She is exhausted by sadness. It is a burden on her heart and no matter how Lilliana twists and turns, tries to untie the knots that have tangled themselves there, it only fastens itself there like a noose. Her anger is easier to bear; it is a lighter, brighter thing than a heavy emotion like sadness. It burns and blazes and she has to be careful with it because the brilliance of it is always right there. It is always sitting at the edge of her tongue, poised and ready like a sword.
But the sadness tempers it. Lilliana lifts her chin and stares levelly at Warden through the darkness, ready to do whatever she has to protect the fragments of the girl within. She stares up at him, waiting for him to say something like Leilan had. She has created a barrier between herself and the Watcher and she thinks she knows how he will react; it was always the same. Lilliana rages forward, draws a line of fire between herself and everyone else. She hides behind a barricade of flames and nobody questions the burning girl.
And they all leave her alone because who willingly walks into the fire?
Lilliana becomes angry with Warden. She shares more with him than she ever has with anyone and as she draws closer, she expects him to withdraw. She expects him to do more than to look imposing; she expects that he will tell her she knows nothing of sadness or pain or anger. She thinks that he will tell her that since he knows the endings - that he knows Death intimately - what does she know?
The chestnut becomes guilty of the statement she made of Warden just moments ago and bites her tongue, aware of the fact. But these feelings are necessary for her. Her tongue is a sword in moments like these and this projection in her mind - this expectation that Warden will turn and leave her is needed so that she won't be startled by it. There is nothing she hates more now than being caught unaware; Lilliana tries so hard to be a step ahead, always.
He surprises her. @[Warden] stays, staring down at her with knowing eyes (of course he does, of course he knows). The realization buckles her knees into place and some part of her wishes he would go. Lilliana wishes he would have left her here with this anger because it is so much easier to carry (because it burns away everything) than this ache. There is something soul-wearied about her when she looks up at the painted stallion.
The fire-anger in her goes dark. The glowing about her markings cuts out and even Leonidas hovering on his branch above seems to dim. There is only the winter silence and the biting cold surrounding them and Lilliana suddenly feels the chill. "No," she tells him quietly. "I've never carried them on my own."
Everything in her feels tired and her shadow looks away from Warden. Her mind races with everything. The family that came before that was gone. The one that came after and the holes that were starting to emerge. Brazen's death had torn something within her; Neverwhere's absence was another weeping wound. Eurwen had drifted in and out of Nerine after the Pangean attack. "But they aren't here now," she whispers. A thousand memories flicker across her mind, a candle that burns between a life she had loved, and this one that she was struggling to make peace with.
"Sometimes I wish you could tell me how this all ends," she says, staring out into the dark. Her head lifts in awareness of Leonidas, making sure that he was still nearby. The star still hovers in the barren branches above and Lilliana muses, "but I suppose that is what immortality looks like. There is no end." She closes her eyes briefly and then speaks again. "I have always been afraid. What is given can be taken away and sometimes I don't think I have anything left to give, Warden."
It isn't true. And she knows that with a slight shake of her head. She's afraid of that, of what will happen when she truly gives it all away. She won't die; she knows that much. Her days are never-ending and if there is any benefit to her immortality, she'll give it to him.
But, "how do you give up hope? What is left when it's gone?"
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?
but it's all in the past, love
it's all gone with the wind