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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    Of Earth & Starlight - Celest Birthing [Jah - Any]
    #1
    tangerine
    face to the sun

    Drops of her pain trickle down her brow and under her cheek to run down her straining neck. Her damp breast heaves as another contraction humbles her, bringing her to lie where she stands -a bed of clover.  

    "Jah!" Tang calls into the dark, rough and wild like a primitive animal's cry. 
    Come out, my red medicine.

    The clearing where she lays is high and secluded, few other than herself traveled to the remote places in the mountain peaks. But Tang had faith the Red Mare will come. She had scented her and her electricity, but the child was moving with urgency, and now her search was put to an end. Tang's head falls onto its pillow of young spring greens, and she waits with the breath hissing through her teeth. She waits for the child she has already seen, who will grow to loathe her mother. But she doesn't think of that nightmare now, she had time to change the story still. 
     
    He could not be called her lover, the one who gave her this gift. 
    The Dark God
    (Whos tricks make only him laugh.)
    The supernova created this child as his own, cold, bright and full of light.

    You are not expected to change the future you are given to see. Warrick's words stuck with her -they always did- and she hopes that he is wrong. She hopes, as she gives a push, that the child she is birthing has a future other than the one she has seen. 

    Her nostrils flare, one torn and raw one whole, and she glimmers with sweat in the moonlight. Around her, the young cherry trees rustle with life and she lifts her head to see who has answered her call. 

    >


    backstory - she is currently in Carnage's quest & preggers there. She also sees Celest there and she is cold and cruel. So this is taking place right after the quest where she is currently being tortured...
    @[Jah-Lilah]
    #2
    Jah-Lilah
    someday, we will foresee obstacles
    She comes out at night, that's when the energy comes.


    Jah-Lilah is jolted awake in the cool spring evening by the sound of her name. This is no new experience for her, she is used to her mate beckoning her forth whenever she so chooses. But it is not her beloved Wolf-of-the-Water who desires her at three in the morning, normally the time they hold their secret meetings of the flesh. It is the pied precog, Tangerine. It can only mean one thing, the time for the birth of her demi-god daughter has come. 

    Jah shakes of the sluggish coat of slumber and immediately breaks into a brisk canter, headed for that damn lake again. It seems like her presence was required quite often lately in the realm of the Dragon-King, perhaps the Earth-Mother was trying to tell her something. Nevermind, she wasn't trying to hear that right now. She trudges through the valley, high into the peaks of Hyaline. She follows the sound of crying, of begging. She happens upon the tri-colored female from the plains, and shakes her head, sympathy in my mare's eyes. 

    She greets the girl with a quiet nicker, then bows her head to sniff and blow. She judges the situation. The babe will be a hellion getting here, but Tangerine will survive. She begins nuzzling the mare's flanks, applying slight pressure, trying to relax her and help with contractions. She sings a quiet song, trying to calm the girl. She hesitates, looks around, then is off for a moment. She seeks out skullcap or catnip, to help ease the contractions and relax the tense mare. Catnip is unavailable, but by the grace of the Earth-Mother she finds Skullcap only a few minutes from the painted girl. 

    "Here, little Spotted-Seer, eat this. It will help with the pain." She drops the herb near the other's pinkish muzzle, then returns to her hind end to gauge the progress of her unborn. She continues humming while she works, nuzzling the mare's barrel and trying to help ease the babe into the world. 


    The dark sides are alight, the vampires are roaming.



    @[Tangerine]
    #3

    -Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-

    Jah had been a busy little bee. Hopping from Hyaline to god knows where for personal interests Circinae could never puzzle out. The red wytch she knew was pliable, sweet and attentive as any partner should be, but the curiosity of where her lightning dame slipped off to these days heightens now that the excitement of the past few weeks comes tumbling to a halt. Since the raid of Sylva her family had been split - She, Jah, and Crevan had shown face while Canaan and Corvus remained away. It was time to draw them together again, now that Hyaline was ascending in numbers and strength.

    How to begin?

    In the cool night air a sound jerks her into consciousness. Blue, round, lupine eyes blink reflectively against the bruise of color suffocating her world - everything is cloaked in shadows and haloed by resplendent starlight. She’s a shifter, pregnant at that, and so she finds security in sleeping as a wolf. It kept her aware with eyes closed, especially now that she was adjusting to a new place and new people. The call was anything but faint - strained, even - and specific in it’s nature.

    Circinae uncurls and heads for the source anyways. The paths and deer trails of Hyaline are still fresh to her, though each step is led by a clever nose and sharp ears. In a pang of memory the mahogany she-wolf recalls blind sprints through her beloved Taiga and she sighs with melancholy over the loss. “Chin up, mother wolf.” The quick little predator thinks as she weaves up and over a sharp bend, “you’ll learn these walkways soon enough.”

