"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 knows this morning will be different when she wakes to sweat damp on her neck and a pain in her belly that is altogether new to her. At first it is just a cringe she presses to the silk of Nightlock’s neck, a kiss that twists until she is groaning so softly into hair the color of storm-clouds. But as time passes and the sun climbs higher in the sky, settling like a ball of spun gold just above the horizon, the pain worsens. Some of the morning is spent hidden in the lee of the volcano, tucked against that antler marking so stark against the silver of Nightlocks chest. Some of it is spent in the cool ocean waves as they lap curiously at the muscles that writhe along her belly. She tells herself that this semi-weightlessness of wading into deep water makes it easier somehow.
It isn’t until a while later that she finally returns to their shallow den half-carved out of the side of the volcano. The dark stone is oddly cool here, and she’s often blamed it on that endless ocean-mist blowing in from the tops of whitecapped waves. But the sand beneath it is warm from the day, bright and pale gold like millions of pieces of the sun chipped away. Between the trees and the fronds and the bent sway of beach grass, this corner of Tephra is as quiet as it always is. Bare and sleepy, peaceful but for the quiet struggle of a chestnut mare and the unease of a silver, dappled stallion.
Her body feels almost unfamiliar now, those coiling, writhing muscles demanding so much from her even when she is already tired and scared. It is the imminence that cracks her, the knowing that this is happening now whether she is ready for it or not - and in those cracks fall seeds of doubt where they take hold and grow like weeds until she’s gasping as much at the fear as she is the pain.
Will she be a good mother? Will it be just like with Choke, watching that sweet, beautiful boy grow older and gentler with the quiet passing of seasons. He is so good and so kind, and she wonders how much of that has to do with anything she did as a mother. If maybe he was just always meant to be good. Will this child be like that? Or children, most likely, if the size of her belly is anything to judge by. But it is too late to wonder, too late to worry, and as the sun climbs higher into the blue of an endless sky, she knows it is time to surrender to the demands of her body.
She breathes hard, groaning and rigid against the contractions that seem to come endlessly now. Her head pulls back, nose outstretched, and those gleaming opal hooves dig long furrows out of the soft sand. She pushes, strains, heaves until at last she is not alone in this churn of sand and soft root, until, after a beat of exhaustion, she is able to pull herself around to meet the child stirring by her heels.
She is so dark and so beautiful, and for an instant Wonder is locked within a moment of resounding awe that they might have made something so perfect. But then instinct spurs her into motion and she moves closer to clean the remnants of birth from that dark, mahogany skin. “She looks like my mother.” She murmurs aloud to Nightlock, glancing up at his face with such deep love in those sea-green eyes. When she looks back at the tiny girl nestled beside her, she cannot help but touch her lips to that small white forehead and wonder if someday antlers will grow there. If bone will try to rupture its way through that perfect skin in much the same way hers had. She hopes not, hopes it so desperately and with such deep guilt.
She cleans her face and her ears, the curve of her neck and those delicate shoulders - laughs aloud so soft and bright like the puddles of yellow sunlight pooling in the sand around them. “You have your daddy’s wings, beautiful.” So small and so perfect, just soft little downy things that do little more than flex above her sides. They remind her of her brother though, and she feels a pang in her chest of missing him deeply. When she can, she will go find him. Introduce him to Choke and to this little one, let him know he is an uncle now. “I can’t call you little one forever, though.” She murmurs softly, smiling as she notices the gleam of opal hooves half-hidden in the soft sand - and it is a wonder all over again that this perfect little child came from them. That all these little bits and pieces are things borrowed from Wonder and Nightlock. Those wings and her hooves, the faint glow of trapped starlight peering out from the white of her still-damp fur.
She is so beautiful and so delicate, not unlike the faded pink flowers that grow all throughout the grass around their quiet little cove. Beach roses, she thinks with a soft smile. Then, with a gentle kind of suddenness, she says it aloud, just a murmur of sound almost indecipherable from a sigh. “Our beautiful little wildflower, our little Rosine.” But her eyes are on Nightlock now, searching that beautiful, stoic face she loves so much for any sign of disagreement or objection.
