldn't find agreement and between the ancestry of Kagerus and Solace, here she was in a vibrant splash of color.

The spots that Lilliana spies in the dying light illuminate one indication of who the other mare is but when she smiles, well. Lilli knows that smile.

It's the same smile that has unwound Lilliana time and time again, when she found herself knotted and tangled with so many emotions. It immediately puts her at ease and it shows in the relaxed one she gives Warlight. It’s not the diplomatic (false) one she has to wear so often these days; like the hazy sun-glow that paints Tephra in gold, it comes naturally.

"Well met,” says Valerio’s daughter with a flourishing smile that reaches her blue eyes. "Lilliana,” she offers and then, "A friend of your mother.” Friend feels, perhaps, a bit tentative considering that Kagerus has taken on the role of mentor in Lilliana’s life. It had been Kagerus who had given her that first sense of purpose when she had been so new to Beqana as the former Caretaker tried to regain her strength. It had been Kagerus who had known that her children were dreaming long before Lilliana could even fathom they existed.

(She owes Kagerus a great deal.)

@[Warlight] speaks of her ailment like another horse might speak of the weather. There is a measure of pride that reflects when the painted woman heads towards the water, with her head held high and her shoulders set despite her lean frame. Lilliana’s warm expression dims (but that might the shadows arguing with the sunset) and the copper mare follows, a few steps behind the Tephran towards the lake.

There were rumors… it had healing properties. Was that why Warlight was drinking from it now?

Lilliana stops and the only response to her companion’s answer is the way that she stiffens, just slightly. A heartbeat, really. The Mountain, for Lilliana, had been a place of summoning; she knew for others that it could be a place of bartering. One power for another, if the Faeries could be so inclined.

"What did you ask for?” she says, her voice falling flat. Lilliana blasphemed the Mountain, once. She’s learned since then that there is no greater power than their Mountain. There is no blaspheming it.

It always has a price.

LILLIANA

if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions

[Warlight]

Warlight

Soul as sweet as blood red jam

Lilliana, the copper names herself, A friend of your mother, she confirms. Warlight nods. Droplets of water fall like cut topaz from her lips, illuminated by the glow of a near-by lava stream. The midnight-dark never reached this part of Tephra; the volcano kept the world suspended in a false-twilight that would linger well past dusk's appointed hour. She wades a step deeper, letting the water kiss the bruises that will never be seen, spread in a lacework across her side and down her legs. Some lay just under her skin, and some seem to have roots - wrapping around her bones and making the touches of loved ones unbearable. But as the healing water numbs the tender places around her knees, at least for a little while, and her eyes grow a little more alert. 

What did you ask for?

A far off night-bird wakes and its two-beat cry echoes in Will's moment of hesitation. "Come wade with me," she says, moving away through the pool. The waters lap higher, reaching her belly, and luring her deeper with promises of relief.  "The water will heal any little aches or pains you may have brought with you."

She halts once the water is washing over the hollow of her back, turning again to face her companion and answer the question. "I asked for the ability to cancel out other's traits," she admits, feeling the sting of some unnamed emotion. "I'm a fighter, but my skills are useless," she continues, feeling the need to justify her decision. "I could train every day and still lose a battle to a yearling with a touch of magic."

It's a bitter admission.

"My antlers and all my training would be worthless against half of Beqanna." She tries to keep the bitterness from finding its way into her words, to remember that she is working to change the hand that fate dealt her.  "I don't want to match them, I don't want some strange and terrifying power. I want to enter a battle and know that the winner will be decided by strength and speed, teeth, and hooves."

[lilliana]

The sound of splashing water is the answer to Warlight’s invitation. Lilliana had stood on the bank and paused for just a moment when she caught a glimpse of her shadowed reflection staring back at her. (A foalhood habit that has only started to resurface.) She banished it; sent it rippling away as she waded into the murky pool after Kagerus’ daughter.

It’s healing properties seep into her and while it can’t fill all the hollows that Lilliana carries around with her, it soothes the places where her exhaustion has settled into the marrow of her bones and eases the weariness of her troubled soul (or is that Warlight?). She lifts one long foreleg and experiments with the water before slowly dipping the soaking limb back in.

If she knew her painted companion better (and if she were in better health), Lilliana might have done more than just flash her an impish (wildfire) smile.

"It’s an entity that does this?” the copper mare asks. Like Taiga had for a time (and will have again, she thinks.) She rarely admits to her own gifts but Lilliana lets it illuminate, lighting up the dark water with a blue-purple glow coming from her front white sock. The chestnut lifts the leg again, bringing closer to the surface so that Warlight might see. Lilli watches with a precarious stare and a half-joke, "you wouldn’t lose to me.” If the two-toned mare had a bitter admission, Lilliana might as well share hers as she re-submerged her leg.

The red woman has never been a fighter and the scar on her right shoulder suddenly itches, a physical reminder of what she admits. Lilliana has seen terrifying powers and then reminds (steels) herself with what Leilan had said, that Magic itself was neutral. That it was the user who determined it’s essence.

