It had been one night of beauty, one night of sheer clarity that had bound us, but now, now I was cursing him, cursing him to the very bowels of the darkness in the pines. It was a fruitless wish, because most of my sweaty frame ached for him, the fluttering heart in my chest wanted nothing more than to fit beside him, feel his warm flesh and his beating heart. Oh, but the cursing was still there, because this pain, this pain was excruciating.
I had known he would be an impatient one, the long nights of unease as he shifted, the seed within growing and growing, blossoming into something more than a rose. It was the budding bloom within me, that had swelled and swelled until it was becoming quite the chore to move around. And for me, restlessness marred my wayward limbs and regardless of the pain, the burdensome weight I was carrying, I insisted on wading through the pines, watchful of the borders. Protecting the heart, the soul of the chamber. It was ingrained into me now, the landscape, and often in the dark winter nights, I could wander with eyes closed and still manage to circle the entirety of the boundary, only when the sun reach the morning sky, did I realise that the bruises beneath my eyes were broadening and the desire to slumber was weighing heavy at my lids.
it had been obvious the spot I chose. The tinder soft on the ground, the old, moulding leaves. It was a strange comfort, the pinecones lay in a disarray, the moss as bright as winter would allow. It was the spot where I had given up my masquerade, the night that we had shared and ultimately created this swell of my barrel. It was here, my knees buckled and I lay on my side, lungs like iron, heaving, gasping.
I tried to wait, but such a feat went against every part of my body. My neck perspired to the point of foam knitting together clumps of golden mane. I was truly a mess, a mess of winter coat, slick with sweat and matted tresses, knotted with clumps of dirt and twigs. I thrashed my hinds, kicking at the bare trunks, hooves striking the solid bark, anything to take away the pain that surged through me like hot knives. They sliced through me, my abdomen, my loins. I called then, even though my teeth were clamped tight, threatening to shred the softness of my tongue, my call slipped free. Ragged and hoarse, old and frail. I was young, I was still not even matured in my prime, this was meant to be easy. Or was it? For the third time since I had settled in Beqanna, the Chamber, I thought of my mother. Her too kind eyes, and what she would say, what words could soothe this moment and make it easier. Hallucinations came then, like flashes of dream wisps. I saw her, gold and sunset orange, slipping through the trees. Gentle blue eyes looking down at me. Oh, if it were her, tears slipped from my eyes, I whickered, gentle, low. The sound choking in my throat, raspy and hoarse.
That’s when I realised that time had shifted and the moon became the sun, the black night turned to blue. The gilded rays of light I had mistook for my dam, stabbed at my heart as well as through the boughs above. I was alone in this agony, alone in another sense. I wait, I try and I wait, but the pain bolts through me and my body surges, kicking at the moist earth and decaying leaves, pushing my head deeper into the ground, teeth grinding, shredding at bits of twig that I took in my mouth and bit down upon. To stop from sounding so weak, to try and muffle the silent screams that tore from my chest. ’Killdare.’ even though my lungs will to collapse, my throat tightening more and more, it is his name that slips from my dry, cracked lips. ’Killdare.’ I say again, into the crisp early morning air, clouds of hazy breath following. I push my sloping shoulders deeper into the ground, grinding my knees deeper into the mud. I turn my head briefly, my muzzle touching my huge barrel. He should be here to witness this, he needs to be here to witness this. I was tentative in admitting it, but I needed him, we needed him.
E n g e l s f o r s
drink thy posion lightly dear. there are deeper and darker things than you
minister of the chamber |
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He bent to scratch his foreleg, rubbing both maw and ivories at his itching hide. Pale white meeting earthen bay in an attempt for relief. His winter coat was almost burdensome as he felt the presence of spring inching ever near. The air still cool and crisp, though signs of new life emerged in buds on boughs, in the to and fro flitting of birds. Pale green shoots would soon litter the clearing, the cold and damp would recede into the corners of the pine, waiting to emerge again next year. Soon the cool temperatures would turn to the tepid climate of spring. He would be thoroughly uncomfortable until he shed his long, wavy coat. It plagued him every year, while his extra layer was welcome in the freezing temperatures of winter, each spring he was done with the nonsense. Doubled up layers were useful and all, but only to an extent. Add to the fact that he had noticed as he aged that once the fur had set in full for the season, it began to wave and curl.
