[Scorch/Any] The Bones of the Great Leviathan

[Scorch]

WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT

You were smaller. The words create a vacuum of worry in Scorch, a small tear ripping in the fabrics of something she had assumed to be safe and secure. She wondered if she should have saved mentioning the exact length of Sarkis' time away for another time, when she felt more secure - but it was too late. In the gasped, hypertense words which fell from her daughter's mouth, Scorch sensed the oncoming of panic.

She couldn't remember the last time she had a panic attack.
(Perhaps since she had had so many while pregnant with Blue).
She wanted to reach out as Sarkis slipped away from them, but a terror of her own gripped her. A terror that she would fail as a mother yet again. That a step taken in what looked to be the right direction would bring her to her knees and threaten to slash the tight cords of her throat. Her daughter remained silent for a moment, slashed by the wind, punctuated by blood at every point along what ought to have been a perfect body - what would have been a perfect body had Scorch not allowed herself to die all the time ago. If she could have just been stronger.

The girl began yelling, and something clicked within Scorch. Even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, even though it was the opposite of improving the traits which made her character flawed, even though it made her a bad mother yet again. As her heartbroken words howled alongside the wind, Scorch's consciousness receded until it felt as if she watched the world from behind her own mind, floating two feet above her own body; dislocated. Disassociated.

She'd never handled yelling well. Perhaps that was why she loved Hestoni. The loudest he ever became was in their marital bed - not that they had one to share, any more. Not that she knew of.
This thought did not help her re-stabilize.

She missed the way her son looked to her, though her body automatically returned the gesture due to muscle memory alone. But it is in fact when he stepped forward to hold his sister that Scorch returned somewhat to her corporeal form, urged by ghosts that neither of her children could hear. Inhaling shudderingly, the mare realized what was happening; and for not the first time, she remembered why she loved her youngest son so incredibly much. Because he knew how to handle the batshit crazy women of this family with care; he knew how to love them through their trials, no matter how eccentric.

When he stepped back, releasing his sister from his embrace, Scorch felt more herself. She looked to Sarkis somewhat apologetically, but then decided better of it and fixed her face to one more of motherly comfort. She moved to the roan girl's side, silencing her pleas with a press of her lips to neck, jaw, and lips; pressure points, to calm her newly reborn child. She asked to be lead away; and, with a glance that communicated her gratitude more deeply than it ever had before thrown Leilan's way, she stepped forward.

"Let's go then, sweetheart. It's not far. I will not leave you."

Scorch

Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle

@[Sarkis] @[Leilan]

Not sure if this is a good end or if you'd like to keep the conversation going in the forest! Thanks Leilan for being the best. Scorch sucks.