To the edge of night // Lillia

[Cross]

The sun was setting on the horizon, another day coming to an end. They did that, now. Day and night and dusk and dawn, the sky was constantly changing, and he found himself struggling to keep up. 

He and his twin, they'd been born into the Dark. They're world had been comprised of shadow and cold and quiet decay from the moment they'd opened their eyes. It had been birth all over when the day returned, the sun a violent brilliance that his eyes had taken a week to adjust to. 

Even now, the ink dark youth preferred the night. It was what he was used to, after all. His mother's had celebrated the return of the sun, a reaction lost on him then, and now. That was why the sun was going down, and he was stretching his legs out of the homeland he'd been born to, and at last exploring the greater world. There was quite a lot of it, and he found himself intrigued by why he'd seen so far. 

Stars blinked awake overhead, the darkest parts of the sky absorbing the gaudy sunset colors as they bleed across the heavens. He wouldn't miss it. Not when the cold blue-white fire that ringed his head illuminated the way. It picked out the subtle hues of white and gold, flowers blooming in the heat leftover from the day. Somewhere, honeysuckle was blooming, and it painted the air with its sweet scent. So different from the salt soaked winds of home. 

It was still this evening, and hot and humid. A summer storm was brewing but wouldn't be here for a while. Not soon enough to wash away the thick air. Wings held away from his body, Cross walked without much purpose, intending only to see where the night lead him. Some place interesting, he hoped. 

@[Lillia]

[Lillia]

.

She hurries to dusk. To that place between light and dark, to the settling down of something which once rose -- she hurries along the natural lullable rhythm of time to the place of the setting sun, unconcerned to know that in doing so she leaves behind the lavish jubilation of the afternoon. Afternoon will come again, she knows; and in all too due time, she will rush to the afternoon, too.

And after the rush comes the serene calm.

The pause, the breath.

She finds herself here, now, in the breath -- captured in the exhale of time with but a thought. Frozen seems too harsh a word to describe how she walks amidst the timelessness she summons; restful, perhaps, suits the scene better.

For what more could restful hope to describe save the image of the angel, aglow with hope, as she reaches for the setting sun with gentle eyes and a smile that extends far beyond the limitations of her material self. Restful, hopeful. Lillia lays claim to the essence of these words with the slow bend of her breathing ribs until, at last, she allows the sun to continue its setting.

The return of time brings with it two scents: first, that of a summer storm which makes a lazy approach, and second, that of a young horse somewhere nearby.

I must say hello, she thinks.

So, picking up her hooves, little Lillia brushes her way through the expanse of flowers which litter the meadow until all at once, she finds herself before him: him, of winged black and haloed, too, with striking red eyes and a sense not of hopelessness, per say, but perhaps the lack of hope at all. For her part, Lillia notes their similarities with an earnest smile.

"Hello," she says. "I am the angel Lillia. Are you an angel, too?"

Lillia

[Cross]

And I looked and behold a pale horse
His name that sat on him was Death and Hell followed with him

She was a negative copy of the boy, brilliant white and gold while he was painted in the darkest of hues. Consequently, she was impossible to miss as she approached, illuminated with the warm light of the setting sun. 

Cross watched warily as the mare drifted near, a look of beatific joy on her sweet features. She was almost achingly perfect, and the fire crowned youth was uncertain how to react. Until she spoke, and he realized her mistake. An amused smile tilted his lips. 

"The angel Lillia? Can't say I've heard of that one," he drawled, one shoulder rolling beneath his wing. He wasn't a stranger to angels, per say. It was just that the kind he knew were not so easily identified. They were... mixed, so to speak. 

"I'm not an angel, no," he admitted, a little note of bitterness in his voice. Oh sure, he looked the part well enough. Looks weren't everything though. The power he carried was not so benevolent, so kind. That, he got from the other side of the family. His sister, on the other hand...

"I didn't think angels usually hung out this far south," he commented, wondering exactly where the luminous mare had wandered in from. If she had a home to call her own.

@Lillia