• Logout
  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    [private]  you must learn to join the dance
    #1


    They stick together in Taiga, a sense of identity emerging from the territory during a time when a horse could barely tell what direction they were headed. Oren and Roselin tried to respect their mother's wishes as much as they can (but as growing adolescents, the boundaries of their relationships are to be tested as much as the physical borders of Taiga). Reave, at a year old, seems to follow the familial path of his older siblings and the roan colt wanders frequently.

    Lilliana does her best to keep track of their whereabouts (even Yanhua, despite his proud height and his maturity and Nashua for all his exploring). But there are patrols to be done. There are the inhabitants who have remained within the Taiga to find and speak with. There are grandchildren to dote on.

    Despite the lack of daylight, Lilliana is still running out of time.

    But as one hour ends and another begins - after she has checked on Lumi and Ellie - the chestnut heads towards the grove that forms a cloister near Taigan shore. It is where her children know to find her and as she waits, her youngest set of twins come. Oren will be taller than her before she knows it and though Roselin is still quieter than she wished, the sight of the pair is a balm to her worried heart. The silver-black filly tugs at one strand of her curling mane and gold-blazed Oren tells her of a recent trek to the Field that makes her smile.

    "Rosey, Oren," their mother asks, "can you fetch Reave for me?" He's bound to be close. By this time, the tobiano yearling knows to return home. That the fact that he isn't is worrisome (though as a mother five times over, Lilliana knows that teenagers don't always return home when told) but when the twins disappear through the dark, the chestnut tilts her head.

    She has to wait for some time but when she hears the footfalls, the Taigan leader knows it is not a monster coming. (And he might even know it is her, with that dragon-sight of his). "@[Leilan]," she says with a breath of relief towards the broad shadow. Though it is hard to see, her blue eyes go searching for his. "We need to talk."

    Lilliana
    but it's all in the past, love
    it's all gone with the wind
    Reply
    #2
    We've needed to talk ever since we had out little disturbance (wouldn't want to call it a fight) about whether or not it had been a good idea to ransack Pangea instead of icing all of Nerine. Since then, the list of things we should probably discuss but haven't, has grown only longer. It's not that I don't want to - sometimes her looks alone are enough to almost make me turn around (instead on those instances I wait until she's distracted or sleepy, to visit; and I need that to stop as much as she. More, probably.

    Of the grown list of things to worry over and muse about together, I wonder which one is more prominent - prominent enough for her to finally stop skipping around the bushes. I'm not in an avoiding mood tonight - if it's actually still night is hard to say, but I thínk so?

    When she calls out I see that she's sent the kids away and that's probably for the best. Nevertheless it also worries me a little because if the things that she wants to discuss are not for teenager's ears, then they must be pretty bad.

    The sight of her is dimmed in this lack of light, but she is right that I recognize her far more easily than many others would. I'm starting a nod, then suspect she can hardly see it, so I hum as well in agreement. "I know that. What about?"
    there’s an ocean in between your heart and me


    @[Lilliana]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply
    #3



    Lilliana has always been this way.

    Even as a girl, she has skirted around conflict and shied away from struggle. It had just been easier to focus on other things, to focus on the needs of others or more pressing issues. She has always been too eager to let personal problems slip away (or so she thought, Lilliana has since learned unresolved is harder to bury in the past).

    The chestnut lifts her blue eyes to the draconic stallion, searching the outline of his face for any perceptible emotion. The pair of them have been cordial, perhaps even indifferent towards each other at times, but that has always been in the presence of their children. This is their first time alone since before the Pangean attack and she wonders if the burden of unsaid words has weighed his soul down as it has hers (but then, Lilliana has always been a mare to feel her emotions strongly and deeply).

    She sighs softly, releasing the knot twisting in her chest.

    "A few things," she says even softer to the Freyr. "Mainly politics." There is the hint of a smile, acknowledging that the topic (apart from their children) had been easier for them to discuss of late. The slender mare explains the presence of one of the monsters in Taiga, one that lingers in her forest home. "It sings," she mentions to Leilan and there are shadows behind her normally bright eyes. Lilliana doesn't mention the song but whatever the tune is, it is a troubling (and familiar) one to the chestnut. Her gaze shifts to the dark woods, as if speaking of the creature might summon it.

    But after a moment of silence passes, Lilliana glances back to the bay roan. There are other things to talk of: she mentions meeting a mare in Tephra with a deep Nerinian history. Wishbone. She tells him. Borderline and her daughter, Memorie, help keep the grazing grounds sustainable. There is enough forage for others, she says. Enough that if Leilan or any of his band need it, there is enough to share with the other Northerners is what she means. She quiets, pausing before speaking again.

