She doesn’t know why everything suddenly felt so claustrophobic.
The same sights, the same faces, and that same lingering anticipation of knowing she was going to see someone with the ability to send her spiraling. Usually, she thrived off those feelings. When she felt so tightly wound, like someone had sucked every ounce of her energy and forced it into a space several sizes too small, and all it would take was one single spark to set her off like a bomb. That was when she was driven to being stupid, careless, and reckless, and that thrilling, intoxicating fear of not knowing how it was going to end was her worst addiction.
But today she is tired of their eyes – strangers and acquaintances alike. She is tired of the way their eyes rest a little too long on her golden halo, or the brand still on her hip, or the not yet healed marks Atrox’s teeth had left.
She is tired, and she is restless with the child that stirs inside of her. For the first time since coming back here, she decides to not give birth in Tephra.
She does not seek out Heartfire when she gets to Nerine. She knows she will know that she is here, and why. Instead she makes her way to the coastline, craving the sound of the waves and the taste of the sea breeze. It reminded her of her first home — before the Valley, and even before that prison-like jungle. She follows a steep but well-worn path that descends to a sandy bar, and with the sheer faces of the cliffs at her back, she stands at the edge of the shore.
Pain rolls through her like the waves that stretch across the beach, and her dark, sable eyes close as she inhales sharply, before releasing on a trembling exhale. Her eyes open at the feel of a cold raindrop against her skin, and then another. A frigid gust of wind twists and twirls the long locks of her mane, and she is not at all surprised that her youngest is choosing to be born during a sudden storm. Just like the rest of them, nothing could ever be normal.
Nerine was in no short supply of caves, at least, and as the rain fell in torrents she took refuge inside the nearest one. The opening was just barely adequately sized, with large boulders piled above and around. She steps through anyway, her golden aura lighting up the dark as she makes her way towards the back of it.
Rain dripping from her mane, she paces and fidgets restlessly, until sweat mixes with her already damp skin and steam rises from her neck and back. She stops only to sigh in frustration, her wings shifting anxiously at the intensity of the pain that relentlessly grips her, and listening to the wind as it whistled sharply outside.
