"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
Lillibet aims for the shortest path to her wasteland home, through the four corners that connect Nerine, Hyaline, Taiga, and the sea. Of the three territories, Taiga is the easiest to identify as she navigates. Its massive redwoods guide her southeast. It’s her intention to journey straight home, but there’s something about the eerie oversized forest that causes her to linger as she begins to pass it by. Her glow illuminates the unnaturally wide trunks of Taiga’s silent sentinels, drawing her attention to them and to the haze that sits beyond the treeline. Curiosity piqued, the gold-striped woman slows her pace to a tentative halt as she considers her next move.
It doesn’t take her long to decide, and she’s soon weaving in and out of the massive trees at a leisurely walk toward Pangea, no matter how circumvential. Her hooves crunch against the shallow snow and the carpet of dried, brittle pine needles beneath the ivory blanket, bringing sound to the otherwise silent forest. In the distance, the haze that sits low to the forest floor is disturbed. It moves in waves, parting in large swirls until the vaguely familiar frame of a palomino mare. Lillibet pauses her wandering, acutely aware of the invisible border upon which she straddles, before nodding her glowing ivory head to the approaching woman.
As she nears, Lillibet realizes it’s the same palomino she’d come across in the field as she’d welcomed Lanore into Beqanna. “Hello again,” she greets with pricked ears, struck again with that same feeling of recognition. It rests in the back of her mind, unreachable, just beyond her grasp. Annoyance flares in Lillibet and her nostrils flare for a quick moment before a forced smile is thrust across her lips. “I never got your name before, in the field. I am Lillibet, and I feel like I should know you from somewhere..” Her golden eyes watch the palomino woman, falling silent to allow for introductions.
I do not want to move mountains;
I want the mountains to see me coming
and to crumble.
03-18-2022, 06:24 PM (This post was last modified: 03-18-2022, 06:24 PM by Aela.)
Aela is rarely in Taiga; it is fortunate that she catches sight of an unfamiliar glow illuminating through the dense fog. It is hazy, as most things are in this immortal forest, another one of the Redwoods' many secrets. But this one makes noise, where many of Taiga’s ghosts do not. She can hear the sound of crunching snow - a brittle layer of melted and then refrozen again during late winter - long before the former Seneschal spies the luminous stranger.
She was no sentry. It was not her responsibility to prowl along the Northern borders to keep others out. But these were the early days of Obscene’s reign and there was still so much left to settle. As harshly as Aela criticizes the Fae stallion, even she acknowledges that he cannot be everywhere. So she pushes through the swirling mist, lighting her own gilded stripes. There will be no missing her when she steps forward, glancing sharply at the pearlescent woman.
This was the mare from the Field. They had spoken briefly, before Aela had gone her own way.
There had been a reason why she hadn’t given her name. And she smiles now, because her reasoning has paid off. "I was hoping we might speak again,” the palomino reveals. She takes another step forward, suddenly not minding the cold and the damp for the first time since she had arrived in the North. Aela listens as the pale girl explains her visit to the Taiga, and there is something that sharpens her blue-eyed gaze when she states that she feels as if she should know who the Empath was.
Lillibet should, and Aela uses it to her advantage that she does not, tilting her head prettily to one side.
"You’re from Pangea,” she states plainly with an indifferent flick of her flaxen tail. The slender entity draws closer to the other striped woman. Aela hadn’t needed any of her gifts to sense that. The dry, arid scent of her first true home was forever imprinted on her from Aela’s earliest memories and it had clung to Lillibet obviously enough. The confirmation of her name clicks the last piece of the political puzzle in place.
"And I didn’t want to scare away your companion the other morning. But I hear you are the new leader. The Diadem, isn't it?” That smile returns, coy and almost wolfish, revealing that she was never caught unaware.
Something that she would have Pangea's new leader learn before sharing her own name.
Lillibet doesn’t miss the warmth that is lacking in the gold-barred woman’s smile, but her own does not falter. Yes, she certainly should know the name of the vaguely familiar woman who stands before her now, and Oceane would be very much disappointed to know that she doesn’t, but the bygone Princess of Sylva has never placed much interest in diplomacy. Even with the new crown weighing down her head, her only motivation to keep the wasteland is to have a place to welcome her family home, should they turn up alive after the sinking of the South.
Knowing that she may be behind the curve in regards to what a leader may typically know about the kingdoms and their charges affects her none, though in this instance she would have wished to know the name of the woman before her if only for Fyr’s sake. So close is she to reuniting the fire-wielder and his adoptive mother, and yet so far.
Her molten golden eyes meet the gaze of the palomino woman with confidence as she nods her head in affirmation. ”The Diadem, yes. But from Pangea, certainly not. My true home is beneath the sea.”
And that’s when it clicks, where she had seen this woman before. Lillibet’s eyes widen at the realization and a spontaneous step is taken forward, lessening the distance between herself and the Taigan woman as hope begins to blossom within her. The memory is hazy, diminished by the years and the fact that she’d been only a child on the day they’d moved from Loess to Sylva… but she is almost positive that it was this palomino woman who'd stood beside the Fae Prince as her mother had abdicated.
”You were at Cheri’s coronation. In Loess.”
A statement more than a question, mirroring the other woman. Her words grow excited, they spill from her lips faster. ”You were with Obscene.”
The hope rises swiftly in her chest and there is naught Lillibet can do to contain it as she asks the final, definitive question: "Aela?"
I do not want to move mountains;
I want the mountains to see me coming
and to crumble.