    There is an undercurrent of memories, of daylight and brighter times. Of Leilan, when he once had a broader smile.

    "That day," she starts, knowing he will understand. "There was so much happening," Lilliana says. Taiga had burnt. Part of Nerine had been blasted. Members of her family had been injured (and how terrifying it had been to see Yanhua leap into the fray, to see Eurwen sucked into the ground, to watch Ama bleed and she had been powerless to do anything). She closes her eyes, afraid of unleashing a turmoil of turbulent memories. "Nothing has to change," she says evenly, because maybe Leilan prefers this.

    Maybe he prefers their cordiality.

    She opens her eyes and looks up at the Freyr.

    "But I still consider you my friend, @[Leilan]. You know that, don't you?"

    Lilliana
    but it's all in the past, love
    it's all gone with the wind
    Reply
    #4
    We're too similar in this regard, and as long as nothing or no-one shakes us, we will keep up this state of friendliness but never the way it was before. Sometimes I long for when our days were easier, when we met as friends along the border, exchanging similar advice to help one another, without having to touch the issue for real. For the days before the attack, when she didn't have a look of sorrow about her every time she sees scorched earth. I have often been on the verge of telling her that my whole family is scorched in a way, and that I don't think we're any less for it. But I didn't, and I don't, for reasons that still elude myself as well.

    I have learned a lot in the time that I didn't say anything to Breckin her, and have carried heavier weights than these that I carry now. Still, it would be best if we could talk it out.

    But I've never known where to start.

    A few things she starts with, and so I tilt my head. A few, indeed. Perhaps she means to resolve them all; we start a slow walk through the red (now black) forest, and I mumble softly that I hate politics - my standard answer, and she knows it shouldn't interrupt her or prevent her from talking. The monsters in the dark are all too real, and I can only acknowledge that they're there. "Not just here," I tell her. In fact I'm pretty certain that my brother's family is very capable of keeping the darkness in a state that they prefer. Shah, Ether, and whomever their offspring are these days, have always been skilled in using their shadows for the good of the living. Taiga, I tell her, might just be the safest dark place in the world right now.

    I know about Borderline, nod to indicate so when she is mentioned. The name Wishbone however, makes me pause - literally - before I continue carefully, asking how she is doing. Tephra is where she is now; I think I remember her stemming from that place indeed. An exchange student. That was in the days of the Brotherhood rising, and the Sisterhood at her strongest. Many memories threaten to surface, good ones that now have a melancholic overlay - I try to push them aside.

    But the memories I have seem to resonate with Lilli's, as she has a similar look about her. That day, is all she mentions and I try not to grimace at when I know she means. Overwhelmed - well, we all were. I still think I needed to make good on the threat of my crowning, of my existence. Straia had seemed to understand, Brennen certainly hadn't. Then again, he'd been overwhelmed as well. No more than Lilli, I guess.

    She is wrong about one thing. "Everything has to change." Her sad eyes have to change. The monsters that haunt the world have to change. My daughter, lost in the rocks that she commands - that has to change, too. Yanhua already is changing, but the fact is we never spoke about what happened between us. Our friendship has to change. Less cordial, more... real. Or give it up. Either, just not this. "Everyone has to." The latter comes out more or less a mumble, and I frown when I think of it. Improvise, adapt, overcome. If we don't change with the tides, we'll drown.

    It is that simple, and it's the hardest thing to do. Speaking of hardest things, though. "Sometimes you make it just as hard for me to be your friend as she once did. You're alike in many more ways than you both know." I shake my head with a wry, but not unwilling smile. Something of amusement is in there, though I don't feel like explaining everything that she was to me, right now. It's not a competition, and I don't want it to become one. I don't have to compare to see they're my type. I take a deep breath, mull it over, and smile more amusedly then. "I know who Rosey reminds me of. Did you ever tell her she has sisters?"
    there’s an ocean in between your heart and me


    @[lilliana]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply
    #5


    It's an easy enough thing to fall into step beside Leilan.

    It's an easy enough thing to walk and it is far easier for her to just talk instead of to linger in the silence next to him. Lilliana fills the shadow-filled air with mentions of Taiga and how the Redwood fares, of the antics of their shared children and the ones he watches over regardless. She mentions Tephra and Wishbone and Warden and the chestnut keeps a delicate ear tipped in his direction for anything he might wish to add. The North is his, after all.

    Lilliana, like her father before her, merely considers herself a caretaker of these woods. And as she tilts her refined head towards the Freyr, she thinks that the ice-breathing stallion might be of a similar mindset.

