I’ll love you til the sun dies, Ether

[Briseis]

little do you know how I'm breaking while you fall asleep,
little do you know I'm still haunted by the memories,
little do you know I'm trying to pick myself up piece by piece

All the turmoil and pain that has been roiling inside of her ever since that night in the forest finally seems to have dissipated. It is a freeing feeling, to not be so weighed down by such heartache that she hadn’t realized she had been harboring. She doesn’t know if it’s the elation at the birth of her newest child, or if it is the reassuring feeling of Ether’s lips along her damp neck – a reminder that she isn’t alone, and that she isn’t going to have to do any of this alone again. The emotion that wells in her throat at the sight of him touching their son (their son – it still seemed too good to be true, and she would never stop marveling at how an accidental meeting had somehow led them to this) is nearly tangible, and she responds by brushing her muzzle along the slope of his shoulder. Even in a moment like this, she cannot stop touching him, and wants him closer.

The colt looked up at his parents with bleary, newborn eyes, trying to make sense of the two dark faces staring down at him. He recognized the soft, tender touches of his mother, instinctively, but it was the impossibly dark face of his father that he seemed fixated on. He stretches his own small muzzle forward when he reaches down to him, staring at his bright, golden eyes, and blowing a soft breath of air from his little nostrils.

Briseis leans into Ether’s touch, but her eyes remain on the colt, and she lowers her head to press her muzzle into his small side to steady him as he continues his struggle to stand. “Hmm,” She says in response to his name suggestion, tilting her head a little as she observes their son. He is standing now, legs splayed awkwardly, and she runs her muzzle gently across his blue-tinted back, careful to not knock him off balance. “I do like it, but…” She trails off, idly toying with the black curl’s of the colt’s mane. She had, of course, been thinking of names this entire time. She had been in denial much of her pregnancy with both Chryseis and Misfit, but this time, it had been different. Several names had been rolling around her head, but now that he was born, there were only a few that stuck out to her. “Do you like the name Torryn?” Her soft brown eyes lift to meet his golden gaze, and she can feel her heart skip in her chest, the way it always does when she looks at him. It didn’t seem like too long ago that her world had been plunged into darkness, but somehow, and ironically, the shadow-stallion had turned everything around, perhaps without realizing he was doing it.

BRISEIS

underneath it all I'm held captive by the hole inside,
I've been holding back for the fear that you might change your mind

@[Ether]