There is such a fragile eagerness in her when Heartfire tells her, look, when she can feel her vision shift and alter. For a moment though, all she can do is pause and close her eyes, brace herself for a truth she so desperately wants - a truth she is sure must be untrue. Her sister, for all her well-meaning, must have misunderstood, must be wrong. Luster is not, cannot be, pregnant.
But Heartfire is never wrong, never does anything without complete certainty.
So Luster hesitates a beat longer, those dark eyes open with such a wild ache in them that even the snow around them seems to grow still, hold it’s whispery breath. She turns, and she isn’t breathing either, has forgotten how or that she needs to, that she ever knew how, because all she knows now are the two pulsing lights blinking back at her from someplace deep in her belly.
Two.
Two.
She is mesmerized for an eternity, so quiet and so still, unblinking as thought if she does, it will all be a dream. Another sky full of lost memories she is left trying to piece back together even without knowing she needs to be.
They are so beautiful.
She exhales the breath she had not realized she was holding, watches the twin lights fuss inside her as the muscles tighten against the absence of air again. Time loses all meaning, seconds drifting off of minutes, minutes shedding from the edges of hours, eternities. This moment is all she knows, this ache in her chest of such honest, untouched joy. But then a flash of light bursts from her, hits the outside world and shatters into dust, drifts off like wayward fireflies among the trees and snowflakes. She hadn’t mean to use her magic, but it had become so unruly as of late, so sentient. Opinionated.
In watching the light go, she is reminded once more of the woman at her side, the sister who has given her such a precious, unmatchable gift. She reaches out to brush her lips across Heartfire’s brow, smoothing aside the forelock there as she has a thousand times before for little Merry. “Are you sure?” And the question is so soft, so vulnerable, built with aching lips and trembling words. “I don’t understand how this can be.” She hesitates, brow furrowed, eyes cast in shadow beneath the currents of dark, silky forelock. “I had a dream once,” but she is hesitating again, hearing how foolish it sounds and shying away from the expectation of amusement in the blue eyes of her very practical sister. You don’t get pregnant from a dream.
She shakes her head, laughs softly, but there is a new guardedness there, a shield she is trying to construct for the cracks and fissures that suddenly seem so eager to erupt across everything she had thought to be true. “I must sound crazy.” But then the smile fades a little, and she glances back again to find those same twin lights nestled together inside her. Life, so beautiful and unmistakable. Growing inside her. “I’m going to be a mom.” She murmurs, suddenly struck by the notion that as some point those lights will inevitably be warm noses pressed against her belly, sleeping in a tangle of limbs with her and their brother, Merry.
And it is everything she had always imagined. To feel life growing inside of her, bigger and stronger until that life - those lives - are ready for the world. To have hungry little lips tugging at her belly, dark eyes full of love and promise, nuzzling against her chest. A family to give herself to. She can see it so easily, her sweet Merry tucked close to her chest, her head over his withers and holding him so near. A child - no, two. Twins? Pressed to her side and so safely guarded between them. Tangled and content in their togetherness.
But it is not everything she had always imagined. She had imagined it too much like her parents, a mother and a father, their children safely, happily with them. But there is only Luster here, only children. And it is still perfect, still makes her heart ache with a joy she has never known so intimately, but it is darkened with the rust of not understanding. “Heartfire?” She asks, turning those soft, uncertain eyes on her sister with such vulnerable trust, “Do you know who the father is? I.. don't think I've ever been with anyone.”