He has been worried, but he does his best not to show it.
It was easy enough to hide such things from her, since his face was always drawn from stone, and it was not uncommon for him to be silent for stretches at a time. But from the moment he had realized she was pregnant, there had been a lingering unease that grew into tense apprehension. There was a small, secret part of him that was pleased in knowing that the life that grew inside of her was his – theirs. But there was an even larger part of him that could not forget the scene that he had stumbled across when he found Choke. He still remembers the lifeless body of Capture, still remembers the scent of blood, afterbirth, and death. He hadn’t felt guilt back then; he hadn’t known that mare well enough to care. He had hardly cared that it was birthing his own son that had killed her, and he would have been content to leave the boy to the wolves if it weren’t for the fact that Wonder had found him. He learned to tolerate him, but only for her.
Because Wonder, without even trying, had changed so much about him. And he knows, though he tries not to dwell on it, that if he lost her, he would be over with. There would be no coming back, no relearning how to harden all the place she had softened. She had saved and ruined him in so many ways, and he isn’t sure if she even realizes it.
When they awakened that morning, and he feels the dampness of her neck, he is surprised at the nervous knot that coils tightly in his gut. There is nothing he can do for her, no way that he can assure that the outcome of this will not be like what he had witnessed before. He has never voiced his fears to her – of course not, since he hardly ever voiced anything – but instead had kept them silent and dormant, letting them build and brew until he nearly chokes on them. The lines of his face are harder than usual, and there is almost a cold, impersonal shadow to his dark eyes when he watches her labor. He doesn’t want her to see the worst case scenarios that are storming through his mind, and the only way he knows to do that is to shut her out.
But he stays with her, quiet and unflinching whenever she might press into him, sometimes responding with a feather-light touch to her poll, or brushing his muzzle against the wings marked against her chest. He follows her to the waves, a soundless shadow, and when her pain increases, so does the panic he has buried so deep inside.
When they find themselves back in their small den, and she is forced to ground and the sounds of pain coming from her lips finally wear on him, his resolve breaks.
He lowers his head, his lips touching her cheek, and her damp neck as she struggles. His breath is warm when it is expelled across her skin, and the stony lines of his face have softened considerably. He rubs the softness of his muzzle against her neck, trailing up near her ear and murmuring quiet, nearly inaudible things; he tells her, and himself, that she’s going to be okay, and he only hopes he sounds more convincing than he feels. He doesn’t know how long it takes for it to be over, but it feels like an impossible amount of time, and he finds himself regretting that he had ever touched her and put her in this situation.
But she – a small, bay sabino filly – is finally born, and he cannot deny the relief that washes over him. He watches her stir, small and glowing, with opal hooves like her mother, and he doesn’t know how to respond to the clenching in his chest. He touches Wonder first, pressing his lips to the top of her head, and then watches her tend and clean their daughter. There’s a faint, almost crooked smile when she comments on her wings, and that is when he finally reaches to brush his muzzle lightly against the newborn’s muzzle. She had bright turquoise eyes – like the ocean waters he had first seen Wonder in – and he echoes the name suggestion quietly to voice his agreement, “Rosine.”
She has never known a love like the one that floods through her at watching Nightlock press such gentle lips to the soft of their daughters dark and bright face. It is like raw sunshine trapped in her chest and fluttering outwards, filling every vein and groove until she is sure it must be seeping out through the many cracks in her skin. She could watch them forever, she thinks, could live happily within that moment if it repeated for the rest of their lives.
But there is no time for that, no time for holding still, and even as he repeats their daughters name in a way that tells her he approves, she can already feel the tightening of new contractions rippling through her delicate body. In an instant she finds herself faced with two very opposing feelings. A disappointment at not having more time to spend learning the exact shade of Rosine’s eyes, of memorizing her face and her eyes and the way her mane lifts and breaths like soft down in the ocean breeze. Everything seems so perfect, so impossible. Is this how her parents had felt the day she and Brigade were born? Just completely blown away that they could have ever been happy without having their children with them?