    A strange sort of promise to herself, one that invites excitement for the future and sends the thrill of movement writhing in her gut as she bounds lithely over a small bush. Her time for bringing new life into this world was close at hand also, but she had yet to feel crippling exhaustion or hot pains between her thighs. Whatever was in store for her this season, no doubt it would be delicate and surprising. Weary now from the uphill exertion and puzzling out their location, Circinae stops to raise her head at the shuffle of noise. Jah-Lilah, meters ahead and clearly focused on the forest floor, is shuffling for something.

    The brown wolf snickers softly. Down an inky hillside she slips silently, nimbly, through low-growing weeds to follow her ruby dame back to a well-hidden spot of earth. There, she pushes shoulders and head through clasped thorns and leaves to view dusky figures pressed closed together in the act of something sacred. Circinae won’t interrupt - not yet, and not shaped like this - so she only whuffs quietly for her mate and opens her mouth to drop something she’s picked up along the way.

    Catnip.

    Circinae

    #4

    Keeper-

    Keeper has kept to the inner basin as of late, exploring amongst the trees and the lakeside but every so often, she climbs higher and scouts the mountain peaks. What she finds is brazen cliffs that offer dizziness and excitement just from looking out over so much land so far below. She finds rams that lock their curling horns together over females, listens to their thunderous clashes and waits to see who emerges as the victor, proud in his strut over the stone ledges.

    It is not common for her to be up this high in the dark. She trusts the trails that she takes to see her down safely from the heights but she feels like she might have tarried up a little too long. Rumor has it though, the best clover patches are up here and she likes a little clover snack at times. But she never did find the clover. She heard instead, a name cried out into the dark and it was not her name - none of them know her, but the pain in that primitive sound struck a chord in her.

    She raised her pale dun head to the mountain air and sniffed long and loud until she had obtained the scent of the one who had cried out. It mixed with clover and she felt an answering grumble in her stomach but she couldn’t think of eating just now, there was something more important happening here. Something Keeper knew nothing about and that, to her, seemed a little like a secret and as everyone is learning - Keeper likes her secrets. Her pace does not change - she might be learning these slopes but they can still break her neck in the dead of night.

    Soon though, she is close enough to smell more things.
    Things like sweat and nervousness because even that has a smell to it, acrid and almost offensive enough to pull a snort from the nostrils. Even the pain has a smell to it. Then there is the scent of another mare; a rich wild scent that Keeper instantly takes a shine to. She can smell herbs mixed in with the clover, like skullcap and then catnip both. Each is a good relaxant, meant to calm though she is uncertain why the situation calls for such as that. Granted, Keeper is unaware as she comes amongst them but not close enough to cause much of a disturbance besides a small ripple in the pool of their gathering, that a birth is occurring.

    The painted mare on the ground looks to be in pain and the red mare alternates between singing and nuzzling at the painted mare’s side. Is she sick? That would explain the skullcap to relax her but her side looks distended which isn’t good. Sickness like that kills. Little does she know it’s not a sickness, not quite like that but rather, a foal stuck inside her mother too stubborn to just slide right on out like she ought to. But then, she smells a wolf and her ears pin back in consternation as the brown beast pokes her shoulders and head through the bracken ringing them all and drops catnip there like an offering.

    Curiouser and curiouser, she thinks. Two mares and a wolf helping them, what in the world has she stumbled upon? Too late to leave now though, she is entranced by concern as much as she is by curiosity for what is taking place in the clover underneath them. Something secretive, she thinks, to be occurring at dark and instinct tries to tell her that this is what mares do and mares know best so leave it to them but she ignores her instinct, just this once to nicker low and soft to the strange trio she found here. Her black eyes rove between the skullcap and the catnip and all she comments on is this, “Both might be too much for her.”

    not knowing how deep the woods are and lightless

    #5
    tangerine
                        turn your face to the sun - let the shadows fall behind us

    The cherry trees part and the Red Mare is there. Despite her pain, Tang heaves a sigh of relief and tosses a strained smile at the midwife, her anxiety lessened by the presence of her mother's friend. 

    Jah's humming is low and soothing, bringing the panic which had been growing down to a reasonable level. She would not have to do this alone. Something seemed different with this pregnancy, (which is not surprising considering what Tangerine had just experienced) but the painted mare refuses to remember what the dark god had done to her, in this moment of birth and new life, she could fight against him in this way and bring her child into a world of love and warmth. 

