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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


    [birthing] Easier for you to let me go; any
    #1
    I hope that you catch me, cause I’m already falling
    Ilma

    Ilma is too heavy for a normal walk.

    And yet she does walk, because now that she snow has melted in the valley below, it's the season to give life to the world. A life that she did not want to carry, or at the least, should have been someone else's. But there's no time for regrets. She's had all winter to think about that. This baby will not be his - it will be hers and hers alone, or, rather, perhaps she will not tell the baby that Svedka is not their father - depending on what they look like, a little earlier or later. Because well, it's not too bad that he offered to help her. They'd see this through, and maybe next time, she will be pickier on who she mates with, maybe if he wants to he could actually - "Ugh!

    She cried out randomly, it seems, and not too loudly. But it signals the start of the something she'd hoped might not come. But the baby moved so much inside her belly the last few weeks, she knows he is healthy and ready to live.

    She just has to make sure he lives a much better life than his father.

    I hope that you see right through my walls...
    ...put your arms around me, and I’m home




    @[Svedka] @[Llowell] @[Kagerus] whoever wants to come see the baby and/or help her through this process
    Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
    Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time
    #2

    It had been a while since he’d dared to step foot in Hyaline. After his last visit he’d kept to himself, lurking in the shadows – waiting. Autumn had given way to winter and winter had melted into spring, and there he stood upon the precipice once more watching as she waddled uncomfortably about. She hadn’t changed much beside the added weight of her heavily pregnant belly. He smiled in satisfaction. Beneath layers of skin his progeny twisted itself about as he prepared to enter the world. Truthfully, he held no real interest in acting as the child father. He was content to gift Ilma the full weight of responsibility when it came to their foal. His freedom was far too important to him.
     
    But he was determined to watch her bring him forth into the world.
     
    Melted into the shadow he craned his neck to watch as she centered better into his vision. From where he stood he heard her groan and, oddly, the sound was pleasing to his ears. Very little was accomplished without struggle and he could not regret the actions he took to ensure that his line would continue. The anticipation of his son’s arrival hung heavily in the morning air and he was determined to stay until the deed was done.

    Arithmetic
    I Don't Make Love


    @[Ilma] I brought him out of the closet to lurk...
    #3
    the secret of our world is written in the stars
    He is always moving, always exploring every inch of Hyaline when time allowed it - especially with the blooming that came with spring. Hyaline is decorated in the vibrant colors of the surrounding flora, blooming brilliantly in the warmth of springtime sun. Some ice still clings helplessly to the ground, but each day it is melting away beneath the change of temperature. His willow tree is now back to its glorious former being, swaying gently in the breeze and framing the now-melted lake he so adores. The water is still frigid against his skin, but he has taken quick swims once or twice despite its bitter cold. He cannot help it; the water calls to him, with its crystal clear depths and shining, glass-like surface.

    He has just emerged, damp with lakewater and knots of lilies and water-dwelling plants caught in the ivory and blue of his mane. Drying beneath the warmth of the sun, he had set off in the direction to the rocky mountain backdrop, to see what else has begun to grow in the mild weather of spring. His mind, though particularly focused on the bright colors of wisteria and other blooms, lingers on Ilma momentarily as it now so often does. Their relationship had grown deeper over the cold and bitterness of winter, vowing to protect her and keep her safe while she grew each day. They are no longer strangers or even just friends - there is something deeper in their bond that he cannot explain, and he finds himself even worrying about the ivory woman when he is not with her.

    Ilma’s voice quickly changes his demeanor, and with a curious and concerned expression, he searches the confines of Hyaline for her. Her coat is brilliantly white in the vast color of the world around her, the perfection of her alabaster feathers softly shining in the sun’s light. He cannot help the breathless smile that finds him when he finally sees her, and he trots up to her with a soft whuff against her neck and shoulder, inhaling her familiar scent with quivering nostrils. Her belly is swollen with child, but being with her so much, the size does not surprise him. “It’s time?” His voice is clear with excitement as well as hesitancy - he had never witnessed any birth, and would not know what to do if something went wrong. The stallion brushes her pale forelock from her eyes with a brush of his pinkish lips, still damp from his swim.

    The darker stallion is hidden beneath shadow of fully grown trees, downwind from where they stood. Svedka has not noticed the figure that watches them so hauntingly, as he is engrossed with Ilma’s wellbeing and not the world around him. Soon, however, that might not be the case.
    (be my escape)
    Svedka


    @[Ilma] @[Arithmetic]
    There's no reason for Svedka to notice him...yet. >Sad If he's still here once the baby is born, or if he gets himself noticed, I can't promise what will happen! Tongue
    #4
    I hope that you catch me, cause I’m already falling
    Ilma

    She doesn't really think she deserves all his devotion and attention, only half understanding what exactly it is that is growing between them. Their friendship has evolved, definitely, but his willingness to share the load of her horrors with her, means that she sometimes feels like a heavy burden. But today, right there and then, when she'd honestly tried to keep silent for as long as she could, she can only be thankful that there's someone here, unlike last time - well, okay, last time Solace had kept an eye on her, from a distance. But this time... she needs more support than that.

