[private] Out with the golden we sew // Rapt

[Kagerus]

Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.

He doesn't notice the shift from sleep to wakefulness, but I do. When his body stays rounded and mine slim, my breath billows out of me. Relief. It worked.
It... worked.

I stand with him, head lowered, lips pressed to skin that is damp with sweat. An uncanny sensation of displacement consumes me, my skin twitching, ears pinning against my lover's cries. This should have been me. I feel my loins contract uselessly, my body begging for its rightful pain - I built the child that now slides out of Rapt. I created his every fold.

And now? Now I am not even his mother.

There's tears in his eyes, and he's speaking to me with the reverence that only birth-mothers know -- and I can't help it. My expression sours. That should have been me.

(But oh, silly Kagerus, would you not have died?)
Maybe I should have. I broke the rules.
(Well, there's still time for that darling. For now, look upon your son - if you can even call him that.)
Go to hell.

"You have a son," I rasp in reply, smiling, though my brow creases in a tumultuous frown. A laugh cuts through my empty lungs, but I turn my eyes away from Rapt, not knowing how to proceed from here. My mind feels dissociated from my body - I float above myself, untethered, mad.

That's when I really see him - the foal.
Gold and white, a perfect mix of us.
My lips turn down, stomach squeezing. "He's beautiful." It's not a compliment.

"What would you call him, Rapt?"
Because god knows I shouldn't be trusted to name something I so innately despise.

Kagerus

sweet nothing

@[rapt]