At the edge of that, though, is the contrast of eagerness, of a soft excitement that grows in magnitude with each crushing new contraction until she is once more groaning in the sand. The struggle of it is much the same as the first, as Rosine, but there is less fear now remembering the way Nightlock had murmured such quiet affection in the curve of her ear, the way his lips had felt as they soothed softly against her straining neck. And, sometimes, that feels like an impossibility, too. That she could ever inspire a love in someone as great as his.
She groans, low and long, soaked now in sweat and the blood from her armor as the skin tears where it’s been pulled so tight. She hardly notices though, can hardly tell one pain from another as she digs her feet into the sand with a bellowing groan that, at last, rewards her with sudden relief. She is not as quick to turn this time, though it’s not for lack of want as she already starts to imagine what this beautiful face will look like. It’s exhaustion that keeps her pinned and breathing hard, fatigue that makes her movements slow as she hauls herself up to her feet so she can turn to clean this child.
But what she finds freezes her in that way that only the strangest things can. Those frozen moments of uncertainty when her eyes see something her mind can not justify as truth. There, lying quietly in the sand and crushed beach-grass, two pups begin to stir. One is a shade not unlike hers, red-brown with tawny around his eyes and his mouth, eyes a shade of amber that takes her breath away. The second is much darker, with fur like midnight and steel, eyes like borrowed amethysts when they blink and lift to find her face. After a beat of bewildered hesitation, she settles her weary body back down beside the two pups, glancing over to where Nightlock stands with Rosine in an effort to gauge his reaction. But then the pups begin to fuss, soft mewling sounds and little paws that stretch open as they start trying to wriggle around.
She draws them instinctively closer, already wondering a thousand things - the least of which being how? But she was raised with enough wolves to recognize the shape of their newborn - and maybe that she had been raised with them is what helps keep some of the panic at bay. Did she truly just give birth to two wolf pups, or is there something more going on here? Shifters, perhaps. They wouldn’t be the first to be touched by that kind of magic. But as her lips drop to explore those little faces, with ears and limbs too big for such little bodies, she finds the how of it doesn’t really matter.
She cleans them one at a time, marvelling at the coarseness of their mottled coats where Rosine’s had been so silk and sleek. Cleans their faces and their ears, nuzzles the fur around their necks that she knows might one day grow thick and full. Even her own wolf-guardian pads closer out of the shadows, finding a spot nearby where she can sit and look on with an expression of bored disinterest - though the flick of her listening ears tells Wonder otherwise. When they are clean and as dry as she can get them, she pulls them closer with the soft of her nose, breathing in the scent on their fur as it mingles with the smell of warm sunshine.
Three. Three children. A daughter and two sons, each one perfect, if not a little unexpected. The thought makes her smile, makes her laugh softly when she lifts her gaze to find Nightlock again, to take apart the intricate mask she is certain he’s woven carefully into place over his face. But then her attention is back on her boys, first on the red who gleams like there is fire woven into the hair over his body, and then the black one who gleams like amethyst and obsidian night. “Who are you when you’re not so busy hiding.” She muses softly, already settled so easily back into that beautiful ache of meeting her children, of these little pieces of her own heart. She touches the dark one again, and she is reminded of the strong beauty of the volcanic mountain at their backs, of the quiet strength of the rock that protects the molten fire within. She thinks of his sister, the beautiful wild rose she is, that delicate little face blinking back at Wonder from beside her fathers legs. It seems an obvious choice. “You will be Thorn.” She whispers softly into the fur behind his ear, exhaling warmth over his skin. For what rose can survive without its thorns to keep it safe. “So strong, a protector.” And it doesn’t matter that all he’ll understand is the hum of her voice through the lips pressed to his fur, that the words will mean nothing important to him yet.
