She isn’t sure how she is supposed to manage raising a child when she’s already saddled one. Even though she has come to appreciate his steadfast cheery deposition on the day-to-day, the way he was always grinning and teasing with that mischievous glint in his eye. But she knew what that meant now. It meant something permanent—her body changing and morphing to carry the small seed of life within it now. She frowns down at it, shifting uncomfortably as the child within her kicks out.
Grunting in pain, she scowls, turning her head to whisper at it. “Would you calm down?” Her nostrils flare as she exhales in irritation. “I want you out as bad as you want to be out. Just have patience.” Already she can feel the beginning pulse of her daughter’s mind wiggling within her, the thoughts not entirely clear but becoming more formed with each and every day. She would never admit that the connection made her warm from the inside out, but she cherished it in secret.
Still, she is irritable when she hears Fox approaching, catching onto the now familiar pattern of his own mind as he approaches her. A single ear flicks toward him as she feels his mouth trace its way up her body. The body once so lithe now entirely foreign to her. As he manipulates the air around them, the temperature dropping considerably, she sighs. “That’s better,” her voice makes it clear the relief she feels. “I don’t know why you insisted on bringing us to the hottest part of Beqanna.”
As if this isn’t her birth home.
As if she doesn’t know the danger that lurks outside of its borders.
Still, she won’t admit such things. Instead she sniffs, casting him a long look from underneath her lashes. “Hello, Fox.” She hasn’t quite mastered the sweet nothings that he says so easily, not relaxed completely into the emotions that simmer in her chest. It’s easier to ignore them now when they aren’t in the throes of passion and when she’s mostly focused on the discomfort. It’s easier to ignore the way her pulse still spikes when he comes near her and the way she sometimes shifts closer to him when sleeping, acting surprised when she wakes up curled next to him. Confused by everything she falls silent, frowning a little.
“Do you think it’ll ever be safe out there again?”
and all of us, we’re meant for the fire, but we keep rising up and walking the wires