Sinner, Litotes, Anyone;

[Valdis]

how come I never got used to the feeling of sleeping in a cage?
too long driving, too damn hungry; a tied-up hound but nothing stays

 
A breath catches in her throat.
Pain gouges her body.

Everything hurts; everything inside her screams. Each step is agonizing, both physically and emotionally. Her stomach stretches uncomfortably, but her mind is what terrorizes her as she battles the ailments of her heart.

Sinner. It has always been Sinner; and yet, when his absence left a hole in her, it was Litotes that mended it. She didn’t want to be touched, not at first. It was wrong to allow anyone to touch her skin other than Sinner; not even a friendly brush from Ruinam seemed right.

And yet, in her desperation, in her loneliness, she crumbled. The reservation deteriorated and the need for companionship bloomed. As foreign as it was to lean into Litotes, she doesn’t regret it. Though her heart belongs to Sinner, there is a piece that is Litotes’.

Determined to find solitude, Valdis pushes herself through the pain until she is underneath a large oak. Her eyes peer up at the gnarled branches as they groan in the wind. There is no sense calling to anyone – not Litotes or Sinner – because their scents have faded much like her own until this day. Heavy with child – there must be another? – Valdis presses herself against the pocked bark and slides down. Labored breaths rack through her as contractions burst through her core. Lathered in sweat almost immediately, Valdis succumbs and allows her eyes to drift shut as though it will help the process.

The sun had been hanging high when Valdis initially buckled down beneath the gnarled oak. When she comes to realization and awareness, the sun has nearly sunken below the horizon. Quiet bleating stirs her into action, standing above not one or two foals, but three. Surprise reflects in her cerulean eyes as they dote on each one, followed by soft nudges to smell them for the first time. A smile, though weary from her exertion, spreads thinly across her lips. ”My children,” she whispers into their huddle as the sunset glimmers off her skin – all of their skins.

Instincts encourage them to nurse, and she nuzzles each of them to stand and balance before nursing. In the midst, she names them, one by one. ”Mako,” she says to the filly, ”Wolf,” to the blue and gold boy, and finally, ”Bruxas,” to the palomino. He gives away the truth of his parentage, that he is not a son of the hellhound. At least the others more or less resemble her, a detail she admires quietly as nightfall looms nearer. Shadows crawl forward, swallowing them slowly, minute after minute. A trembling breath sighs from her lungs, waiting for the night crawlers to rise from the darkness and take first glance at her newborn brood.

 

Valdis

@[Sinner] @[litotes]

This only took an eternity to post. Figured I would tag because a) babies and b) just going with the flow of the murder seen. No idea what is to happen or how >