Her eyes lift again, finding Nightlock and beckoning him closer as her lips turn next to that deep copper boy nestled in beside his brother. “Will you name him?” The question is so soft and so gentle, allowing him the freedom to say no to something that feels so desperately vulnerable in some strange way she cannot name.
He is only mildly surprised when she is again overcome with pain, but it does nothing to abate the fear that rises like bile in his throat. Something about the pregnancy had seemed amiss, and it would only make sense that there were twins. But the sound and sight of her struggling, again, was enough to make his blood run cold, and to again bring forth the imagery of Choke’s mother lifeless on the ground, and him, still damp from birth.
With the now standing newborn filly still tucked into his chest — her small head nestled against the antler marking — he reaches down to again lend his touch against Wonder’s cheek. Even though his heart is a thunderous sound against his ribcage, he doesn’t want her to sense the fear and worry that digs its claws so tightly in his chest. His lips trail again against her neck, now slick with sweat, and he clenches his jaw tightly at the groans of effort and pain. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, the sound low and grating but somehow gentle even when lost in the tangles of her mane. Sorry she’s in pain, sorry it was partially his fault, and sorry that there was nothing he could do to help her.
His worry is not sated when there is at last relief. The damp bundle that wriggles in the sand is clearly not like Rosine, and he notices that almost immediately. He can see the confusion on Wonder’s face, and that causes him to tear his gaze away from her tired face to look at the small, wet bundle behind her.
And even for one so stoic and inexpressive as himself, there is no denying the confusion that clouds his face at the sight of not one, but two wolf pups. “How….” he begins, but it dies quickly on his tongue. He cannot even form a coherent question to ask her how this was even possible. He is so enraptured and lost in the way his mind is trying to reason with reality that he doesn’t notice Wonder’s wolf guardian has crept closer. Not that it made a difference — she didn’t have the answers, either, but perhaps he would have been able to piece together the way the wolves were so intricately woven into her blood.
He is still frozen where he stands, with Rosine nosing against his side, and when Wonder begins to tend to the two newborns the same way he had their first daughter he forces a neutral expression to his face. He doesn’t immediately reach for them the way he had the firstborn, but when Wonder looks and urges him closer, he reluctantly obeys.
His nose brushes lightly against the first one that she names — Thorn. He smells like Wonder, and so even though every instinct screams at him that something isn’t right, and even though his mind cannot conjure a logical conclusion to why this happened, he decides to accept it. His muzzle brushes again against the still damp fur of Thorn, a little less hesitantly than before, and then lingers across the copper face of his brother.
When she asks that he name him, he can do nothing but blink. He hadn’t expected to have to name anything, and she was clearly much better at this than he was. He nuzzles absentmindedly at the scruff of fur at his neck, quiet in thought for a long moment. “Tamlin,” he finally says, his dark eyes finding the sea-green of Wonder’s to see if she approves, but also with a look of almost bewilderment that they somehow had three children.
She is so quiet while she watches those emotions slip past beneath the cracks of the mask on his stormy face, flashing like the edges of a blue sky through passing clouds. And when he moves close enough to brush his nose warily against the marbled black fur of Thorn, she is almost amused, feeling a soft smile tugging at the corners of exhausted lips. “He probably won’t bite,” she tells him, a murmur full of affectionate laughter soft as trapped sunshine as she reaches out to press a kiss to Nightlock’s steely face, “at least not until he’s a little bigger.”
But then she is distracted again, lost to a swell of happiness that pushes aside the exhaustion in her chest as she watches him meet each of their beautiful sons. He must feel so confused, so bewildered, might even have doubts as he looks down at their little wolfish faces. He hadn’t been raised among wolves as she had, after all, and as surprising as it was for her to see puppies instead of foals, her knowledge of her family makes it something she can accept. But he touches them both so gently, buries his nose in their little necks as if committing their individual scents to his memory - and, after a long moment, he even picks a name. Claims him as theirs. “Tamlin is a beautiful name.” She tells him, watching him with such open love etched like pale sunshine across her red and bone face.
He accepts this strange reality out of love for her, she thinks.
