"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
08-26-2020, 09:43 PM (This post was last modified: 08-26-2020, 09:46 PM by 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
Autumn is supposed to be about endings, isn't it?
The season that sets Taiga's leaves ablaze and cools her mornings should warn about things to come. The fall days grow shorter and Night tests her strength, greedily stretching out her velvet arms to clamor for more. Dark always bleeds across the sky easier in autumn. It bruises and blemishes the vibrant blue of day and as another brisk breeze winds past her, the Guardian is reminded that her hours of daylight left are few.
Night will be back again before she knows it and the chestnut will make her way back to the northwestern corner of her map, to her part of Taiga. A little alcove where she can still hear the sea and there is enough space between the trees that she can see the stars. (Despite everything, Lilliana is still a dreamer.) A place that offers enough cover - an area of a few overly-large ferns kept in company with a solitary Redwood or two - from the elements for her sleek, fire-bright pelt to stay warm. Her rounds done for the day, she turns her back on the Northern border and starts south towards the River.
The wind whispers through the trees and keeps her mind occupied as she goes, trying not to reflect overmuch on the lull that has fallen Beqanna. It's the quiet that Elena had once speculated they both deserved but there is a roaring edge to this silence; it's like cliff dancing and ledge walking combined. It's like a creeping height - while there is a view to admire, Lilliana is already weary of the brink. There could be a price to pay for this peace, she thinks.
Weaving and winding through the Redwoods, rounding the massive trunk of one and sliding between the foggy embrace of a pair, the slender mare cuts through Taiga at a pace that suggests she is trying to stay a step-ahead of her thoughts. (And she can hear Aletta in them; she can hear the iron-clad certainty in her voice and the granite resolution of her mother. Wandering the ambling trails of the 'what-ifs?' would do her no good. What mattered was the 'what-is.')
And what matters in this present moment - or rather who - is @[Yanhua].
When she finally finds him within singing distance of the River, her expression softens and yields easily to tenderness. The love for her youngest son is written easily in the gentle smile that parts on her dark lips when Lilliana stops. The chestnut mare lifts her refined head, still unaccustomed to his impressive height, and lifts her blue-eyed gaze to meet his. A shade not so dissimilar from her own. A shade that brands him very clearly as her son.
"What is that?" she tilts her head playfully. "Another inch? Two since I saw you last?"
There is gold in the star that marks his broad chest (as it does her flame) and there is joy lighting in her eyes as they briefly glance over the glow of his mane. When they meet his again - though the gold and fire-red of the striking pair could be reminiscent of the fall and things ending - Lilliana isn't thinking of that.
Meeting the azure blue of her son's gaze, there is a fierce blossom of love in her chest. She thinks his story is just beginning.
Yanhua stood finishing a late dinner, eyes half-closed. He chewed thoughtfully and considered all the peace this past year or so had brought with it, slapping his thick-but-short tail against his hide, and swallowed the last bite with a sigh. Taiga was filled to the brim with quiet, familiar company. Nashua was off to the isle, now the Kingdom seat of the entire northern territories. Personally, he was healthy and a bit more grown for his species, and lastly (but most importantly) his mother had come home… after Aela.
Adrift with these thoughts and others like them, Yanhua breathed in the mist coming off the river nearby and closed his eyes, shutting out the world of conifers and evening sunlight. There was peace enough to be found out here away from the others, even if it was getting harder to find reasons for avoiding company these days. Oftentimes when his rounds were finished he’d checked in with either his mother, Izora, or some of the other Taigans before slipping off to practice a bit with his magic, and lately these exercises had begun to include a bit of meditative work as well.
All of this in the past year, and nearly all of it eclipsed by the most obvious of his changes: adulthood. The headaches and leg cramps that plagued Yanhua’s childhood receded and disappeared, his hooves split entirely and hardened from the constant exercise of border patrol, and his fuzzy little chin was now adorned by a long, refined-looking goat’s beard. Once a young colt, now a stallion sporting two wickedly curved horns, Yanhua had lost the shy look and adopted a more sincere one for a change.
