so the darkness I became; Eight, Underwood

[Topsail]

Somewhere in the night, they had joined together. A fit of lust tinged with passion, neither conceding anything to other but taking from them everything. While the moon looked on and the wolves sang their haunting melody, they came together. Years of magic in their breeding, bleeding from their sweat-soaked hides to tinge the air around them. They had come together not as lovers, but as two strong-willed souls searching for something in the depths of another.

She felt the first pangs of labor in the early morning hours. It was that time right before dawn, when the sky became so inky black one felt they could taste it. A light sheen of sweat lay against her fine neck, turning the mouse-colored hair to a more chocolate brown. For now though, she was master of the pain. The labor was something for her to control and not the other way around. She could hear the child’s thoughts on occasion, though when she tried to probe into its mind she was met with a barrier she was unable to climb. Odd, but perhaps that was the effect of magic blending with her own telepathy. There were two things she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt though, two important things. The foal was a colt, and for weeks he had been mumbling “Underwood”. A fitting name for a child created beneath the heavy boughs of the Valleys forest.

The contractions were coming in earnest now, each wave stronger than the last. Muscles rippled in waves over her taut belly, while her eyes clearly showed the pain she tried so valiantly to hide. She was no longer in control of what was happening, and soon, her forelegs crumpled beneath her. She crashed to the ground in a heap, groaning as the pain reached new heights. Within her head she heard the child; he was angry at the intrusion, angry at being forced from the comfort of her womb. But it was beyond her control, and so when she started to push, it was not by her own doing. Instinct, perhaps, or something stronger, told her that the child must come out and pushing was the only way to accomplish that task. Mentally she called for Eight, though she knew he probably wasn’t far off. Chances are he had even been keeping tabs on her since their union. Another wave of contractions brought a gasp from her mouth and she knew that now, she was in the final stretches. Pushing in earnest now a tiny hoof emerged, followed by the second. Then the dainty head, followed by the shoulders (the hardest part.) After the shoulders the colt all but slid out, still encased in the birthing sac but mewling and struggling. Righting herself Topsail turned to examine and clean him, and it was only then that she discovered how magnificent he was. A grulla like herself, but with downy black wings like his father. “My little Underwood.” she cooed to him, pushing her voice into his mind but struggling against the barrier. Whether he would hear or not, she did not know. Rising to her feet she encouraged the colt to do the same. For once, she did not feel the raptor begging for release.

topsail

I was in the darkness, so the darkness I became

@[Eight] @[Underwood]

[Underwood]

inside, your heart is black, and it's hollow, and it's cold.

I am one. I am undeniably complete; a mark of irrefutable perfection - yet I am thrust forth, bathed in the blood, mucus and tissue of a womb too suffocating to thrive within, too warm and soluble to want to leave behind.

His limbs are gangly, slick with the remnants of thick afterbirth, laying upon the warm, heavy sac of placental support that rests beneath his flank. He is drenched in her fluids, yet beneath it he is a beautiful sheen of grey. The moist soil blends with his dun undertones and matting his dark mane, which remains glued to his taut, slender neck. His eyes peer up, dark and impenetrable, as he looks into the gaze of his mother who stares so adoringly upon him. She whispers his name, yet he already knows it.

She is unadulterated beauty, perhaps more so because she is altogether like me - yet I have something more. Dense with liquid and mucus from the warmth of her womb, my wings lay heavily across my spine, and gently I flex them - they are far from the devastating beauty I had envisioned, but such would come in time. Though she cannot see within my mind, I can see within hers - not with my own control, but at her own leisure. She has willed me to see my father, my sperm giver, and he is glorious in and of himself. It is because of these filtered images she has offered to me that I recognize what lay across my spine; what their capabilities are.

She croons to him, her voice soft and melodious (her voice penetrates his mind, but only at his will - he longs to hear her, though she cannot hear him) and with defiance, he begins to rise. His legs are shaky, uncertain - she bathes him deliberately, carefully and soon the evening air no longer bristles across his murky pelt. His feathers begin to flex across their delicate bones and his mane now lay dry across his neck and forehead. He nestles against her, a boy of remarkable ability and promise, a child of darkness - affectionate in the way he presses his cheek to her shoulder; reprehensible in the way that he wonders what her flesh might taste like beneath his teeth.

She is mine. She is my mother, my guardian, my keeper - and I am her prodigy. I am her Underwood.

Underwood

sociopathic son of topsail and eight.