shattered into ash [any]

[Cress]

all that we have amassed sits before us, shattered into ash

This was not supposed to happen.

She had gone to him because she recognized him as a friend, someone who was a constant companion to her though they'd only spoken a handful of times over the years. He was someone who endured, someone who survived, someone who made it through the darkness with her. They were the only ones left, of the group who had survived Carnage's torture, and as it turns out, he had survived the Dark God not once, but twice now. The mark across his eye and the X upon his chest testified to how resilient the man was, and something about him had drawn her in.

He was broken, lonely, so much like her that it hurt. They even looked alike to a certain point, with gleaming copper coats, yellow manes, and melancholy expressions that bespoke horrors. They were kindred spirits and though he was no Flamevein, he had managed to carve out a piece of her anyways. She cares for him, worries for him—certainly, she has comforted him. She doesn't know what love is anymore—Flamevein had stripped that from her as brutally as his disappearance—but Ledger matters to her, and the mere thought of it scares her.

When she first feels the quickening in her womb, she panics. She has not borne a child since Rhaenyra so many years ago, and not long after that the girl's father had vanished into nothing, leaving behind not even a scent behind. It had been like Flamevein was never even there, and he has never met his daughter—not his only daughter, of course, but the daughter that mattered. The child borne of love instead of lust (though lust had certainly been involved, for once Cress had hungered for his burning touch), and he had never even known the vibrant, sassy child. She resents him for that.

She doesn't know what type of father Ledger with be, or if he'll even be a father indeed. Does he have children of his own, with a lover, living in a beautiful kingdom? She isn't sure, but she doesn't think so. If he had children, he would be more alive; if he had a lover, he never would have taken her on that day in the meadow. Perhaps he has been scorned by love as she was, and only looking for a companion.

But for the child's sake, she hopes that he will be there.

Her gold-tipped, scaled wings tucked close to her side, she paces relentlessly, a dirt track already forming below her hooves. She is anxious, more anxious than she has felt with either of her previous children, though she knows she can heal any damage to her own body that the birth could cause, and if it comes to it, she can save the child as well. Either way, something about this child makes her nervous. It is already quite active, moving almost constantly in her womb, and the anxiety it induces forces Cress to pace.

So she paces.

cress

oxytocin x kindling