“Mom, please.” Yan answered Lilliana in a deepening voice, managing to open his eyes while rolling them. He flicked his ears and turned around on the stilts she was presently joking about, looking down into her mirror-blue eyes.
“We both know the problem is you’re getting shorter.” He stated factually, though the jibe was quickly followed by a step or two in Lilli’s direction and a stretch of his neck so that mother and son could bump their noses together like a warm hug. An old Beqanna greeting, even if Yanhua missed the days when he could lean into the curve of her strong, tattooed shoulder.
“Nothing crazy to report from the other side of our woods?” He asked rhetorically, expecting her quiet arrival as an affirmative to his question. Likewise, the state she’d found him in meant that his patrol had been uneventful as well. Only once in the short time of his being a warrior for Taiga had Yanhua come across a horse with nefarious intentions, but since then the job had become more routine than anything. “I kind of hope it lasts, though. Now that things are changing for our home.” He hedged the topic of Leilan ascending to Kingship.
What of Neverwhere? He wanted to ask Lilliana. What of aunt Brazen and the other Nerinian mares, or Lethy and Taiga? What did all of this sudden change truly mean for them and why had his mother agreed to it?
Yanhua had wanted to be a fly on that pelt so badly, listening in to the conversations shaping his destiny and the future of all lives burning for the Northern lands, but he was just a boy then - barely a stallion now. His pining for inclusion and importance had been a colt’s dream a year ago. Today? He quirks his mouth in a smile that compliments him best, and waits for his mother to answer him.
09-04-2020, 10:58 PM (This post was last modified: 09-04-2020, 11:16 PM by 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
There is one piece of her entire world looking down at her and how does Lilliana not smile at that? The expression that touches the edge of her dark mouth turn her momentarily wistful (and like her star-marked child, might make her wish for the days when she didn't have to reach quite so high for him) as she glances up at @[Yanhua].
But he is here for her to reach for, unlike her other two children.
Nashua is all her mother's wanderlust given wings.
And Aela-
Aela had ended up fostered by Kota, tucked quietly away in the Northern Forest like her elder brothers before her. Beautiful, golden Aela who had barely been hers to love. (The girl who seemed to inherit some sort of shifting ability from her notorious father because when the light hit her just right from beneath the Redwoods, because when the fog revealed just enough, Aela would look over her shoulder and there would be Elena. There would be the various shades of gold that Lilliana had known her entire life glimmering there, gilded by the sunlight: Valerio, Arwel, Marcelo, Cherish.)
He teases her for her stature and it makes her smile, one that reaches her blue eyes. When her dark maw brushes against his, they brighten as they glance up to meet his. For a moment, she thinks about asking him to slow down. To spare her an inch for a few more moments like this one. The chance to create a memory - one so filled with love and admiration for the young stallion before her - that would always be easy to recall. (The ones that involve Yanhua and his siblings always are.)
When they pull away, she gives her slender head a slight shake. Nothing to report from her part of Taiga. Nothing unusual came or went in the west. The days and most of her patrols were met with the changing tides, the familiar sound of crashing waves, and a chill in the air that meant autumn was upon Beqanna. Lilliana takes a small step back to peer up at Yanhua, a quick glance to assure herself that there were no new scars, that nothing looked out of place with her youngest son.
(And she thinks of Leilan briefly, teasing her for always worrying about her boys.)
Yanhua was fine, she reassured herself. He looked as healthy and as hale as any young stallion could be. A child of Summer grown, a proud testament to the lineage behind him. It's what he says, that he hopes that the peace will last and something in his mother's expression quiets. "It won't," she tells him. It's almost like she laments sharing this with her son but Lilliana has nothing to hide from her grown children. "It never does."
Standing beneath the Redwoods, she thinks of all the times that she had hoped for the very thing Yanhua had.
