you're the beacon / birthing, anyone

[wound]

S he is ragged and fragile, held together only by the sinew of her body and each hopeless inhale of the stale air. She’d been fierce in the beginning — in the moments between summer and fall when the bitterness of the pain in her shoulder fueled her anger — but when the once-king of the forest sauntered into her jail-cell, he had snatched any dignity or fighting words from her dry throat. From that point on time became a metaphor, marked only by the swell of her stomach and the ache of her joints. She had wished, in those moments, for Tephra’s warm ocean to wash over her swollen ankles and soothe away the ache with the salty waves. The Sylvans came and went from her jail-cell, sweeping low and shadowy into the cavern before leaving her more bruised than before — both in spirit and in body. Warrick’s name was constantly upon her tongue, her prayers following a rhythm that sang for him to search for her (to feel uncomfortable by the lack of her presence in Tephra and quickly search for the remedy) and to rescue her (to force himself bravely into the dank corners of her prison and sweep her off her dirty, weak knees). Yet his face faded from her mind with the change of the seasons and the filth of each dark day. A pain grips her on one eerie, foggy early morning. Many pains have seized her body since the summer — dull or fierce or jagged or piercing or shredding or throbbing — yet this one is familiar and instinctual. It is a pain that drags her from the rough, cobwebbed corners of her dazed mind. Each contraction brings both terror and concern to the forefront of her timid mind; relief never swarms her. In fact, Wound resists the laboring process at first. Her child is much safer within the realms of her stomach, secure against the harm any Sylvans might bring it. Yet nature will win in the end — in life and in death — and soon a newborn is sliding from the loins of its distressed, bruised mother. Despite the exhaustion that lines every fiber of her body, Wound finds herself moving to clean the face of her child (a son, she notes with a soft huff over his body) and reveal the unique markings that smear across his dark face. “Vadar.” She whispers it hurriedly and throatily, a ragged tune that echoes faintly against the walls of their prison. No Sylvan shall name her own son — even a son born from unwant and ruin. Wound’s eyes shift toward the entrance of the cavern skittishly, shadowed eyes afraid to find leering, dangerous faces staring back at her.

credit to nat of adoxography.

@[Calcifer] / any sylvan is welcome to come and be creepy, just no maiming <3

[Vadar]

Vadar had never asked to be given life. Looking back years from now, he supposes the only thing he’ll be grateful for in this moment is that Wound (innocent and broken, exactly her namesake) gives him this most precious of gifts. She pays a price for her kindness, though; what slips from the battered recesses of her body will always be a painful reminder of just who put him there in the first place.

“Vadar” is the first sound he hears, though he’ll forget that fact soon enough. It means “father”, and just like Modicum he’s dipped in black. Were it not for the silvery-white tint of his hair (there is enough of Wound in him, enough gentleness) the colt would certainly be a mimic. He even seems marked in some way, with patches of white over each blinking eye and a grim, sort-of-humorish bleaching around his lips. Poor thing.

Mother Wound jerks away, leaving a cold emptiness and sudden fear behind her.

The silver bay mare’s son bleats quietly in protest, not yet understanding that fear will follow him from here on out. Until his mother is free they’ll both wake up to it, fall asleep to it, even anticipate it. He doesn’t know that he’s a mistake, not yet - and so he cries for her again in the dinge of their makeshift pen, only knowing Wound and the knowledge that he depends on her.

VADAR

@[wound]