    "I haven't ventured much outside of Taiga," she admits and peers curiously up at the Northern leader. "How bad is it outside our borders?" Lilliana finally asks. Yanhua had told her of some things, of how dire the situation was becoming.

    Had Leilan seen worse?

    She flares her dark nostrils when the roan says that everything needs to change. (And while Lilliana doesn't disagree with him, she wants the sun to return as badly as he, something becomes guarded about her expression when she glances at him.) "I'm not very good at it," she murmurs. Lilli and her Echoes that contains whispers of the past. Lilli and the way she searches every stranger's face for a glimmer of hope, of knowing what had happened to her family. Lilli who almost lost herself in the present because she kept looking over her shoulder, behind her towards a past that she can never change.

    But maybe this is evidence of their healing. Leilan, who can finally bring himself to mention Breckin, and Lilliana who can finally attempt to brave the future, whatever it brings.

    Her lips tug upward in a slight smile. She'll consider it a compliment.

    "She knows of Eurwen," Lilliana adds. She had mentioned the twin of her Nerinian friend. It is the maternal sister - a daughter that she shares with Wolfbane - that the copper mare has never mentioned (though the Freyr would know something of the stripped palomino filly). Her lost daughter always causes her steady smile to falter but she recovers it, enough to tease @[Leilan]. "Do you mean to tell me you have more?" says the Taigan leader, with the laughter light on her tongue. She had grown up among a large brood of half-siblings. The idea isn't a foreign one to a girl who once resided in Paradise. She clicks her tongue playfully, feeling hopeful in his presence for the first time in months. This is banter is reminiscent of the bond they used to share.

    For Lilli, this feels like the start of forgiveness.

    "You rogue."



    Lilliana
    but it's all in the past, love
    it's all gone with the wind
    Reply
    #6
    Ah, Lilli - always careful, nevertheless a bit too trusting. I’m just one example of a bad choice for her, but I can’t help but feel thankful for it either way. It’s what I need to stay sane - or, even, to stay on the side of the light if you will. There are people I would do more good for than I would have on my own - Breckin was one, but she dropped me for another monster so there’s nothing I’d do for her right now (so I tell myself - I can’t guarantee anything when push comes to shove); Eurwen doesn’t need me to be “good” as much, per say. But Lilliana, well - I guess she sort of forces it out of me. To keep what is good in the North, here, and protect it.

    It’s a good thing there are monsters now, so that I can lose my aggression on them. She doesn’t need to see all that.

    ”I know because Yanhua is here, and so is my brother. He owned the shadows long before they started to come alive.” I tilt my head. ”Outside, especially in the common lands, there are no protectors. No hunters to keep monsters away.” I flick my ear towards her. ”Recruiting might actually become rescuing, for some.”

    I get drawn back to the time when the Plague ran around the lands of Beqanna, and shake my head to rid myself of it. I am better suited to fight this darkness than I once was against that bit of horror. The past is the same, yet different than the now. ”Without change we can’t grow, nor be suited to fight the things that come for us.” I tell her. I know I have changed - literally and figuratively so. She will have to, as well. ”We all change a little every day.” It’s not a thing that actively needs doing, I think. Gradually is just as well - and much easier than running up the Mountain. So if she chooses the gradual changes, that’s perfectly fine. I’m just different than she, and she knows it.

    My somewhat gruff accusations meet a small smile, the type I know not to argue with. Thankfully we arrive at the relatively safe topic of our children, and she manages to coax a roguish grin out of me before I realise it’s there. ”You don’t know the half of it.” And perhaps it’s better that she doesn’t, though she will find out if she wants to, I think. She only has to ask the right questions to make me think of a certain memory. Already I picture the young Chryseis, meeting her with her mother at the riverbank. Or the way she kept asking about my new scales after being bitten and drowned by the kelpie girl. Fairies know I wish I’d never told her about the would-be mermaid, but I couldn’t lie to her on her first birthday.

    Kelpies though - I ban it from my memory. I suspected Lumina of being one, but she never showed any predatory behaviour so I have to let it go. Let’s just say I don’t think ice and water predators mix well. I don’t want to think about it, so I think of the boys instead. ”I suspect one or a few of my sons to have inherited that.” I’m not so naive to think that the many gold-touched semi-dragons I’ve met in my life, especially those with a touch of ice, aren’t indirectly related. I’m ancient enough to be a... I-don’t-know-how-many-times-great-grandfather. I shrug it off. ”I’ve always had a large family.” Like that is any excuse for my past behaviour, I give her a faked-innocent grin.
    there’s an ocean in between your heart and me


    @[lilliana]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply
    #7


    Aletta had once told her daughter that meeting Valerio had been like seeing a lightning strike; it had been a moment of such bright clarity that struck with destiny (not that the gray Regent would ever admit to that, her future was always her own making).  But she had told Lilliana that when they met, there was an awareness that was awakened within her. Life would never be the same again, Aletta had explained to a chestnut child with wide blue eyes.