He snorted, lifting his brick colored dial. A coarse curtain of ebony tilting angled back down his neck. Dust and shadow, earth and bark, colors of soil and midnight. Morning rays shown through the pine maze, casting light to the gloom and promising a new day. The morning had started out as any other, until the placid setting was broken by a distinct outcry. An exclamation against the rising sun, beating into the air with conviction. A wail expressing pain, it promised blood, and his heart started at the sound. He knew her voice all too well, every chord of her melody, the key in which her words did sound. There were few reasons why she might sound as such, why she would even cry out to him. His moniker blasting against the clearing sky once, now twice, he had better hurry.
He didn’t know why she had gone here again, tracing her scent along the lichen to this spot, their spot. Remnants of the night smell now coated with birth scent, and sweat. He trampled the decaying leaves with his outsized daggers, finding for once how uncomfortable the situation made him. The thought had been enticing enough, wanting to be there, of course. Now in the middle of her labored breathing, her outcries, he found he didn’t know what to do with himself. Jade orbs fall over her frothy pelt, stalking first one way before another, whickers flowing from his maw at each step. How he could soothe her he didn’t know, what he should say he wasn’t sure. ”Engel I am here-I- I can’t say I’ve witnessed many births. None at all actually, what do I do?” Words of uncertainty fell before them, he had come to reassure her and fell short of how he might do that. Tramping a trench in the soil, before simply touching her neck. He wasn’t much help but it was all he could think to do.
Dutiful Soldier|Lieutenant of the Chamber
The shadows of the morning rivet my frame with daring glimmers of dark gold. They ripple against me, as the waves of pain also do. I feel like the lapping waves of an ocean, to and fro, backwards, forwards. And just as one would feel when they stared endlessly out a the lapping sea, the dizziness, the sickness that swells within, it plagues me as much as the pain that ripples through every taut sinew in my body. Oh, oh this pain, it better be worth it. I turn my muzzle back to stoke my broad stomach, it quivers with life, with strain. Oh, sweet prince, you will be special. The idea, it floats in my mind like a feather, yet ignites like a flame. I shiver, a chill that reaches to the marrow of my bones. My mother, I wonder if she is somewhere, anywhere. The thought is only fleeting for there is a scent on the breeze that washes me in relief.
His shadow dances before I see his earthen form, and my glazed eyes eventually find him. He paces, and I quite smile at this, a broad little sliver. Many seasons ago, upon a midnight hour, where the sliver of a moon graced our presence, I would never have thought to see him pace with insubordinate worry. Oh, but it warms my heart, and twangs the chords of my soul like a fine violin.
At his touch, I seem to melt into the earth. A sweaty, muddy pelt of gold, melting like the sun would against the dark night sky. I moan, a quivering voice reaching my lips. 'You're here. That... that is enough.' the smile that twists my lips is a rarity, one like the archangel's bow, a simple and yet rarely witnessed treat. I call gently, my swollen vocals as hoarse as the dry bark that my head rests against. My sapphire eyes squint closed, tightly, ever so. The last wave of pain seems to be it, and with it I feel the release of life.
He's there, I can feel him. A bundle of leggy silver buckskin. I turn my head, weary, spent, to gaze upon the child. My eyes then lift to gaze upon Killdare. 'I told you, impatient boy.' my voice is a fragile wisp of what normality is. But again, such rarities were caught like fragile butterfly wings, pinned and saved for another day. I shook my head, weary legs knocking against each other as I heave my burdensome frame up to my feet. As I do the child shifts, grabbing and gasping for his first breath. I coil quickly around and snatch at the shell of life that sticks to him. In moments it is gone and the silvery bundle glimmers in the morning light. As the sun touches his amber eyes, the name touches my lips, as if spoken by another source entirely. A spell cast, a name dubbed. Christened beneath the morning glory, the chamber's distant ash and the raven's caw. 'Vercingetorix'
Wearily, my head tilts, eyes watching for any form of disdain upon my earthen knight. It was a burden to carry, the bundle within grown from a seed into a virulent life. I whicker, the soft melody low, hoarse. 'A son. We have a son.' the feeling, it sparks things within me. Protectiveness. A shrewd and keen eye that not only watches the borders of the chamber, because of the seedling, but now for my own son, our own son. I reach out my muzzle and gently nudge Killdare's brawny shoulder. Turning my head back to touch the colt's silvery head. He is already on his feet, a little unsteady, but he finds the sustenance as nature intends. I quiver, the feeling foreign, but natural.