"And the Mountain left you like this?” says the Taigan. Her glowing dims and the dark - despite the luminous Tephran lava streams in the distance - comes creeping in. Her blue eyes study the obscure form of the warrior before her, trying to imagine the proud crown of antlers that she had been stripped of. She imagines that the Lake must help but there is still the (troubling) condition of Warlight that Lilliana considers. If it stripped the painted mare of her health, "so how do you win this battle? Reclaiming your strength.”

Foolish mare, the voice in her mind taunts.

But @[Warlight] is an echo of the heroes and heartsongs from those legends and fables that Lilli has loved. A touch of the dreamer is still there, somewhere. Boldly emerging, sheashe  "Magic only goes so far." Lilliana thinks aloud, remembering that for every battle that has mattered, there is the heart striking behind the hoof. "The rest is where heroes are born."

LILLIANA

if i ever get to heaven
i've got a long list of questions

[Warlight]

Warlight

Warlight meets that wildfire smile and blazing blue eyes with her own, tempered, version. She was not immune to the electricity of an intimate moment with beautiful strangers, even in her illness.

"Yes, her name is Nikkia. She was a warrior of the old world." After the quest which brought them both back from the afterlife, Will's interactions with the entity had been brief, but she admired her. Something that's easy to tell from her tone.

When Lilliana stretches out a foreleg, Will doesn't fight the invitation to allow her gaze to travel down the lenght of it. She visually traces the delicate lines, her brow rising slightly as the water around them is illuminated with violet light.

"Glowing," she states, "terrifying." Her tone is playfully dead-pan, and she holds an unamused expression for a moment before breaking and returning her blue-black eyes to Lilliana. There is a spark there, a hard glint, as they reflect the light that the other woman is casting. But that glow is quickly fading, and the concversation grows more seriouse.

"So how do you win this battle? Reclaiming your strength.”

A piratical question, one that spares Will some of the shame of begging. Something she appreciates it, whether it was intentional or not. "I was told to learn a lesson of appreciation for the traits I asked to negate - to beg for the help of others. Two others." The sharp edge returns to her words. Warlight's gaze cuts away from the dark outline of the chestnut mare, and the weakness rattles her lungs as she takes a deep breath. "A stallion, Aodhan, found me at the base of the mountain and helped me get home with the use of his shifting. So that was one, but I still need to find another. These waters help for now, but only what they can touch, on the outside." A fact her labored breath, punctuates.

There was a nagging fear in her that Carnage would not honor the promise he had only half made - that for a second time her life would be cut short by an incurable disease. It was not often that she sat with fear, and it sets her teeth on edge.

She shakes her head, as if that will help to clear it of such thoughts. Returning her attention to the present, and her companion. Lilliana's words work better, to pull her up and away from her fears, and she gives a hearty, humph, in response. In the dark it would be hard to tell that the edge of her lips curls back up into a smile, but it is possible to hear it in her words. And although she agrees with what she says, she can't help but argue, in the end.  "I know you're right, but magic sure makes it easier... to fuck em up."

She always felt better when she argued.

— soul as sweet as blood red jam —

[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

"Ah,” says the Taigan Guardian as she stares down at the murky water. The glow from her forelimb is almost gone but she thinks she can still see its outline, an eerie purple-blue twilight shade that lingers between the river weeds and lake-bottom sediment. "From the Beqanna of Old?” Lilliana speculates as her blue gaze meets Warlight’s tempered one, "From the days of the Tundra and the Jungle and the Dale and the Deserts.”

It’s something that always tugs on the tender strings of her heart (and the thought about Tephra’s healing lake tugs at her mind, wondering what it’s healing properties might do for a Water Magician like Brennen, another member of Tephra and Nerine's Champion). What it must be like to come back to a world that you no longer recognize. A world that has shifted and everything you knew was gone. To be a memory and then suddenly exist again, in a mind (a world) that you didn’t know at all. 

"Dazzling, I think you mean,” she teases. "Alluring.”
She laughs - something bright despite the dark around them - like she has heard this all before.

It seems easier to make light of her actual light than phrase the concern she has; that for as much as jokes about it with Warlight, there is little use for this gift. So Lilliana listens as the painted woman tells her that quest the Faeries sent her on was to appreciate those ‘gifts’ that the Tephran sought to take away. There it was, the most basic law of Magic: give and take, tug and pull. Balance, she thinks, even if the mare before has a cough that even the copper mare can feel rattling her lungs.

The sound makes her glow come back, even shining on the gold of the flame on her right shoulder.

Kagerus’ daughter is a proud soul, Lilliana thinks admiringly. "No begging required,” she says, taking a wading step forward. "Hopefully that won’t upset the Faeries?” There is a half-smile on that dark mouth, an attempt to put @[Warlight] at ease. The labored breathing of the other mare worries her. ”I’m a Healer,” Lilli admits. "I don’t know…,” she starts, looking down at the lake again. Her ability has always been something that she has doubted. "I’m not sure how it will work with the Lake but between myself and the water, we might be able to restore enough of your strength to get back to the Mountain.”

