it erupts like a volcano, then subsides.
And when it subsides, you have to make a decision.
For years – decades – she had steeled herself from love. Had avoided those complicated emotions and inevitable pain it brought. Had distrusted her own instincts when it came to love, for it had led her so easily astray in the past.
But Tiphon had shown her a different sort of love. One that is kind and patient, one she need not fear. He had shown her the true depths of her own emotions, had shown her what her life could truly be, the happiness that could be hers. She would never blame him for leaving. She cannot, for she too is rapidly discovering the pain and wear an immortal life can have on one’s soul. She only cares that he comes back to her, that they will not be parted forever.
One day, she will show him this, help him understand that he needs not feel such guilt.
But today, today is for their children. The young and innocent boy and girl struggling to their feet for the very first time.
She knows the moment he arrives. If possible, her heart swells even further as she turns her warm russet gaze to the white and gold stallion, a soft smile upon her lips. The smile disappears as she takes in the clenched jaw, the faint glimmer of despair in his golden eyes.
”Tiphon?”
His name is spoken softly, questioningly, as she gazes at him with concern in her eyes. He clarifies then, telling her that they take after his father. For a moment, she wonders what his father had done to cause such an awful reaction. But she need only think of her own father to know that there are parents out there very capable of doing unspeakable things to their own blood.
Turning back, she looks at Estela and Jinn, their tiny features so beautifully innocent. The two are very obviously theirs, the unique mixtures of red and white and black and gold telling unquestionably of their parentage. But Estela, with her tiny, curling talons, and Jinn, with his undernourished, decaying appearance – there is so clearly much more to these twins than she knows.
Stepping nearer to Tiphon, she brushes a soft caress across his cheek, hoping to ease some of the tension held there.
”They look like them. Estela and Jinn.”
She is drawn away by Jinn’s struggle to stand, pulled by instinct and love to assist her children. In a few moments, he is swaying on his feet, and in another few, he has stumbled to her side in order to nourish a body that so desperately needs it.
Turning cinnamon eyes back to Tiphon, she looks at him, gaze intensely focused.
”They do not have to be your father, whatever he is, whatever he has done. They can be whomever they choose.”
She does not know his father, does not know what pains he has caused Tiphon. But whatever they may be, she believes wholeheartedly that his sins have not fallen upon her children or their father.
You have to work out whether your roots
have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.