E n g e l s f o r s
drink thy posion lightly dear. there are deeper and darker things than you
minister of the chamber |
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He can impart no words of wisdom, cannot ease her suffering with some vast stored knowledge. He simply embraces her, caresses her, the only form of relief he might know. Though he was never stupid, he was a creature of physicality not of song. Not of sentences and paragraphs, exploding with descriptive syllables that came like breathing. He was the breather, he was the action, the story and not the telling. Engels lapis eyes taunt him, unfocused in their peering, a string pulling at her mouth. She was amused with him, his shortcomings always seem to do her this way. His lapse in structure brought smiles to her velvet face, and he didn’t begrudge her them.
Soft vocals fill his alert eardrums, faint, exhausted. He had heard her this way rarely, and still others had never known she was capable of such dulcet music. She asked for nothing, save for his presence, and he found some anchor to still his movement. He was never so still, or he could not remember ever being so, everything ceased until the squelch of life came forth. He wasn’t sure how he had managed, to lay sight to the miracle of birth once it was all said and done. He had an idea of what it would be like, what it might look like, but he certainly was not prepared for the actuality of the process. He saw the dusty female in a whole new light, as she did what at times seemed impossible, but her body had persevered. She had birthed their child with no assistance, with no prior training to the exercise, no guidance. It was all backwards to how he thought things should go, one did not just happenstance complete a feat. Her she was though, as always, proving him quite wrong. His backwards thinking and upbringing was always lit to show a new path when she was around, he’d never say just how much he learned from her.
In the end it is nothing short of amazing, the little colt that breaks free from her barrel, all fur and legs. His coat is a lovely silvered hue of buckskin, a moonlit pallette of his mother’s own golden tint. Dark hair lining his neck and tufting at his rear, one small hint of his father.(can edit this part, as I get many different pictures back on silver buckskin search) He hears little else past her next word, they spark discord in his mind as he tries to register them. ”Vercingetorix..I’m sorry what?! You..We surely cant call him that.” He was taken aback, shaking his mud colored head. He stamped a single brawny leg at the loam, its descent followed by raking. Surely she wasn’t serious, surely this was just one more jab at him. Some game to cause a rise, for she had certainly won. How else would she have come up with some absurd word? One he could hardly pronounce, let alone remember, a grating heavy tongued pronunciation. No, absolutely no, he thought as he waited for her to end her sport.
Dutiful Soldier|Lieutenant of the Chamber
Every sinew aches and stretches in places I never knew were quite possible. I had always thought the miraculous sight of birth was quite horrific. Back when I watched my sister born, it had been an electric stare, never leaving. I had vowed then to never met such a thing happen. Well, I had vowed many things but that was why I never did walk the path of the blessed. An angel's physique but a demoness inside, nothing saintly there.
I touch his neck, Killdare, his soft skin a warmth palpable, muscle and strength. And beautiful familiarity. I nip at his withers gently, enticingly almost. Look, look at the child. His dark points, his shimmery glow in the sun. You made him, we made him. As he looks upon the silver colt, I notice the change. My ears drop momentarily. A touch of embarrassment, of scorn lining my tired features.
'He is strong, like his father. An apt name.' my blue eyes were clear marbles as they gaze back at his missy green ones. A purposeful snort. I watch him as he inclined with a small tantrum. My knotted tail snapped at my loins, an ear lacing back at my crown. I gave him a nip to his shoulder, neither aggressive nor pushover. 'I carried him, I weighed the burden and you don't want to call him that? Then tell me, dearest, what would you have him called?' I say, my tone weary, lost against dry lips. I was spent, exhausted and for now did not want to argue. So I dipped my nose to the left of me and nudged the silver buckskin boy.
'I shall call him Vercingetorix. Killdare, dear, call him what you will. But he is ours, and he is delightful.' even though disappointment mars my face, I still try and smile with a graceful twist. He is Brutish and headstrong but yet, those many reasons built up my adoration for the earthern knight. 'At least that is something we can agree upon?' sapphire gems watched him, carefully.
The touch is welcome, easing his nerves, before her teeth brush his skin. His pelt quivers, ripples roll through his sienna hair, displacing his complacent look. The child, his child, their child was remarkable to behold. Each piece was carefully formed and placed, sculpting a tiny youth. Everything was perfect, from his silvered wheat coloration, to his gangly limbs. Killdare felt promise with his child, his boy, his son. A chance for new beginings, of better circumstance for them both.