It’ll take something from you, the voice in the back of her mind warns. She ignores it. It will be a price to be dealt with later. It’s easier to think about why Warlight asked for this trait, why she has sacrificed so much to gain. The copper mare has been on the receiving end of higher Magics than her own and quietly murmurs, "If I can help, I hope you give them hell.”

Lilliana looks up then and smiles, almost rueful. "This could take all night, though.”

image credit to rigardatta

today on: What is Lilliana doing? I have no clue and I'm sorry.

[Warlight]

Warlight

Warlight likes that laugh. It echoes across the water and sparks a deep chuckle at the base of her own throat. But when Lilliana mentions the fairies, her smile fades.  "Carnage... actually." She says after a pause, only because to say nothing feels like a lie.

They walk a fine line; their conversation balancing painful truths and something more flirtatious. Light and dark - hurt masked by dry, dark humor. Much of Will's life had been that way, and she didn't think she was unique in that. It was a brutal world they had been born into, a double-edged birth-right they inherited. She is aware her experiences are not unique, and that the woman before her carries burdens, carefully concealed behind her sparkling eyes and easy conversation.

Will hadn't realized all of this as they bantered, falling into the give-and-take of meeting someone new. But the half-murmured words of the copper mare solidified these thoughts. Enough for Will to understand that those words were personal.

"Who is it then," she asks, her own voice equally lowered as a thrum of anticipation reverberates through her body. This was it, after six months of stalling, she would set off to call on the dark god and claim what was hers. She would be given what she always wanted or be struck down by a vengeful god. Either way, she would be facing her destiny in the morning, and she would rid herself of this sickness or die trying. It would get her in the end anyway if she didn't.

"I'll owe you, after this."

It's a statement said with enough certainty to make it clear she means it, that at this moment she would be willing to take on whoever it was Lilliana asked her to. But now is not yet that time, she takes a deep breath and lets her eyes close, growing still and quiet for whatever it was the healer would have to do.

— soul as sweet as blood red jam —

[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

Warlight’s smile fades and so does Lilliana’s laughter when the painted woman mentions that name. Carnage. The only thing that ripples between is the lulling sound of the water at their sides. She won’t ask what drove the splashed mare to seek him out but Lilliana interprets it as something dire.

It’s an experience that Lilliana knows - and she shares the revelation with her companion - that maybe these experiences aren’t so unique. Something that should, perhaps, make her sad or distressed that another soul knew ledges as she did. That sometimes the only option is to leap, with or without faith. It gives her a feeling of rapport with this mare.

At Warlight’s question, she merely shakes her head once. A reply to both questions.

To the first, she could only give a common answer: a man. To the second, she adds: "No you don’t.” It’s a firm murmur as she comes closer to @[Warlight]. So many things have changed about Lilliana over the years. She’s lost and given and taken and it makes her all the more determined that this stays the same about her. "You owe me nothing at all.” She says, gentler this time as her slender neck slips over the other woman.

"My power isn’t as strong as it used to be,” she explains into the waiting ears of Warlight. "My last pregnancy sapped most of it.” Speaking of Aela always hurts. Her heart always tightens in her chest and lodges in her throat instead. "So if this takes some time, I’m sorry.” The glowing comes back - around her socks, on the tattered flame on her shoulder -  and Lilliana harnesses her light, creating a tether to wrap around herself and the Tephran.

Lilliana can feel her memories stirring and grimaces, the light around them momentarily fading. "You might see something of me,” the chestnut mare states quietly, almost hesitant, "and I might see something of you.” She thinks of Brazen and the pieces of her past that she has put together over the years. That for every time she tried to heal a crack or tear on her stoneskin, a glimmer of what was sometimes showed itself.

Think of happiness, she tells herself. It’ll make her gift stronger. It’ll make the light shine brighter. So Lilli thinks of Nash and Yan as young colts bounding through Taiga with their laughter not far behind them. She thinks of resting her head on Neverwhere and the nights that Brazen kept her company. She thinks of putting flowers in Elena’s cornsilk mane and the fits of giggles they’d fall into afterward, knowing how ridiculous they both looked.

She tries to think of happy things but there has to be balance. Light always casts a shadow.

And so the fear she felt when the alienesque horses of Pangea made their nightly patrols comes back, clicking into place much like the unknown language they spoke. She remembers being afraid when Celina’s sharp teeth ran down her shoulder, extinguishing her flame with blood. She remembers her world spinning out of control the moment that Aela ran away, a wisp of a golden girl racing down a wild shoreline with a demon behind her.

Her work isn’t done and so Lilliana clenches her jaw, trying to sort through her memories.

"I’m sorry,” she murmurs at some point, half-lost in the haze of her healing magic. "Think of happiness.”

image credit to rigardatta