And she wonders how she could have ever earned something so beautiful.
She pushes her face close to his, overwhelmed for a moment by the feelings of love that flood through her so raw and so wild. “I love you, Nightlock.” She tells him, reminds him, presses her lips to the soft corner of his mouth to breathe him in with those sea-green eyes shut tight. “Our family is beautiful.”
She would later wonder why there had been such a quiet gap between the third and fourth, wonder if perhaps it had just been easier to deliver the puppies because they were so much smaller than a foal. But as she moves to draw her family close to her, to allow the puppies to nurse while she lay quiet on her side, she is struck once more by that familiar spasming pain rippling from her stomach outwards. She flinches and groans, so careful not to harm the puppies curled up beside her.
Time loses all shape, turning fluid and slippery as the contractions grow closer and closer and she returns once more to the captivity of a body locked within the ruts of birth. She is so exhausted, straining weak and desperate as she struggles to obey the demands of the muscles tightening within her gut. This is, by far, the most difficult birth of the four. But she gives everything left in her, fighting and straining and pushing until at last she finds peace in the quiet of a body finished struggling.
But she can only lay quiet for a few moments, ribcage heaving and eyes closed as the sun and breeze start to dry the slick of blood and sweat from the copper of her skin. She is so tired, more tired than she has ever been in her life, and thoughts of sleep swirl around in her head in the shape of quiet salvation.
But she can’t sleep, not yet. Not for a while.
She heaves herself upright with a soft groan, maneuvering so that she is close enough to reach their newest child, so that though she still lays in the sand and soft, crushed grass, she can hold her girl between her forelegs and groom the birth from her skin. The feeling is quieter when it floods her with warmth, that wild glow of love as she washes clean her nose and her face, those little ears that droop and swivel, but it is no less brilliant. It seems impossible that there could be four of them - impossible that they hadn’t even known it. But as she pauses to look down at that beautiful copper face, she feels like she must have known, must have known in that instinctive way mothers claim to, because she is already so, so in love.
This one is chestnut like her mother, dark hair, dark face but for the spot of soft white on her nose. She has that same quiet glow that Rosine has in the places where her skin is white, but this light seems to emanate from everywhere in the same way Wonders does. It is a detail she loves, a likeness between them that flushes her with warmth. She is relieved by the marked lack of bone and antler, by the absence of unevenness beneath her perfect skin, but she also knows that these things come later. That even though she doesn’t have them now, it doesn’t mean she is safe from it. It is hard to consider, hard to imagine that this tiny little angel could ever experience a pain Wonder could not protect her from. It makes something dark and cold coil in the pit of her belly and she pulls her in closer, presses a kiss to the curve of her shoulder. “We’ll keep you safe, little one.”
Then, “four.” She says the word softly, glancing up at Nightlock with wonder in those bright-ocean eyes. “Can you believe it?” There’s a pang, a fear that claws inside her chest as she worries that there might be more, that she won’t have the energy to deliver another. It flashes across her expression, sharp and jagged in the lines of a face usually so soft. But then Nightlock is there, placing the puppies beside her belly so they can nurse while she rests, and there some semblance of peace she finds in his closeness. She settles again, though that quiet fear still crawls beneath her skin searching for another way to get out and assert itself. “How do you feel?” She asks, and though her attention is back on their daughter, grooming her mane and her wings, smoothing the feathers so they dry in soft, straight lines, the question is for Nightlock.
She wonders if he had ever even once guessed that this would be the shape his future took - wonders, too, if he is as overwhelmed by it as she is. It is a big feeling, but it is not a bad one. Breathless and exhilarating, beautiful and terrifying. “I wonder what Choke will think.” She says with a smile that is soft at the edges, with eyes that crease with the weight of satisfied exhaustion.
07-27-2019, 10:16 AM (This post was last modified: 07-27-2019, 10:18 AM by Nightlock.)
