everything we are, it just went away
with a slide of the tongue and a sour taste
It turns out her secluded spot wasn’t so secluded after all.
Little Isilme wobbles to her hooves and she smiles at the girl, silently encouraging her to stand. Twice she falls before she decides to stay on the ground, and Dawn chuckles as she watches her girls explore their first few minutes of life. She looks up as she hears footfalls approaching, and gives Clayton a tired smile as he stops a safe distance away from the trio. “Thank you so much, Clayton,” she tells him, but her strength is waning and her mind wanders before she realizes that he had asked for their names.
It is Austra’s turn to stand now, and Dawn’s gaze softens as she falls and cries out in surprise, her cream legs a tangled heap beneath her. She doesn’t intervene as the girl stands again, merely shifts her position so that the girls can nurse if they choose to. Austra latches on almost immediately, curling her tiny body under Dawn’s barrel and around her hind legs. It’s only a few moments later that Ilma arrives, and she offers the white woman a similar smile to the one she had given Clayton. “Thank you, Ilma,” she murmurs, her expression giving away nothing as Ilma explains that they are like their father. She had supposed as much would happen, with his lion shifting and her bear; she’d rather deal with lion cubs than polar bear cubs. Lions are so much smaller.
She introduces her daugther and Isilme stumbles to her hooves once more, playfully leaping towards the other filly before falling once more into a heap. A breathless laugh escapes Dawn as she watches the girl, joy and pure love filling her entire being. God, she loves them so much already; she didn’t know this much love was even possible to feel, but it easily dwarves any other thing she has felt in her entire life. Years of sadness, of loneliness – gone, just like that.
She will never have to be alone again.
Austra finishes nursing and takes a wobbly step towards her sister and Terhi, eyes apprehensive, and Dawn looks up in time to see a familiar cremello stallion walking their way. “Lie,” she murmurs, not quite believing her eyes. Why is he here, in the Cove? She cannot say, but she is glad to see him all the same. He gazes at his daughters and she can see the realization dawning on her face, and he rushes to her side to meet them.
When he turns to her and apologizes, she laughs softly, pressing her nose into his neck. “There is nothing to be sorry for,” she tells him, and she means it. He had blessed her with these two little girls before them, and she adores him for it. “Without your help, these beautiful girls wouldn’t even exist.”
Dawn
oh, it's gonna be a long night
@[Clayton] @[Ilma] @[litotes] @[isilme]