Lilliana would have never dreamt that she'd exist in a reality where she had helped name a dragon King of the North. (She had never thought she would have anything to do with kingdom politics at all. But as she watches Yanhua, she remembers all those times that had she had been caught unaware, his father being one of them). There might be repercussions for helping grant Leilan a kingdom but the waiting, the hoping that the peace would stay, was something she would never do again.
Not while her children lived here.
"Where I was raised," she starts, grasping at breaking the silence and trying to offer some of her reasoning to him. "We didn't have territories. Our kingdom was just... one." It was why Lilliana had pushed so hard for unity in the North. It makes the smile return and a teasing gust of air flares her nostrils, "and anyone who thought to disturb it was blown away by your grandsire."
They didn't have a Valerio the Valiant or Ichiro the Fierce. Taiga barely had a reputation at all, besides it murky fog and mysterious woods. Nerine had one, once, and perhaps would again. Neverwhere hadn't wanted the crown that Heartfire had passed to her and had been even less bothered by letting Leilan have it than Lilliana had. And the Isle? They were rebuilding and so that future had yet to be seen; but the look she gives Yanhua offers some insight. Everything was changing.
In the autumn sunshine, it says that he is welcome to share what he makes of it.
Sometimes, Yanhua could plainly see that his mother still thought of him as a colt. He’d caught a glimpse of her thoughts while she stood back to look him over. When Lilli looked at him or spoke with him these days, Yanhua acted as if he were with Amarine. He cut off the usually wide flow of inner-feelings, dulling his emotional state to that of a nearby tree or rock in case he (or his mother) began to bounce emotions off one another with their magic, and reverted to direct facial cues as a way of expressing himself. But it didn’t take a magician or special powers for Yan to see that Lilliana was holding onto feelings she should certainly let go of.
“It wont,” She responds to his hopeful comment about lasting peace, and only Yanhua’s well-practiced restraint kept him from spitting out I know as a response. He was a horse on the cusp of full maturity, having lived through a troublesome childhood with a criminally absent sire and a captive dam; he didn’t want his comments to become foundations for motherly lessons on how the world worked. He wanted Lilliana to see him as a stallion, to treat him like one, yet in his heart he couldn’t bring himself to offend her. So the goat-looking chestnut bit his tongue and listened to his mother’s voice take on the same wistful tone it always did when she spoke about their shared lineage.
Valerio, Aletta, Elena and the Legacy family… Yanhua remembers their names and their story in his heart now. Lilli’s brought them to life for her children, even if he and his siblings hadn’t lived the tale themselves. Hearing his mother talk about her decision to unify the North as it related to how her past life worked, Yan found himself smiling regardless of how irritated he’d been moments before. He understood, though his still-hopeful and loving sensibilities might’ve led him to make a different choice had he been in his mother’s hooves.
Playfully, Yan responded with: “Well where I was raised, the thought of an Overlord or Empress wasn’t exactly a welcome idea, and there were as many kingdoms then as there are territories now.”
He knew the history of his home well enough. Lepis, Queen mare of Loess had tried (and so had others before her) to take more than one throne; all failures. Yanhua himself seemed to have an inbred pride for the way his Northern home and her sister-lands often resisted intrusion in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, as the stories went. Though now only Loess and Tephra could cling to the heritage of their upbringing: only they remained as the Kingdom seats, unmoved from their original positions in the history of when Beqanna shifted. Tephra especially - Yan longed to make the journey there himself, soon, to see more of the Volcano and her ancient mysteries.
“Give it another hundred or so years, mom. Maybe you’ll see Beqanna united the way it ought to be, as one. Then you can be the one to blow away the pesky horses.” He laughed carefully. The expression on Yanhua’s face softened, but became more like stone than before. Immovable, just like his thoughts on the subject he brought up next.
“Until then, I was hoping to do something more… productive with my time. There’s a tournament coming up.” Yan winked, shifting a bit and relaxing one of his hind legs. “Taiga needs a champion and a representative.” He drawled on carefully, unable to tear his eyes away from his mother’s. “I’d really, really like to nominate myself.”
