"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
She had laid a single egg this autumn. It was her first in several years and she remains coiled around it protectively, row upon row of shimmering coils bundled around her treasure. A forked tongue flicks from her mouth and tastes the air every few seconds as she patiently waits, listens to the subtle heartbeat of her child through the off-white shell. The steady rhythm is a promise of its health and she feels driven to monitor its growth carefully.
Khuma had searched for days for the perfect place to build her nest. Nerine was cold but the caves remained the same temperature year round, she discovered. She examined each one at different hours of the day and made note of which was most stable. Then she dug out the sand and dirt until it was big enough to cradle her child perfectly in the dark depths. Birthing her egg had been something to behold, though. She was lost somewhere between equine and viper while she twisted and snarled.
But it had been worth it.
She remains in her serpent form now to conserve her energy. Her cold-blooded body is content from the time she spent gorging herself on anything and everything she could catch between her awful jaws. (There are still lumps in the length of her body that mark each meal.)
As she listens and waits, she thinks. Khuma wonders if she will remain in Nerine with her new son or daughter, with Wane and whatever future with him may hold. She searches the depths of her desires and surfaces empty-handed. No, she will be too busy sculpting this child and raising it to be something she can be proud of. There will be no more time to string him along.
Her tongue flicks out once more and tastes the salt of the air. The steady thump.. thumpthump.. of the egg’s heart continues against her ear.
When they left the meadow Wane had harboured a nagging instinct that they weren’t walking into sunsets together, that all that awaited them there on the horizon was an inevitable disaster. He had taken her home anyways, begrudgingly, lulled into a false sense of obedience by the gentle swing of her hips. The autumn wind had whispered promises against his ears, and though it had delivered, Wane was learning that those promises also came with burgeoning consequences.
At least the view, as he had hoped in the meadow, had been nice.
Because that’s where it had stopped being so pleasant.
Things had unravelled quickly once they’d stepped into Nerine. If he had been asked what he’d pictured, he would not have answered in the way that reality was quickly unfolding. While Wane had anticipated some general discomfort at living with Khuma he had not anticipated the magnitude of it; that here, in a land full of women, he had found himself with a rather venomous ball and chain - because Khuma, all raspy voices and cat-eyes at first chose to live as a snake more often than not (something he had not foreseen and did not entirely care for, either).
He didn’t get to admire the bend of her hips, or lip at the soft patch behind her ears. Cities were not being built upon their backs, and he didn’t get to admire her for the prize that she had been then, with the rain matting her hair down against her neck and her skin slick with water.
But he remembered the expectation in her eyes then, and without another option he’d only watched, mouth agape, as Khuma, heavily pregnant in what felt like only days, busied herself in each of the various caves along the granite cliff face scrutinizing what must have been a hundred before she found one suitable to her standards. The egg that followed afterwards was unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome given that Wane was just egotistical enough to find some thrill in the idea of the creation of another being that might resemble him. He had decided then, after a rather large sigh of defeat, that he would commit himself to ‘keeping her forever’.
Full of discarded bones, shells, and various assortments of other trinkets, the cave had begun to resemble more of a shrine, their egg carefully centred amidst the clutter. Wane is lingering now, awkwardly, at the cave’s entrance deciding if he is willing to risk making his appearance known. He had learned, and quickly, that if Khuma were in a particularly foul mood she was not above striking out at him. A compliment could sometimes sway her, and so he takes a hesitant step forwards and opens his mouth.
“You look…” he had intended to pay her a compliment, but his eyes fall prey to the bulges of her latest meals protruding here and there from her long, serpants body and he loses concentration immediately.
She had combed the beach for hours when she became restless with her nesting efforts. She plucked only whole shells and the cleanest pearls from the sand with her teeth and arranged them like a shrine around her den. When the sunlight catches the opening of the cave just right, the whole room glitters and shimmers in the reflection of her collection. Her child’s first moments must be perfect and worthy of a gift such as him. That’s why she changes her scales every hour to find which one suits the room best. Piebald? Opalescent? Rainbow boa? Perhaps albino, then. Khuma practices the thorned scaling of every viper as well as the pebbled texture of each python.