    It's with heavy eyes that she looks up to him - so brilliant in his white and gold, while she herself feels like an old and used piece of - rock, maybe; just something heavy and not really worth to look at longer than a single glance. Life's not fair, she knows. She's been stupid enough to believe that Arithmetic might feel the same way; friendly at least, caring, but all that was a ruse resulting in -

    contraction

    Her thoughts get interrupted and she doesn't think she can get them back on track. Wordlessly at first, she nods at Svedka - really all she sees is him, her vision impaired by the pain she endures in waves, combined with the fact that she does not ever expect to see the biological father of this child again. In a moment of clarity, she can get more words out though. "Wish it were different." she manages.

    She knew that, as soon as she discovered she was pregnant, this would be a difficult time. A sad time for her, in which for the good of the baby she might have to uphold a certain womanly strength, because despite all, she suspects that she can love the child. But it goes with ups and downs. She's not sure what she will do after he's born - leave him for the wolves to find? Or with the fairies? Kick his head in? The thoughts have crossed her mind more than once - but she's not capable of violence like that, although leaving him at the adoption den to take another foal home with her sounded like a reasona -

    pain

    It's visible on her now, not just because of the small sweaty droplets on her head, but because of the wave of muscle contracting on her sides. "I have to..." she looks around frantically, she's in an open spot, she doesn't want to be in the open. Bushes. Brambles are best but any kind of undergrowth would do at this point, and she presses her nose into Svedka's in a hastily greeting, to quickly shuffle forward to such a darker spot. For a moment, she thinks she catches the scent of another and freezes in place - that's the whole trouble with her, she freezes when she's scared - but she shakes her head, no, that's silly, just her mind playing tricks on her because of the memory. And she finds herself a spot to lie down, nostrils flaring, but sort of relieved that she won't have to carry the weight so literally again soon,

    contraction

    And she cradles, instinct taking over.

    pain

    Coming in waves now, shorter time lapse in between.

    Now it has truly begun, and she thinks no more but gives in, to push with the contractions, this baby needs to get out!

    I hope that you see right through my walls...
    ...put your arms around me, and I’m home



    @[Arithmetic], @[Svedka]
    She's uhm, busy - feel free to make a few post without her if you want/need to.
    From Arty's point of view I'd say she would be in a bush, at about... 2 o'clock direction? So pretty close if you want to interact, but far enough to move out of range before getting spotted. Your call Smile Also you may post Llowell any time Wink.
    Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
    Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time
    #5

     
    Standing alone upon his ledge he watched with an unfeeling gaze. He can’t help but think upon their first meeting upon a mountain similar to the one he now stood. He’d been overtaken by her beauty, though he found her wits at the time to be somewhat lacking. She’d made good company at the time and, now, she fulfilled his true purpose. Sheltered by the shadow of the mountain his figure remained completely from the view. Startled slightly his eyes fall upon a cream stallion as he rushes to aid in Ilma’s struggle. A moment of jealous erupts in him as he considered the intruder. Who was he to think that he belonged in this moment. A moment that should have been reserved to them.
     
    Arithmetic can hear the stallion’s voice as his all too obvious question breaks the silence of their surroundings. Forcing his attention back onto Ilma he watches as her belly writhed and wriggle, the force of his child within pushing urgently. The child was ready, Arithmetic could sense it. For a moment he considered climbing down to her, to express his fatherly right. Instead he felt his feet carry him swiftly backwards. It was time for him to leave. She would do fine without him and, perhaps, one day when the child was older he would pay a visit. He knew, without a shadow of the doubt, that their child would be stronger. Stronger than he ever could be.
     
    Perhaps that was the point. To create something stronger and better and, thus, insuring a legacy that would never falter or fade.

    Arithmetic
    I Don't Make Love
    #6
    Flying
    is learning how to throw yourself at the ground
    and miss
    His world was dark. Shades of red and black and gray swirled around him as the walls tightened around him. Bathed in the warmth of his den he had no desire to leave besides the aching of his neck as the walls had slowly closed in upon him. Day by day he felt the constraints of his world tighten as he grew. The only sounds known to him were that of a melodic beating that pulsed in time to the shades of red as they raced around him. There was also a voice to accompany the darkness. Sweet and lyrical it often time talked to him, or so he thought it did. Llowell, it often times hummed and he liked that word best of all. Whenever the sweet voice spoke that word there was a love buried beneath the chords of her vocals.
     
