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.