Yan paused and flourished the uncertain question with his most hopeful, most endearing of smiles, puffing out his chest a little. The six-pointed star tattooed there gleamed with the movement, bright as a coin. From his expression it was obvious that he believed in himself; Yanhua was confident in his ability to represent Taiga during a nation-wide event, despite having ulterior motives for entering. He wanted, more than anything, to mostly prevent his mother and Izora from participating - they’d been through enough. Leilan and the Isle boys would be fine on their own, same with Nerine.
What he needed, however, was Lilliana’s blessing. Even if @[Izora Lethia] agreed and encouraged him, Yanhua wouldn’t feel right continuing on if he knew Lilli was against it.
09-09-2020, 11:27 PM (This post was last modified: 09-10-2020, 01:01 AM by 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
If she had known that Yanhua compared his emotional state to a tree or a rock, Lilliana might have smiled. She had joked with Neverwhere about it once, wondering if forests could remember the children that laughed below their bowered branches, could recall the lovers that gave such large pieces of their hearts (souls?) that remnants still beat through the decades and centuries that came after. (And to that, she vividly remembers Neverwhere saying: 'What can a tree have to say? For one hundred years, I’ve watched 10 million generations of squirrels bury their acorns, have their children, and die?') She is careful, though, with her horned son and her memories are carefully compartmentalized, tucked safely away somewhere beneath that red-gold coat of hers. It's hard to keep the most precious away, where her most beloved memories are stored.
It's perhaps why it so for her to blink and see one those memories made flesh standing well above her.
His well-mannered restraint reminds Lilliana that it very much a man standing in front of her now, replacing the fearful youth who often lingers in her mind. He smiles these days instead of hanging back with a cautious expression and that makes her smile in return, warm and bright like the sunshine filtering from the mostly-hidden sky above them. He's right, she thinks. Lilliana had sought to bring some of her heritage here, to try and replicate that had aided her ancestors (the ones born outside Beqanna). Unifying the North didn't come without risk; especially when the figure-head that they had rallied behind was a Dragon. (But there are so many across the realms during these times and this had been her attempt at fighting fire with ice.)
They stand for a moment and then the chestnut mare inclines her head, inviting her son to walk alongside her. "No Overlords or Empresses here today," she says with a quirked smile. "Just Yanhua of Taiga and his elderly mother." Her humor sparks from her eyes, hoping to draw it out in her youngest son. Lilliana has hardly seen a decade and there will be, like Yan, many more to come.
The thought of her blowing anyone away makes her laugh but the image colors it. There is a moment that follows where she cast a thoughtful glance his way, wondering if a united Beqanna as one was something he wished for. It wasn't something that Lilliana had considered; she had hardly considered where she placed a hoof before Taiga. And then after, she had started to string together days that have become weeks, and only now has she started to think of time in the perspective of years.
Time that she has finally allowed herself to have after a childhood of trading the safety of one place for another.
She slows a bit, as careful in her stride as he is with his laughter, when he broaches the topic of the Alliance. Lilliana knows what it is. Leilan had mentioned it during their last meeting and Brazen had filled in the holes that she had in her knowledge (all she knew was that regal Kagerus had once contended in the tournament). It takes her a moment and finally, Lilliana loosens the knot in her chest with a quiet exhale.
"Taiga would be honored to have you represent the Redwoods," she says. She glances down the trail, hoping to catch sight of Izora Lethia who could often be found on this side of the forest at this hour. An ear even flicks as she tries to listen for the sound of her daughter, Clarie, laughing somewhere beneath the trees. The golden star against his broadening chest catches her attention and there is love swelling and overfilling in her own at this moment for Yanhua when she looks back up at him. (She suspects his ulterior motive, but she adores him for it.) Slowly, she adds, "And formally," (because she also suspects that he'd have her address him first as a Councilmember than his mother), "you have my nomination to become Champion of the Taiga." She is only half of this Forest, however, and the way she glances down the trail again says that is looking for the other.