— I'll break you a hundred different ways —
He cannot even begin to comprehend how she is handling this so well, because though he remains stalwart and almost apathetic on the outside, he is complete disarray on the inside. He was already a poor father. He had a first child that he has never met, and never cared to try and meet; he cannot even remember who the mother was. And Choke...he didn’t know how to be a father to him, to a boy that he has never even admitted out loud that he was truly his. He played the role of adoptive father, rather unsuccessfully, but never could bring himself to tell Wonder the entire story.
He had failed to be a father, twice, and now suddenly he had three children with someone who was irreplaceable, and he couldn’t shake the fear that he would let her down.
She presses a kiss to the side of his mouth, and reflexively he leans closer, curling his neck to draw her to his chest, always careful of her antlers. “I love you, too,” the words are spoken so low, almost on a breath, etching them across the ivory of her bones and into the red and wounded skin. He wants to tell her that everything beautiful about them is because of her. The way Rosine glowed and the opal of her hooves, the warmth of Tamlin’s eyes, and the strength of Thorn’s heart – those were all her. He had nothing to lend any of them, at least, nothing good. In the warmth of the sun he almost forgets his own curse, but that too is a fear gnawing at his subconscious, afraid that come nightfall, they would be like him.
He doesn’t get the chance to voice any of that out loud – if he even would have to begin with. When she is again overcome by the throes of labor, he knows that his heart stops, and when it finally jump-starts again, it is at a reckless pace.
“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, mostly to himself, as he clenches his jaw tightly to keep from losing his mind. Four. That wasn’t even possible. Wolf pups weren’t possible. He isn’t sure if this is some sick, twisted way that the universe is trying to remind him that he is unworthy of her, her love, and anything in this world that might be good, but he wishes now, more than anything, that he had stayed away from Tephra. “Wonder,” he murmurs her name into that soft spot behind her ear, almost forgetting the other three children because all he can focus on is her. He can see that she is exhausted, that this birth is harder than the rest, and again there is nothing he can do for her.
The filly finally comes, but he cannot breathe a sigh of relief yet, because he can see the fatigue so plainly on Wonder’s face and in her beautiful eyes. He watches her with his chest tight and his throat closed, watches her clean the bright copper face of their daughter, and he doesn’t know how to pull up anymore threads of happiness because he doesn’t fully believe that she is going to be okay. He can see that the little girl is beautiful, with a faint glowing to her skin and the small wings folded at her sides, just like her sister. Just like him. Wonder’s voice is the only thing that stirs him out of his frozen, anxiety-driven reverie, when she asks if he can believe it, and all he can say is, “No. No, I can’t.”
What the fuck is what he wants to say, but he doesn’t.
He moves closer, eventually, reaching to touch his lips to the newborn filly’s forehead, and to lip softly at the short, wavy locks of her mane. Wonder had not named her yet, and even though she hadn’t verbally asked him to, he says quietly, “Bea.”
Rosine, Thorn, Tamlin, and Bea.
Four.
She asks him how he feels, and there is a rare, but short burst of a sound that is similar to a laugh. With the pups curled into her side, and the two fillies huddled close, too, he moves back to Wonder’s face, reaching down to trace the armor of bone at her forehead, and along the torn edges of skin until his lips caress the curve of her cheek and the groove of her throat. “The better question is, how do you feel?” How did I not lose you, is what he’s thinking, but cannot bring himself to say. Cannot bring himself to accept that that was a very real possible outcome to this scenario.
Choke. He had more or less forgotten about him, other than being repeatedly reminded of how his birth had caused the death of his own mother. With his lips still idly tracing up and down the crest of Wonder’s neck, he finally answers her question with crooked smile against her mane. “He will probably be as shocked as us.”
Life is already pretty strange, and little does the ginger pup know that it is only going to get even stranger.
One day he won’t remember this, will only know because of the stories he’ll likely hear that he and his brother were born as wolves while his sisters were show-offs that had to come out of the womb as the right species.
