Kaite
my nerves are turned on. I hear them like musical instruments.
where there was silence the drums, the strings are incurably playing.
where there was silence the drums, the strings are incurably playing.
When she had run, she had seen both of their lands. The place the mare had hailed from had been beautiful, but foreign. The place the stallion was from had been in shambles – but underneath the fire damage, it had reminded Kaite of home. Currently it was a land in chaos, but when it healed, would it be the Tundra come again? She very much wants that sign of familiarity in this world that is so different from the one she had died in. Perhaps the logical choice would have been to follow the mare to the land by the sea, but the very pregnant mare had followed her heart instead to the island in the very north.
The swim in the freezing water saps most of her energy – not only is the water immensely cold and wild this time of year, spring barely touching the world this far north, but every time it closes momentarily over her head, Kaite remembers the feel of the sea monster dragging her down in the depths of his more tropical waters. But she is not a child of the Brotherhood for nothing, and the dark little mare drags herself onto the sooty shores out of breath and exhausted, but alive.
Kaite plans to take a rest, perhaps wait for someone to stumble upon her, but the first pangs of labor tell her that her body has other ideas. Huffing, annoyed, she sets off herself to look for a slightly more sheltered place. There are few trees left standing tall, but she finds an area of especially deep grass near a curious pond, and waits. She has borne a child before, after all, and knows how this goes. Still, birthing two children together is a new sort of hell, and one she resolves not to experience after today.
Still, there is a certain relief to having the twins outside of her body and not inside, though she is triply exhausted now as she rolls sternally and regards the twins, who are dark and nestled together as if two halves of a whole. The filly is darker, white tracing only up her legs and over one hip, while the gold of drips down her withers. The colt is slightly more burnt copper, with lots of white, each spot edged in gold. She is very glad that the gold is the only thing they seem to have gotten from their sire. Helaena she thinks while she touches the girl, who lifts her head and gives it a little tilt, as if she has read it from her mother’s thoughts; in the same instant she can hear that that is the truth. Ikarus she silently names the colt, who shows no such talent; but when she reaches down he swivels around to bump his nose against hers, and Kaite can hear in his scattered baby thoughts that he had known she would touch him then.
“Hello my darlings,” she says aloud with a warm smile. “It is so nice to finally meet you.”
The swim in the freezing water saps most of her energy – not only is the water immensely cold and wild this time of year, spring barely touching the world this far north, but every time it closes momentarily over her head, Kaite remembers the feel of the sea monster dragging her down in the depths of his more tropical waters. But she is not a child of the Brotherhood for nothing, and the dark little mare drags herself onto the sooty shores out of breath and exhausted, but alive.
Kaite plans to take a rest, perhaps wait for someone to stumble upon her, but the first pangs of labor tell her that her body has other ideas. Huffing, annoyed, she sets off herself to look for a slightly more sheltered place. There are few trees left standing tall, but she finds an area of especially deep grass near a curious pond, and waits. She has borne a child before, after all, and knows how this goes. Still, birthing two children together is a new sort of hell, and one she resolves not to experience after today.
Still, there is a certain relief to having the twins outside of her body and not inside, though she is triply exhausted now as she rolls sternally and regards the twins, who are dark and nestled together as if two halves of a whole. The filly is darker, white tracing only up her legs and over one hip, while the gold of drips down her withers. The colt is slightly more burnt copper, with lots of white, each spot edged in gold. She is very glad that the gold is the only thing they seem to have gotten from their sire. Helaena she thinks while she touches the girl, who lifts her head and gives it a little tilt, as if she has read it from her mother’s thoughts; in the same instant she can hear that that is the truth. Ikarus she silently names the colt, who shows no such talent; but when she reaches down he swivels around to bump his nose against hers, and Kaite can hear in his scattered baby thoughts that he had known she would touch him then.
“Hello my darlings,” she says aloud with a warm smile. “It is so nice to finally meet you.”
darling, the composer has stepped into fire.