"You lead the way," Lilliana says as she smiles again, "I have a feeling you'll have better luck finding Lethia than I will."
It wasn’t unusual for her to look up from her evening grazing to spot the lengthy Yanhua dancing on the skirts of Taiga’s borders - to her it seems to be the one moment he seemed to be the happiest, filling his dancing card with the many red wood daughters on her edges birthed from the ancient sentinels that stood guard in the middle of their land. Sometimes they would make eye contact, when he was close enough, and she would give him a knowing smile and a nod of her head before he continued on his way to finish his job for the day. Sometimes it was the bright blazing star she glanced between the farthest trees, and when it wasn’t either she would find his mark left as a reminder imprinted in a wayward tree from those sturdy antlers that adorned his head like a crown, a prince of Taiga.
Today it is none of the above, today it was Owin that made her aware of Yan and his mothers presence. Her own son grown, turned into a man, leaned softly into her side a whisper leaving his lips before he stealthily took to the woods. She watched with clouded eyes as her blue buckskin child took to the far side of Taiga to do his own patrol. She turned towards the path which Owin had told her to follow, one she frequented often, her lip tucked carefully between her teeth her thoughts pulled her back to when Yan had sought her out and asked for her permission to be apart of something bigger. She had watched him transition through all the milestones of child, young adult, and now when she looks at him she is reminded by those times but is not hindered by those constant beloved, intimate memories that a mother holds so closely. She sees him for what he is, a warrior, a protector, an equal.
Just as she decides to join the conversation spurred by the thoughts Owim had intruded upon down the path her own thoughts were broken by the gleeful giggles of Clarie crashing wildly through the nearby brush. She smiled as her eyes landed on her newest daughter who was alighted with a sharp toothed smile and brilliant, wide purple eyes. Lethy nodded towards the path and with out hesitation her glowing white striped buckskin daughter took off in search of Lilli and Yan. It didn’t take long for the two to pull up in front of the mother-son duo. ”Lilli!! Yan! Clarie shouted unnecessarily as she poked Yan in the side with her nose and then made her way around to Lilli to do the same. Lethy offered them a friendly smile, her eyes passing between the two assessing the situation, of course she already knew what Yan and Lilli had been thinking in their own respect thanks to Owin, but she did not offer this information. ”Hello Lilli... Yan.” she greeted her friend and her son with a brighter purple glow then she normally carried, affirmation of her happiness to see the two. ”I hope we didn’t interrupt.”
Ancient? Lilliana? Yanhua shook his horns and blew a gust of laughter at the thought. Her eyes and the corners of her muzzle had a wizened expression to them, a familiar expression Yan had seen in many of the older resident horses, but in spirit and beauty she was unchanging. Frozen in time by immortality, Lilliana would eventually resemble him as a sister and less as a mother… Yan wasn’t sure how that made him feel. A bridge I can cross later, The flaxen-haired stallion thought with a brief smile.
When Lilli’s gait altered to a careful walk, Yanhua didn’t slow as much to match the pace. Instead, he took point and let his dam think for a moment in peace. The Alliance tourney wasn’t a laughing matter; horses had been severely injured or (even worse), magically altered from the competition. Yan knew this as well as Lilliana did, but the opportunity was what excited Yan above glory and guts. For the first time he was confident enough to broaden his horizons, take some risks, learn some things about how the world functioned outside of Taiga and the Northern Territories. It would be a hard blow if he missed out because of the risks associated.
Yanhua held his breath and flicked his ears back to listen, too tense for words and lulled by the comforting sound of his dam’s signature step. Together, the two horses wound up and down the fern-drenched hillocks, past the burrows carved into the veiny roots of sentinel redwoods, until Lilliana gave her answer.
Stopping to let his shorter companion catch up, Yan waited until they were shoulder-to-shoulder before he stretched out his bearded chin and bumped Lilliana’s cheek with a whiskery kiss. He could breathe again, could fight with his whole heart and mind now that she’d given him her blessing. If he could fist pump, maybe Yanhua would’ve done that, but he was a horse and this was Beqanna, so instead he began to trot in place - legs dancing - as he kept pace with Lilli’s graceful, ambling walk.