For now, though this is now his world, the young pup doesn’t comprehend anything that is happening. He’s cleaned, and he feels safe – the gentle touch and presence of mom and the near-constant presence of brother beside him. His eyes are small but wide, moving around to take everything in, though there’s no attention-span to speak of at the moment. So he sleepily watches the ones he’ll come to know as mother and brother until something new enters his vision, until he feels the soft touch of someone else against his fir.
He looks up at the creature who had nuzzled him, instinct telling him that this was dad. Bright, honey-brown eyes blink slowly and the wolf pup’s mouth opens, and a long tongue lolls out of it’s own accord. He’s dazzled by this behemoth of a grey creature, by the sound of that voice. A small, bright yip escapes the puppy – he wants to make some noises too! Even though none of what is being said at that moment makes any sense to him.
Tamlin’s world is soft and safe and though he shifts indignantly when his mom moves, when she starts to bring another sibling into the world, he does not think anything of it. His belly is full and he’s content, so while his parents focus on that – he focuses on trying to bite lightly at his brother’s ear and his sister’s tail, if only because they are close by and he’s curious, all while making soft yipping noises because - damn it - he wants to be in on the conversation too.
Later, once that final sibling has arrived, Tamlin’s ears twitch with the voices of his parents again and one word stands out to him. He gathers his fuzzy legs beneath him and wobbles away a few cautious steps from the comfortable spot he had been in. This time, when he joins in with a short series of high-pitched barks, it sounds an awful lot like “Bea! Bea! Bea!”
Over the course of the last several years, Tephra had unwittingly become her home. It was the birthplace now to more of her children than the Valley and Dale combined, and while the volcanic kingdom does not sing to her soul quite in the same way as the others did, there was still something reassuring in knowing she had somewhere to call her own. She didn’t always stay; the quiet wild of her veins drew her away, but come spring, she could almost always be found back here.
Alleria, like her sisters before her, had been born in the sands of Tephra’s beach, beneath a velvet sky full of stars and to the lullaby of waves rolling onto the shore. Lifetimes ago, before she had come here, and even before she had met Dhumin, the beach had been her home. The shore, even more than the Valley, had woven its way into her heart, into her blood – and here in Beqanna, the beaches are where she has died and been revived on more than one occasion.
Maybe then it is no wonder that she gave birth to a selkie daughter. Maybe then, in ways that could only make sense in a land such as this, it would seem fitting that Carnage’s magic would interlace with her past and forge something so extraordinary as Alleria.
She doesn’t have a logical answer, and she doesn’t search for one. She just knows Alleria is flawless, in a way that only she could be.
Today, with the afternoon sun low in the sky, she leads her youngest up the coastline. She had promised to bring her to meet Nightlock and Wonder’s newborn children – four of them, which was incredible, even to her – and as children were prone to doing, she wasn’t letting her forget. They walk, the unnaturally white mare and the still-black filly (and she wonders if she will soon turn that same storm-gray as her father, and her brother), and while Ryatah does not insist she cling to her side, she is leery of letting her wander too far.
“Alleria,” she says softly, the sea breeze carrying the quiet of her voice as she turns off the beach and towards the alcove that Nightlock and Wonder had tucked their new family away in, beckoning the filly to follow with a tilt of her head. She brushes her muzzle along the length of her back once she is close enough, and lips playfully at the silky curls of her mane as she murmurs sweetly against her skin, “They’re going to be so excited to meet you.” There is an almost secretive excitement to her smile, glancing down knowingly at her daughter, just as they come upon the small gathering.
Ryatah goes to Nightlock first, and for a moment the sight of him causes a strange hitch in her throat, as it always does. At a glance – that first one, when your mind tries to show you the image of what you think you’re seeing, before your eyes register what you’re really seeing – he looks like his father, with the stormcloud gray of his skin and the shape and angle of his face. Their eyes are different, though – his are dark, like hers, and of course he had a sincere kindness buried away that Carnage lacked. She swallows away that strange feeling to press her lips to her son’s cheek, followed by an amused smile at the way he tries to stiffen himself and only half-heartedly touch her back.
