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walk that mile until the end starts; Wolfbane - Lepis - 11-18-2018 Ahead of me the soft sweep of the pampas rises toward the soft grey horizon until it becomes hills and then – hazy in the distance – the tall peaks of the Hyalinean mountain range. The rising sun has just begun to paint the slopes with gold, each distant tree casting almost impossibly long shadows. A gust of cool wind sends the flowers around me bobbing their colorful heads and lifts the sweat-stained navy forelock from my face. I am aware of none of this, for my world has narrowed to include only the damp creature that is curled beside me. His small sides heave quickly, each exhale revealing a belly that is stretched wide with milk. As pale as a summer cloud, it is easy to imagine that this boy with his cerulean wings is a creature of the sky rather than flesh or blood. Only my exhaustion and the shape of his father’s nose on his miniature face convince me otherwise, and I heave a quiet sigh before resting my blue chin on the opposite side of his body, feeling his heartbeat where he leans against my side. I’d called out when the stars had still lit the sky, beckoning @[Wolfbane] to the hollow where I intended to bear my son. I could hear the creek gurgling behind me, a comforting chatter as I labored to give birth for the second time. It is almost easier this time. Not in terms of pain – that still wracks my body – but in knowing what to expect. I am quicker now, more responsive, gentler as I brush gentle kisses on the face of my newborn son. “Pteron,” I’d named him, a fitting tribute for this tiny winged creature. The name I’d have had if I were a boy. A name honoring his heritage and his future. My eyes have fluttered closed for a moment but open quickly as the boy beside me rouses. He’s heard the same sound I had, I surmise, and turn my head toward the source of it. It’s Wolfbane, I find, who has probably been there for some time. I open my mouth to introduce him to his son, but just as I glance back at the boy to encourage him to stand… He vanishes entirely. RE: walk that mile until the end starts; Wolfbane - Pteron - 11-18-2018 The world is a blur to the boy and it consists of only two things: warm mother and bright sun. When warm mother is is gone (leaning away from him to look up at his father, though the boy can't know this) the world is suddenly wrong. Perhaps it is a reflex, some instinctual reaction to danger, but the boy feels danger and simply disappears. This does not go well for him, for as his body vanishes, warm mother pulls even farther away and begins to make distressed noises. Eager to find her again, he lurches forward, only to plant his forehead against a tussock of daffodils in a failed attempt to stand. The pollen aggravates his nose and he is suddenly sneezing, once, twice, three sneezes. At the final sneeze Pteron reappears, seemingly startled out of his invisibility. His feathered wings are spread wide to either side of him and he sits, dog-like, on a bed of soft grass. Wiggling his soft pink nose, he stands. Unaware that his blinking in and out of sight is the cause of his mother's panic, the little pegasus is content to simply stand beneath her concerned touches as Lepis reassures herself that her son is still whole, and then turns to his father with a playfully relieved reproach about him being the one responsible for this. RE: walk that mile until the end starts; Wolfbane - Wolfbane - 11-19-2018 My dreams have all come true Like all good nightmares do RE: walk that mile until the end starts; Wolfbane - Lepis - 11-21-2018 Though my panic was brief, it was very real. Rapidly brushing touches across the colt to reassure myself he is whole, I feel the fear begin to subside, replaced by a warm sense of relief and even - surprisingly - humor. I know that Wolfbane has this particular gift - he'd shown me at our first meeting - but to see it manifest so easily in a child is something else entirely. Especially when that child is my responsibility. What if he disappears at bedtime? What if he goes invisible to climb a rock face that we explicitly forbade? The possibilities seem endless, but rather than let them overwhelm me I close my eyes and lean into the reassuring warmth of my husband. He was a disappearing boy once too, I think, surely he knows the tricks. That is something to talk about later, I think, and instead answer the question that he asks. "His name is Pteron," I answer, and beside me the colt raises his blue-green eyes and repeats what he can. It comes out a jumble of noises, one that sounds almost like it should, and Lepis repeats back more slowly: "Terr. On." The topic of conversation nods happily, and then bumps his head against his father's chest. His nickname for me only elicits a playful nudge; there are far worse things to be called. "It means winged," I add, referring to the name that I had pondered over for most of my pregnancy. "I was hoping he'd have wings." I was hoping he'd look like the both of us, I don't add. He does, with his soft dun dorsal stripe and his father's blue markings, but mostly he looks like himself - a soft little cloud. "I love you," I tell him as he begins to tuck himself in at our feet. "I love you, too." I tell his father, releasing a soft sigh that I hadn't meant to hold. With him beside me, some of the weight disappears, the pressing responsibility over my child and myself. It is a sensation that has never lost its novelty, one that I am unable to manufacture even with my magics. I can create new emotions, but I have never been able to erase the negative ones. Only Wolfbane seems able to do that, and I smile to myself as I press my cheek against his for a moment. @[Wolfbane] <3 RE: walk that mile until the end starts; Wolfbane - Wolfbane - 11-26-2018 My dreams have all come true Like all good nightmares do @[Lepis] RE: walk that mile until the end starts; Wolfbane - Lepis - 12-03-2018 The sun rises ever higher in the east, shortening the impossibly long shadows of the distant trees and illuminating the mountains along the horizon. The largest is the mountain, a looming reminder of the changes in our world. The world outside these brilliant pampas spins on, and yet I remain here. A permanent vacation, I have told myself, though from time to time I feel nearly trapped. Never more so than when I pace the border, my homeland a few impossible strides away. It is easy to forget that now, standing in the warm spring sun with my child at my feet and mate at my side. I had not felt my best this pregnancy, nauseous and bloated and surely looking like a hippopotamus, but Wolfbane had not left my side. There were other things he attended to, of course, as a king should, but I had never felt like less of a priority. How he does that I cannot fathom, but I have done my best to show my own devotion. Only once, when I was heaving the contents of my stomach onto a lovely bed of poppies for the third time that morning, had I regretted my choice. Yet now, looking down at the sleeping Pteron and feeling Wolfbane's soft touches against my own, I know it had not been in vane. This is what my mother had wanted for me: a devoted husband and family of my own. This is what I had wanted for me. When he mentions Sylva, I am too content to mind (perhaps later I will think to remind them who is the subkingdom) and then I am distracted entirely by the offer he makes, the question he asks with that familiar smirk. "Of course," I reply with a smile of my own - though softer and more satisfied than his. "Nothing would make me happier." Pteron shifts at our feet, easily dreaming as children do, and a "But..." slips out just before I glance back up at my husband. "You must give me something in exchange." How demanding I must sound, I think to myself, but my blue-grey eyes are narrowed in withheld amusement. I reach out to Bane, pressing my lips against the smooth golden plane of his cheek and feeling the rising heat that never really leaves me in his presence. "I want another one. Another baby. Maybe a girl this time." @[Wolfbane] RE: walk that mile until the end starts; Wolfbane - Wolfbane - 12-10-2018 My dreams have all come true Like all good nightmares do @[Lepis] |