He might’ve danced away from her then in a gust of wind and breathy snorts, as horses liked to do, but she stopped him with a few words.
“Champion?” He questioned with a confused, if not shocked expression. His hooves came to rest in the green earth; Yanhua stood still and blinked his eyes as the realization overcame him while Lilli carried on. Champion… He thought to himself, liking the way the title felt when it stood beside his name. Beneath that was something else, though, and Yan silently allowed his apprehension to be shared between them when Clarie’s familiar squeal cut through the quiet.
“Hello little Clarie,” Yanhua lowered his regal head and butted the filly gently, “I’ve missed having you around.” Yan looked up again to see the young mare glowing. He smiled, shook his mane, and gave her a look of serious concentration before his own golden light brightened to match. Then, laughing, he let the glow fade away again. Clarie was getting adept with her magic it would seem. Yan made a mental note to find her soon and practice with her, just like a good mentor ought to.
“Izora,” Yanhua turned his warm, blue eyes to the matriarch of their woods and gave her a blazing grin, “we're actually coming to find you, so you’ve got perfect timing.” The stallion whickered and offered his nose for a greeting. Then, pausing, he eyed Lilli for a moment.
“I’ve decided to throw my name into the Alliance.” He shared the news with a sigh and a pleasant smile, relaxing in the company of old and (in Clarie’s case) new friends alike. “But my mother also thinks I should consider taking up the mantle of Champion around here, now that Castile has moved on. I’d like to know what you think, Lethy. Am I a good fit? Am I… ready for that kind of responsibility?” Yanhua wondered aloud, fearing no shame for sharing his hesitations. These were the guardians of Taiga, after all. He loved them both as mothers in their own right. If Yan couldn’t share his concerns with them, who could he share with?
09-18-2020, 06:48 PM (This post was last modified: 09-18-2020, 07:43 PM by 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
Of course, she’s terrified for him.
It happens to her each time that Nashua leaves for the Isle or one of his many adventures. It happens for every patrol Yanhua makes of the Taiga. It happens for each glance she manages to steal of Aela, a girl who is far more impish and wisp-like than either of her older brothers, that makes her wonder if this will be the last one.
And it’s hard to deny Yanhua anything, especially when he looks like that. Something in Lilliana tells her that despite her maternal apprehension, this will be an adventure for her star-marked son. It will give him the chance to learn and grow and what more could she want for her children? If Yanhua is going to come of age, what better time than during the Alliance? What better thing for a young horse than to experience it for themselves?
Of course, she’ll worry for him. But giving her blessing for this is as easy as breathing and when his bearded chin grazes along her cheek for a kiss, she laughs gently. "Just… be careful, alright?” She asks of him, still laughing despite the concern that lingers behind her blue eyes. "No overly gallant displays of bravado, please.”
The sound of young Clarie’s laughter distracts her and Lilliana turns her head, smiling again when she spies Lethy and her buckskin daughter. When the striped yearling approached her, Lilliana lowered her head in greeting to the filly. "Hello, Clarie.” She said with a smile and then turned her attention on the Matriach of Taiga. "Not at all.”
She watches Yanhua as she lifts her head and smiles again. His enthusiasm was almost as illuminating as the torch-like glow that came from his mane and tail. Lilliana side-glanced to Lethy for a moment, waiting to see if Yan’s excitement would catch her as well.
You are so like your grandfather, she thinks to herself as Yanhua shares his doubts to the both of them (and Clarie). He could have assumed the title of Champion without any doubts; he could have felt entitled to it. Instead, her son asks if he is ready for that level of responsibility. Looking to @[Izora Lethia] briefly, she wondered what the Matriarch made of Yanhua’s questions.
For Lilliana, it made her think that Taiga could have no better Champion.