    The other woman's presses along her abdomen where the discomfort is the greatest - aiding tremendously in the ancient ritual as only an experienced hand can. Soon, the laborer is given a rest as her muscles relax for moment and Jah-Lilah is off, but Tang knows she won't be gone for long.  She is unaware of time passing as she is given a much-needed break and the scent of birth and spring mask the signatures of the others who silently observe. 

    The pain returns in a fury of sharp twisting and tearing and with it the midwife re-appears, bringing a green and purple gift. Tang takes the herb greedily, grinding it between her molars. The mintiness overwhelms her momentarily and she is grateful for the distraction.

    Tangs back legs straighten as the child's front half peeks out into the world. She breaths hard in bursts and puffs of air, the discomfort is familiar, the movement and the fluid between her legs is a relief. Jah remains busy, but not distressed, and Tang draws strength from her steady presence.

    Now, the wheel is turning and soon, Celest breaks free of her mother's womb to slide into the clover. Like the moon, the white shape lays motionless against the dark field. But as Tangerine reached her head over her barrel and folded legs the sack cracks open and the child bobs her teal head with eyes squeezed shut. Upon the child's brow rests a large white star in a field of green-blue, on that star Tangerine gently kisses her daughter as the foal's black amethyst eyes blink open.

    "Celest" She murmurs, the daughter of a god and a girl. 
    >


    @[Jah-Lilah]
    #6
    Jah-Lilah
    someday, we will foresee obstacles
    She struts her rasta wear, and her suicide poem.


    She works tirelessly, doing all she can to keep mother and babe alive. She provides a means for Tangerine to be comfortable, but her priority is preservation of life. The birth seems to be a difficult one, but anything that comes from the God-King Carnage comes with a price to pay. He has given her dear friend the gift of a child, but surely he will ask for something in return. Such bargains are not Jah-Lilah's business, she just needs to make sure the tri-color female survives.

    She is working on the female when a familiar scent graces her nostrils. Circinae. Her beautiful cherry wood wolf is here. She wuffs softly, respectfully, and brings catnip. Jah's heart is warmed thoroughly, and she turns her attention from the pied mare only briefly. She nickers softly at her shoulder-mate, grabbing the catnip thankfully. A quick exchange of nuzzles and then she's back at the side of Tangerine. She drops the herb by her side, she may need it later. She's amassed quite a following, as soon an enchanting pale buckskin joins the audience. The girl offers advice about the herbs, and watches like an apt pupil. My firefly smiles warmly, thankfully, and is back at her duty. The foal is crowning.

    There are several moments of tension in the air, there are cries of pain, of anguish from @[Tangerine], and then the filly slides out to greet the world. Jah-Lilah, her job done, steps back into the unknown comfortably. She is an observer once more, never a mother, always a midwife. She is happy. Then a chill racks her body. At the utterance of the filly's name, my mare is suddenly unable to move, premonitions of the future threatening her happiness. She tosses her head, shaking the thoughts off and moving away to give the mother and child some time to get acclimated. As quick and sounlessly as she arrived, she is gone. A quick kiss and a head rub to Tangerine, a blessing whispered and a nuzzle on the forehead for Celest. Then, the red mare is away, as if she had never been there at all. Her only hesitation is at the side of Circinae, a pause taken only for the moment so they may exit together. 



    She bears a cross from a faith that died before Jesus came.
    #7

    -Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-

    Women, in moments such as these, must draw strength from each other. In their world, giving birth spells vulnerability. Oftentimes the matter was done unaided, alone, and without the protection of a watching father nearby. Any second of duress could result in the death of both dam and foal, even if the mother was practised in the art after years of experience. But Tangerine seems to have a small army at her leisure; one-by-one the women of this growing kingdom trickle in to offer silent, (not so in the case of the dunskin) and watchful support. Tang would lack for nothing in these tense, few minutes and, with the quick turn of her shaggy head, Circinae feels a deep, intense pleasure at that fact.

    Together, they could make miracles happen.

    Tang names her own miracle Celest, a fitting and proper name for a filly if Circinae had been asked. However, since her own input is best kept to herself, the little wolf only offers a few words of encouragement from the bush she takes cover in. “If you need any help at all,” the shrouded creature speaks, a voice detached from any shape now that she’s hidden quite well from view, “come and find Circinae. Congratulations.” The voice murmurs. It takes nothing more than a sly wriggle to free herself from the tangles of her viewing spot and, turning to gaze at the dunskin with an open, curious face she whispers, “I’m Circinae. It’s me.”

    A private sort of joke, perhaps one the other mare won’t understand at first, but Circy barks with bright laughter before her body is leaping away to catch up with her patient Jah. In the darkness she transforms quickly, expanding and shaping herself until the wolf becomes horse. With the press of her newly green lips to the blood bay’s shoulder, the two quietly disappear as quickly as they had come.

    Circinae





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