It is the nature of dreams to end // Raul

[Warlight]

They both wait, an awkwardness she has never felt with him creeping into the air around them. There is a knot in her gut, hard and indigestible. The muscles along her topline stiffen as if she were preparing for battle.

But she doesn't want to fight him. For once in her life, she wants to figure out what's going on the hard way - diplomatically - she owes that to him.

He had kept quiet, bit his tongue during her days of sickness, but now she wanted to get to the root of it. Whatever it was. She had felt it growing, unspoken and danced around, and she didn't like to fight enemies in the dark. Her mind wanders in the silence, and his snort startles her, disrupting her staredown with the low-hanging moon.

"Did you succeed?"

She nods at the words that follow, farm more interested in the ones left unsaid. She finally turns to her mate, deciding to tell him even if she hadn't found the perfect way to say it.

"I had to pay more than was asked," she begins, hoping maybe somehow she can make him understand before the truth comes out. "It's good to feel like a living creature again," she falters, hiding behind a morbid quip as her courage fails her. It was something she knew better than most, but nothing more than a distraction.

She curses herself as she looks back to the silver-moon. He would find out sooner or later. She couldn't hide an entire pregnancy.