    And when Lilliana had gotten older, she had felt it. An electrifying moment that had altered everything. She remembers meeting him and feeling like the world had suddenly become brighter, like her center of gravity had shifted. As she continues to get older, she thinks that Aletta was right (even if she had been wrong about him). Her life had certainly changed after that meeting with the blue-and-gold palomino.

    But the statement could be proven true for others in her life: Neverwhere, Brazen, Ruth, Eurwen, Leilan. They've all played some part in the evitable changes that the Freyr speaks of. Their world changes - goes from light to dark and then stays there, their children grow and time continues to pass by. We all change a little every day, the roan says and Lilliana can't help but agree with him. Her slender head nods in quiet approval while her blue eyes try to remain on the trail ahead. She hasn't done well with change in the past but she tries, breaking it down to the simple philosophy of attempting to put one hoof in front of the other.

    The smile that emerges on her dark lips is girlish and teasing.

    Lilliana calls him a rogue and the grin that he gives her makes her laugh. "You're incorrigible," she tells him (and not for the first time). It's only his mention of sons that makes the Taigan give her refined head a toss and reminds her there is still more to talk about. "And what of our son?" she banters back, "is he destined to follow in his father's hoofsteps, or is there too much of his mother in him?" The Guardian asks with a playful lilt of her voice. Oren - like his sister - was certainly an individual; but the yearling's growing curiosity is something she thinks could easily be attributed to his sire.

    "I plan on naming Yanhua my heir," she finally says after some time. It shouldn't come as a surprise (and Lilliana still needs to discuss with her star-marked son) but it felt like something she had needed to share with @[Leilan] first. Some part of her wanting the advice of another parent. From someone she trusts. The two of them had started this dream together and it only feels fitting that he be included to discuss the next chapters in this story.

    (She had grown up under the weight of a dynasty. She had come of age underneath the shadow of a kingdom that had passed from father-to-son for generations. Lilliana had watched her brother and half-brother become heirs and then their sons following after. It had always seemed so high a price for a birth-right and yet - when she thinks of Taiga and the next generation, it is Yanhua she thinks of.)

    "When the world is done ending," she half-jokes again. "And the sun returns."

    Because it will, something in her voice firmly says. Because something in her refuses to believe that this darkness will last forever.




    Lilliana
    but it's all in the past, love
    it's all gone with the wind
    Reply
    #8
    Incorrigible. The word is definitely in the top ten, no, top three of words to describe me with, and she’s not the first to use it. It does nothing to dampen my spirits or my roguish grin, let alone the strange sort of pride I feel in being this way. My tail swishes sideways in more of a cat-like, lizard-like manner for a heartbeat, ears perked and green eyes twinkling with that same, well, incorrigible sparkle. She questions about Oren though, and I snort with a more genuine laughter. ”It would seem so,” I tell her, ”- but is it too much or not enough?” That our son takes after her, I have no doubt. Nevertheless, who would have thought Yanhua would end up swaying two ladies at once? Only time will tell - of course, it is typical for Lilliana to be speculating about the future, and I guess that’s part of what makes her, her.

    She does that a lot - and voices another future-oriented thought. The way she brings it is almost hesitant, and I deduce that it is a relatively new idea, not fully matured yet. I nod a moment, then add my two cents. ”But not alone.” I don’t see the goat-horned stallion as a sole ruler, and for the same reason I myself in my younger years never should have been picked. ”Borderline should be with him, I think. If not in name, then at least in a high position.” Blue eyes scan the chestnut at my side - balance is what we need to bring here. ”Besides, if I ever need to pick an heir, you know my choices.” I nearly threaten her with the prospect of her eldest twins ruling, with no-one to temper them. It should be enough, I think, to consider who to put in a high enough position to provide a counterweight. It’s not like we’d be gone, but... maybe retirement isn’t so bad. Time to roam wherever and whenever, it seems appealing. A few years, maybe. I’ll give it some time and thought.

    ”When the world is done ending,” I repeat and then I give a humourless chuckle. ”...is it ever?” I wonder. To me it seems that when one thing is fixed - like the Reckoning, like the Plague - another problem will rise in due time.