    The pushing had grown more insistent now. The walls narrowed, and he felt the very tip of him break through into the void. It didn’t take long for the rest of him to follow suit and, quick as the blinking of an eye (or, at least that’s how it felt to him) he was free.
     
    Sliding onto a soft pillow of grass he lay there as his body shook with the exhaustion of his journey. His body was coated in a sticky wet residue. He was out and although he was blinded due to the bright light he strained against his heavy eyelids. Just behind him he felt a familiar warm presence. The smell that wafted off her shiny white coat filled him with comfort as he grapple with his new reality. There was a second smell accompanied with the familiar one. Musty and harsh against his nostrils he flinched away, the voice inside of him urging him to flee closer behind the glossy figure beside him. He wanted her, he realized. And he knew he had to get to her.
    Llowell


    @[Ilma] @[Svedka]
    #7
    the secret of our world is written in the stars
    She leaves him, her eyes quickly darting through the thick brush of Hyaline to hide among the foliage, to tenderly ease herself into a quiet place of solitude so that mother nature could take its course. He smiles at her retreating form, following her a few steps to be sure he could see where Ilma decides to place herself, deciding that he would remain there - guarding her, watching over her, listening for her - until the child was born. Something primal has awakened in him at the scent of birth and blood, and the stallion paces close by, but gives Ilma a wide berth for privacy. He is not the father, but he willingly becomes a caretaker, a steady presence that he can hopefully accomplish in the time to come. 

    In guarding the area she is in, ensuring her privacy and protection, Svedka’s cerulean gaze lingers on a certain movement in the distance. His ears fall flat, his brow furrowing while his head lowers in attempt to peer through the darkness and shadow to make himself aware of anything that could possibly be amiss. The stallion snorts sharply, moving forward suddenly (before he’s even thought it through himself) at a quick trot, the sound of his approaching hooves easily making him noticed, which is what he wanted. He sees nothing, but something is not sitting well in his heart, so he continues forward, pressing through the birch trees and blossoming flowers, waiting until the feeling of being watched relieve itself before he would even think of turning back. 

    Whatever had been lingering is now gone, out of Hyaline and into the rocky terrain of the Riverlands. He halts with a sliding stop, tousled mane and forelock cascading over vibrant blue eyes. He raises his head and neighs loudly into the nothingness, a warning to whatever had left such an unfamiliar scent on the trees and their leaves. With a wrinkle of his nose, content that the threat is gone, he turns back towards where Ilma had been left.

    Upon returning, a new scent is in the air. Amidst blood and fluid, there is the breath of a child that has now joined the world. Svedka finds them easily, peering through bramble and brush just so that his head is clearly in her sight, nickering a low vibration of questioning. The child is dark and shadowy, though there is a smile that finds Svedka’s lips as he notes the tiny, unfurled and damp wings at the withers of the foal. From his mother, he assumes. 

    The stallion does not move any closer, awaiting an invitation from the pearly-white mare before interrupting such a serene moment. 
    (be my escape)
    Svedka


    @[Ilma]
    #8

    Ilma
    And there's a lesson waiting to be learned
    the firestarters always get the burns
    and the good guys never get the girl

    Tired, she'd never felt so tired. Or did she? Surely, with Tähti it must have been the same, but perhaps this time she's just been a little too tired to begin with, or emotionally tired, so maybe she is more tired than last time indeed.

    In any case, it takes a little longer for her to collect her bearings and move. Stand, turn and

    "Oh gods, no..." she whispers softly. But he can hear her, so she shouldn't say more. She wills herself to move, mindlessly cleaning his nostrils and eyes, but as she reaches his neck and the characteristic stripe, she freezes a third time (hopefully a last time for now. She can't do this. She can't be caring for this child! He's so much his father's it scares her to look at him, to see his stripes and remember the front hooves at the corner of her view, scraping at her shoulders, holding her in a position against a rocky surface, clenched against her wings, she remembers.

    She doesn't remember cleaning the rest of her son afterwards, silently. He's being cleaned with a salty aftertaste, softly mingled with tears, but she buries her head between the boy's wings, the one thing that at least for sure is different, is "Llowell,", is her little wolf, not the big one that had done the unspeakable.

    Her breath is only a tiny bit raspy as she wipes her tears on her baby boy's coat, hoping he wouldn't notice with the damp of his amniotic fluid having been there so very presently, and for good sake she licks it away also, as if she'd accidentally left a spot damp. She inhales deeply after that, standing half over her son.