Her tongue flicks out, tastes the air.
Some internal clock ticks and her scales shift to snow white with the faintest traces of some indiscernible pattern across her body. When she dreams, it is of her egg hatching the first words he will speak from his perfect mouth. She kisses the slick membrane from his face and watches his first steps. Then, they venture out into the world and everyone is in awe of how handsome and how blessed he is. The memories of her dreams make her gently nuzzle her smooth cheek against the shell of the egg as the rhythm of his heart continues to play in her egg.
Her tongue flicks out, and this time it tastes Wane nearby.
Her eyes harden and she lifts her great head when he approaches her. An airy hiss leaves her mouth as she bares her fangs warningly. But his failed compliment amuses her, soothes the instinct that commands her to punish him for intruding on her bonding time. The endless rows of her coiled length slip away from the egg as she slithers closer to him. Along the way, her spine shortens and limbs pull themselves free from her belly. Her body widens until she is an overo mare once more, standing between him and their precious egg. She trusts him only to an extent.
“The fish here aren’t quite used to being hunted by a serpent,” she purrs, bumping her nose to his chin teasingly. “I’ll let you listen to its heart if you play nice.”
She gestures to their child and smiles a bit. The expression is genuinely warm this time, eager to show off her body’s hard work. Khuma thinks the foal may even begin kicking against the shell soon as it begins to prepare its muscles for its escape.
“I’m still trying to decide on a name, though. Maybe you can help with that.”
With an airy hiss and the blatant flash of her fangs, he watches her rise from her coil and slither forward. There is an elegance to her, even this way, that he cannot deny and the change as she shifts is as fluid as to be expected — even still, it is something that he doesn’t anticipate ever quite getting used to. The way her body warps and bends is jarring, and it leaves his mind reeling in comparisons. The one that most often comes to light is in the shape of a dead bird he had come across once, with Wax. It’s feathers were barely attached, and they had known it was dead from a fall instantly simply from the angles of it’s extremities.
He winces at the imagery, though he is relieved to see she isn’t feeling particularly hostile today.
“The fish here aren’t quite used to being hunted by a serpent,” she says, and it is kindly enough. Wane nods along in agreement as he is used to doing where Khuma is concerned. If he were to speak candidly he might admit that he is about as used to a serpent being around as the fish are.
They had been different people in the rain; locked in an infinite baptism that had stripped them bare and washed away (before they could grow roots) the sins that make them violent now. Sometimes, he wishes he could go back to that day in the meadow. Sometimes, he wishes that he had never gone at all.
But then she bumps her nose against his chin and he remembers just how many fires she lit along the vertebrae of his spine with only her touch to start them. Then, she smiles, and even though it isn’t directed at him he remembers how she can light even the darkest corners of this cave if she only wants to.
Those parts are of her are still real, even if sometimes he has to remind himself.
“I’m still trying to decide on a name, though. Maybe you can help with that.”
The sound of her voice pulls him back from the meadow. For a moment longer he is quietly contemplative, tracing the gentle arc of their egg in its nest. “Wax,” he says decidedly then, thinking of his sister in the waves — how she could sometimes look like the sun settling down into the horizon when the light hit her just so.
“After my sister, if it’s a girl.”
He should stop there, let the silence fall between their bodies as each of them wonders what the little being encased inside that shell will be — but that wouldn’t be Wane, would it? He eyes the egg then with a growing curiosity and healthy skepticism. It isn’t the first time that he’s wondered at it’s contents. He should bite his tongue, but instead he says:
“To that note, what exactly is it? Or what will it be? Is it a horse, because I don’t know how it can possibly fit if it is — and if it isn’t, do we have to feed it fish?”