She moves onto Wonder, and without hesitation she touches her lips to the young girl’s brow, against the armor of bone, and then lower to let her muzzle touch hers. “They’re beautiful, Wonder,” and she turns to take in the four newborns – two wolf pups, and two fillies. Maybe she should have been more intrigued by this scenario, but several lifetimes of seeing things far stranger has dulled her senses to what others might deem bizarre. But she looks back to the young mother, and there is worry evident in her eyes as she searches the other girl’s face and asks gently, “Are you feeling alright? You must be exhausted.”
Ryatah
even angels have their wicked schemes
okay this post got away from me so I literally just ended it. tldr grandma Ryatah is bringing auntie Alleria to play with the puppylocks.
I know Leah and Phae still haven't posted their babies so I suppose just pretend Ryatah & Alleria show up later. I am very pro fluid timelines so hopefully I didn't annoy anyone with this.
08-04-2019, 11:20 PM (This post was last modified: 08-04-2019, 11:20 PM by thorn.)
He is born as his mother breathes his name into the world: a thorn. Not a sharp, green prick longing to draw one’s blood, but a hidden weapon meant to keep what is beautiful just that: beautiful.
Wonder’s magic turns him into a creature he is not meant to be. A puppy, mewling in a way that reveals his sharp wolf’s teeth, curls against the sweat-soaked side of his mother. She is kind and attentive, cleaning Thorn with no fear of his predator’s form. He leans into her touch and quiets, eerily silent for a newborn. Here, tucked between his mother and his brother, he knows he belongs. An immediate sense of safety warms his stomach and blooms in his mind: a sweet boy, a sleepy one, is sprouting.
Father, Thorn thinks - or at least he would, if he could understand the sensation Nightlock’s touch creates in his chest. The little black and white pup yips then meets his dad’s touch with a baby’s clumsiness. Once the man’s muzzle moves to Tamlin, the marbled puppy returns to nuzzling into his mother’s stomach. There is beauty there, in the damp press of his mother’s belly and the drying fur of the newborn brothers. They are fierce and raw in their birth, shaped by their parents’ magic and mirroring the wild animal draw of their mother’s power.
They are a promise and a prophecy: new life, the most incredible of Beqanna’s wizardry.
Tamlin is rougher than Thorn. The black and white pup stirs irritably at his brother’s nibbly, tiredly stretching his stubby legs to push the mewling boy away. A tiny growl and mini yip follow that relaxed stretch of his body - purple eyes flutter open to peer at Tamlin through a blurry gaze. “Bea!” he barks back at him, then rolls over and immediately nuzzles into another sleep.
@[Tamlin] @[wonder] @[Nightlock] @[Leah] you're the only one left meredith *gun emoji*
Some of the others try to hobble to their feet, but Bea, as the youngest, remains for a few extra moments. She finds comfort in the feeling of the soft grass beneath her feet, her body pressed against her mother’s, her father’s lips on her forehead. Bea looks up at her mother — she has no concept of her strangeness: the exposed bone, the dried blood. She only sees Wonder’s beauty; her warmth. She whinnies at her mother happily, though it comes out more like a screech.
The boys bark away, Tamlin happy and excitable, Thorn sleepy next to her. Bea turns her head to Thorn, screeching into his ear. She finds herself jealous of the yipping and barking and lets out the fiercest baby growl she can manage, then scrunches her muzzle, unsatisfied.
Bea tries to throw herself away from her mother’s side and succeeds in rolling away, red and white legs flailing. She looks over to her sister, then her two brothers, and stretches her legs out, launching herself up before standing on them, wobbly. Her body shakes with excitement before a powerful sneeze catches her off guard and she topples over.
When she sits back up, a wolf puppy head has replaced her own, normal, foal-head. “Yip yip,” she starts, and then, when she realizes she sounds like her brothers, “YIP YIP YIP!”
She rolls back to her mother’s side, deciding that rolling was an easier method of travel than getting up and walking, and beams up at her parents, awfully proud of herself.
bea