    But it doesn't take too long for her rescuer (for that is what he's done, safe her soul from being quenched and drowned by the dark thoughts, she is quite sure) to arrive once more. Wherever he's been, she wonders vaguely, frowning into the distance. Through the bushes she can see his movement, and when she's recollected herself, she calls to him, softly, unsure of her own voice. She has a son, and she'd like the two of them to meet.

    and shooting stars cannot fix the world


    @[Svedka]
    Since Andromeda doesn’t have a lot of time on her hands lately I think we should wrap this up?
    Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
    Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time
    #9
    the secret of our world is written in the stars
    The smell of birth and life and blood send his mind reeling, anticipation and adrenaline coursing through the stallion’s body. He is on high-alert, a slight quivering in his nostrils as he peers through the shadowed glade to see the muted forms of Ilma and the foal, greatly interested to see her, to check on her, but hesitant. It is not his child, and for once in his life, he is not bold enough to come to her without an invitation. Then, a soft voice trickles through the foliage, and though it is unsure and nearly a whisper, Svedka knows it is for him. He replies with a deep, throaty nicker, stepping through the brambles and bushes with swift placement of his legs, cerulean eyes wide with concern as well as elation.

    Even after birth, the white mare is as angelic as always. There is nothing to fear, he wants to tell her, but the serenity of the moment has rendered him speechless. The foal at her side is as dark as thunderclouds, stormy and grey beneath the soft, warm light of springtime and the perfect white of his mother’s wings. Svedka gives the boy and Ilma a wide berth, circling around to her back where he stands over her, head low as his pale pink nostrils flutter wildly against her mane and neck, huffing gently into her skin. Another low and guttural nicker resounds in his chest, nosing at her withers and tenderly smoothing some unkempt feathers back into their rightful place with soft teeth.

    Before turning to look at the child, satisfied that Ilma is safe and healthy, his blue eyes flicker into hers, brows rising with questioning. He asks her nothing that he wants to (are you okay?) but instead offers her this revelation that he cannot help allow fall from his lips: “You are so beautiful.” It is the truth, though perhaps out of place and unexpected, the tiniest hint of a smile tugging at his mouth before the stallion’s head slowly turns to the child - and though there is no likeness about the colt to Ilma besides the damp feathers that cling to the boy’s withers, there is beauty in her son that has come straight from herself.

    “Hello, child,” he says to the grullo colt, a slight bob to his head before stretching his neck over Ilma, so that he might press his muzzle into the soft velveteen of the foal’s.
    (be my escape)
    Svedka


    @[Ilma]
    <3
    #10

    Ilma
    And there's a lesson waiting to be learned
    the firestarters always get the burns
    and the good guys never get the girl

    Childbirth has the habit of creating a hormonal daze for a mother - not unlike the first time, although perhaps her shock had come through still when she first laid eyes on her son. But she can get over that - she will, she has to. And she finds herself loving her child anyway, because she's carried him so long, he is the extension of herself, no different from her daughter.

    Her floating state of mind helps her love her child, as well as give in to whatever Svedka does. She cannot help but think why, why would he go through such lengths for her, to keep her safe would have been enough if he, she, had been anybody else. He keeps taking her completely off-guard but, in a way she doesn't understand and still finds lovely. Attractive, probably too, had she ever had the time to think on it. She has not, though - her mind so filled with the horrors of last fall, all of winter she'd done nothing but panic a little over it, knowing of the baby growing. And now that her colt is moving, he again takes all of her attention, like a newborn baby always will.

    She can feel his warmth on her back and she finds her mind clinging to that warmth. He's her anchor, to keep her from drifting, and whatever she had to talk about (ask where he had been off to, again question him why he would stay close to her so much) is lost, and she lets the wings flutter with the slight tremble that his ticklish teeth settle into them.

    He moves and looks her in the eye, and she's already starting to answer the expected question when the words register, so it comes out a little weird. "Not," wholly, but I will be. Stopping herself, she frowns. "I didn't mean..." Heavily flustered, she shakes her head and focuses on the small conversation he then has with the soft heap of grey feathering beneath her.

    She takes a step backwards to let her baby take his first attempts at standing. Of course, he falls a few times, nothing she worries over. She bites back a chuckle when he once tries to move a wing instead of a foreleg, which lands him miserably on his nose. "Those are not for walking, Llowell." she tells him softly, giving the boy a nudge to try again. There's something soft about him, she sees, and she can only hope he will take after her more in personality. But her baby has her smile again, if briefly, while she is nestled next to Svedka's warmth as well. She feels safe here, now, and she is a mother. Perhaps he has the wrong father, and perhaps all is not as is should have been, but for now, most of it is well. That should be enough.

    and shooting stars cannot fix the world


    @[Svedka] Don't know if you want to reply to this, I feel like it's a good ending. If you want a new one, tag me anytime (:
    Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
    Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time




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