    We can’t fix it all - sometimes it’s got to be enough to raise the next generation and prepare them for their own fights.
    there’s an ocean in between your heart and me


    @[lilliana]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply
    #9

    Lilliana had carefully planned out this conversation.

    (Part of her had thought about apologizing for the fight, but that stubborn part in the chestnut mare - that stone-like resolution passed from mother-to-daughter was set. Part of her still wants to apologize but another reminds Lilli that not everything is her fault; that if she is ever going to move forward, she needs to stop placing every misstep solely on her slender shoulders. There are simply some things beyond her control.)

    But Leilan grins at her and the conversation drifts away from politics and Lilliana laughs.

    All it takes is a wayward smile from a handsome man and she drifts off her course.

    At the mention of their son, she softens. "I hope that he is himself." She finally says to the Freyr in a quiet voice. The copper mare has seen glimpses of herself in Oren but there are pieces of Leilan as well; a reflection of his father's kindness. When she glances towards the draconic stallion, her fondness for him warms the deep blue of her eyes.

    The expression only stills when he says that Borderline should rule alongside Yanhua and a ghost haunts Lilliana; she remembers someone who had told her once that politics and marriages never mix well. Then her mind slips back further, remembering the way that her parents split the responsibilities between them and then it eventually forced them apart. "There is Amarine as well," Lilliana finally says, coming back to the present. Why stop at two? Why not three? "I still have hope for a Taigan council. But when Yanhua's time comes, he might have other ideas."

    And change, she reminds herself, is an integral part of life. Maybe whatever changes Yanhua will bring might help bring back more light to this forest.

    When the silver bay mentions her other son, her gaze sharpens on him. It wouldn't be a surprise to have Leilan name Nashua as his heir; it would be just as shocking as Lilliana naming Yanhua as hers. But her thoughts trail after his and much like the dragon stallion, she wonders if they could be counterweights. (And it sounds like one of her mother's stories, a pair of brothers ascending through the darkness surrounding their birth to rise towards something higher. That they perhaps might bring the North into a brighter era.)

    She gives the Freyr a slight nod with her mind already traveling to a few years from now. The sun is shining again. The North thrives. Nobody dares to burn the Taigan forest or blast Nerinian stone. The Curse is dead and truly gone.

    It's a bright future that she allows herself to hope for.

    Smiling at the thought, Lilliana tilts her head towards Leilan's towering form. He doesn't think that their world is ever done ending and she decides that they forget the apocalypse surrounding them entirely. "@[Leilan]," she teases. "When was the last time you had a good run?" The chestnut spends most of her nights on the Taigan shore, racing the tides and glad that the evidence is washed away before anyone else might find it. It shows though, in the lean curves of her muscle. "I'd challenge you to a race," she drawls out as they continue walking, "but I wouldn't want to tire your old bones out."

    but it's all in the past, love
    it's all gone with the wind
    Reply
    #10
    Lilliana should know by now that I never stick to the plans, especially not the ones she makes. The good thing about the whole planning part though is that it takes part in the deeper, darker corners of her mind, where thankfully I cannot reach. The future is something unpredictable and I like to move with it in a similar way, and probably have ruined so many of her plans unwittingly that I don’t even notice anymore if she staggers for the tiniest part of a heartbeat to re-settle her mind.

    I do like it when I surprise her and get her to laugh about things, though. It’s much better than that cordial behavior pattern from yesterday.

    She suggests Amarine, and I make a shrugging motion. ”I never got the impression she wanted to lead, but if you can get Yanhua to take up leading, I suppose she will have a say no matter what position she is in.” I know perfectly well that one horse needs a title to act and the other just does what they think is right in the moment. Amarine seems one of the latter, to me at least, from what I’ve heard. Yanhua would need the push of being named responsible, I think, but he’ll do a good job once he’s used to it.

    And then she does the unthinkable - she challenges me. As if I’d need any sort of excuse. I snort, then tug at her mane. ”And here I thought a lady wouldn’t mention age. I’m only twice as old as you, you know.” Of course, that’s still pretty old, but hey, it’s not like I’m anywhere near as old as Brennen, for example. Actually he is the only example I know, knowing the magician as my mother’s childhood friend. I wonder sometimes if he’s still angry with me, too, for being impulsive, but I shake the thoughts away. No matter. ”A run, then. So long as you promise not to hit any trees.” I grin a little, teasing her with the darkness that I can see relatively clearly in, but that must be bugging her relentlessly.
    there’s an ocean in between your heart and me
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)