The moment passes until he speaks, his discount causing a smear of contempt on his lovers face. She was as displeased with his response as he was with the catastrophic name he had heard. I spark he had not meant to light had burned, he looked between the two. The boy, it seemed, was to be plagued by his mother’s silver tongue as well. She rebukes him, throwing words at his ears with her fallen notes, slicing at his brain. Call, him? Anything but that. The other children what would they say? He would be outraged at the first jape, he would blush at the queer looks to follow. She doesn’t budge, had he expected her to? Did he think he could dissuade a speaker? He didn’t, she wouldn’t be convinced otherwise and he knew it. Let her call him what she liked, warm air freeing itself from his sniffer. A grunt accentuating its discharge, he rolled his shoulders a haughty shrug. ”As you like,”he relented though still not pleased with the decision.
Did she question his love for the child, his like of the newborn babe? She had. He tossed his head, shaking it up and down, adjusting his bulk from standing so stiff. ”Of course he is delightful!” Hurt by her need for that reassurance, as if he could think any less of the tot just because of a name. ”He is wonderful, I couldn’t be more pleased. Have the name, makes no matter.” As if to prove some point he lowered his chiseled face to the lads flank, a gentle lipping over the downy hairs. He was a father, a better father than his had ever been, he would treat the boy as he should be treated. ”Hello my son, and welcome to our home.
What was one name in the end? She couldn’t possibly think up anything worse in the future.
Oh Killdare, you silly, silly man.
Dutiful Soldier|Lieutenant of the Chamber
XD hahahah
Had it been a normal time, a night were I was more attuned, more alive. Then perhaps, perhaps the seed of gloat would be planted and I would have toyed with the bay knight, strung him along with frivolous words, knowing how much it would have pulled certain strings of him, like some puppet. But this early morning, I did not see that fitting. I was spent, exhaustion marred me like the ash of the chamber's past, decorated my golden frame with heave lines and perspiration. But there was a smile there, a testing grin. But that is all. I lengthen my neck, lithe gilt, like the sun agains the earth, as it meets, it is a glorying union. I wrap my neck loosely around Killdare's and bring him close, feel his warmth, his heart.
Regardless of how we may have disagreements, there was the fact that there, standing before us, was a child. A son. A new addition to the Chamber, who bequest to be the future. I smile, just watching him as the young straggler bumps against my hinds before shifting, having his fill and manoeuvring through the damp earth. Finding his feet and his long legs (well, I am quite the tower, I suppose and the warmblood lineage surged through his veins and his DNA quite well.)
'He could be named anything, and still be an asset to us, to the chamber.' it went without saying, that the boy would be something more, to not only them but the ashen earth, the kingdom. I lipped gently at the bay steed's mane, nibbling at his withers before pulling away and tiredly stepping closer to the silver buckskin. Such a glimmer of moonlight, his hide, he dark points like the streaks of night sky. As he was conceived upon a midnight hour, and born upon dawn's first light. He looked the mixture of night and the day. His amber eyes ever watchful. 'Perhaps I am biased, my love. But we have made quite the handsome son.'
E n g e l s f o r s
drink thy posion lightly dear. there are deeper and darker things than you
minister of the chamber |
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<3
08-09-2015, 04:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-09-2015, 04:38 PM by Killdare.)
I WILL ALWAYS FIND YOU
She wasn’t half as mad as she could be, didn’t press back with the same enthusiasm she once would. Leading him through weaving looms of thread she spun from her maw. She was tired, exhausted from her labor, and she should be. He would have been. He accepts her embrace, her long neck coiling around his own, a swirled pattern of sun and decay. His own weight presses into her in return, silently acknowledging some unspoken thought.
It was strange, in a way, to be a father now. Though he had known for months this day would come, it felt so abrupt. He hadn’t the chance to really let it sink in, to feel it was real. Not like Engel had, he hadn’t carried the child, hadn’t felt it grow within him. Some form of bond existed between the two that he felt he could not obtain, that somehow nature had slighted him. That he would have to make do without, and he found it very off putting. Like he had been denied some very important piece of training. He huffed deep in thought (for him), turning his grassy eyes to the boy.
The child was a metallic shade of sunlight, his points like the burned edges of paper. It created the effect of singed stationary paper, the clean linen parchment yellowed with age. He would be tall no doubt, the colts legs already lengthy in comparison to most foals newly born. Aurulent kissers meet his thick, coarse mane, and he is grateful for what he had to show for his life. ”He is handsome of course, though his genes had a generous helping.” He gruffs rather seriously, examining the child. ”He will be a fine soldier.”Of course the bay had hoped for a warmonger like himself, already forming some sort of training regimen in his mind.
KILLDARE Tracker Lieutenant of the Chamber
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