03-26-2017, 01:27 PM
once upon a time;
She loves them.
She protects them fiercely, wrapping her spitting, hissing wings around her swollen body and taking to an oddly carved cave at Pangea’s outskirts. She paces that curved, twisty, dark hideaway like a mother wolf, flapping those great flames at anyone and anything that comes too near her hollow.
She presses her nose against the round of her belly, breathing into them, feeling them rustle and move under her skin—and she knows it is them! She can feel it, pressing full and firm in her stomach, that there is more than just one heart beginning its frenzied, ready beating. There is one for each of them to hold at night when they do not hold each other.
***
She feels the agony of labor wash over her, hard and cruel. Everything about this travailing had been done in the name of love. This is no different, though when the time comes, her mind grows fuzzy with pain and she thrashes, her wings licking the sand and filling their den with a burnt smell. Then she settles on her side for the parturition—digging furrows in the sand with her restless body. The cave grows cold and dark as the sun dips below the scarp, but her wings light the quiet room and provide heat.
(She loves her.)
The girl comes first, plopping out with a heavy grunt, onto the sand. There is immense pressure released and for a few, precious moments, she spends time alone with her, releasing her nostrils from their sac and licking the slime from her coat. “Ohhh,” she breathes softly into her forehead, never letter her lips leave the damp skin; an astral cloak unfurls across her bird-delicate body. “Look at you, Gleam. Your daddy can teach you the names of all those constellations, one day.” She is just like him and it is anguish to let her go when the contractions come like the clouds of a storm.
(She loves him.)
Alight presses her head into the sand, bearing down on the earth below her. She can hear the soft sounds of Gleam moving behind her, shaking in the darkness. Woosh. They come again, reminding her of Tephra’s shores and the waves that lap the sand up like dessert. ‘Ooff,’ she grunts, her eyes closing tight. Woosh. The ache draws her free wing in a wide, errant arch down across to clutch her belly, wafting heated air into the cave. ‘Ahhh…’ she knows this pain. Caustic and unbearable, her body does not relent to it like it had before the flowered mare had saved her, but the tissue that burns and dies must do so before it is replaced with another sacrifice. Over and over, she moans in torment as his head and feet are thrust free, and she panics, twisting to look over her shoulder at Gleam—“careful,” she just barely months, before her eyes lose their focus and she droops back down, his smoldering wings slipping free from her, loose of their singed sac.
***
She lays with them, careful not to touch Gleam with her wings and careful to keep Gloam’s contained, too. “My beautiful loves. You must hurry.” She stands, and this prompts them to try, too, searching for their mother’s milk as she delivers the placenta onto the dusty ground, an offering this ugly hell does not deserve. She lets them nurse, admiring the twinkle of her and the conflagration of him.
They are little mimics, in opposite, so perfect and tiny.
“Come. We’ll go see daddy, now.”
***
She does not notice their struggle, though she keeps them close to her, wings draped over their heads in mean defensiveness. “Just a little farther, now, my dears,” she coos at them. The walk from Pangea to Tephra is a long one—walk and swim—and she does so lathered with sweat and sore in the groin.
(All of this is for them So they can be together.)
She sets her teeth and drags on, deaf to the complaints of her babies, marching along on either side of her. (Gloam huffs and groans, staggering now and then over uneven ground, catching himself on his mother’s side with his bright, burning wing. Every few steps he peeks under her belly at his sister, sighing in her direction.)
The swim across the strait is hard.
Alight lingers on the shore for a while, pacing and considering the consequences of failure. But they are so close, and perhaps these babies are like her and mother, and cannot be choked out by the water. She considers Gleam, her perfect skin and knows she could test the durability of it—her wings snap and spit sparks, their cruelty stills her. It is a chance she is unwilling to take. Alight clings to these maybes, anyway, and to the draw that keeps her pining for the volcanic island, late night making the water dark and daunting. “Come on, then. It’ll be fun. You’ll have to get used to it eventually.” She tries to hide the shake in her voice, flanking them to nudge their bums with her nose, guiding them into the cold water.
***
She sees them across safe enough, hurrying them from the water and checking the nooks and crannies of their little bodies. “Not so bad right?” (Gloam coughs and grumbles, standing still for his inspection, his eyelids blinking sleepily.) She smiles and comforts them both, then turns to look across the beach and into the thick nest of vegetation at the foot of the volcano, Gloam to her left and Gleam to her right.
The waves come and go, softly as they wait, the mare intimately aware of the nocturnal way he wanders.
“GIVER!” she calls, finally, a demanding bellow that echoes rudely across the slumberous kingdom. (Gloam startles and squeaks.) Alight smiles, nudging one and then the other with her nose, “he’s coming.”
He cannot help it.
She protects them fiercely, wrapping her spitting, hissing wings around her swollen body and taking to an oddly carved cave at Pangea’s outskirts. She paces that curved, twisty, dark hideaway like a mother wolf, flapping those great flames at anyone and anything that comes too near her hollow.
She presses her nose against the round of her belly, breathing into them, feeling them rustle and move under her skin—and she knows it is them! She can feel it, pressing full and firm in her stomach, that there is more than just one heart beginning its frenzied, ready beating. There is one for each of them to hold at night when they do not hold each other.
***
She feels the agony of labor wash over her, hard and cruel. Everything about this travailing had been done in the name of love. This is no different, though when the time comes, her mind grows fuzzy with pain and she thrashes, her wings licking the sand and filling their den with a burnt smell. Then she settles on her side for the parturition—digging furrows in the sand with her restless body. The cave grows cold and dark as the sun dips below the scarp, but her wings light the quiet room and provide heat.
(She loves her.)
The girl comes first, plopping out with a heavy grunt, onto the sand. There is immense pressure released and for a few, precious moments, she spends time alone with her, releasing her nostrils from their sac and licking the slime from her coat. “Ohhh,” she breathes softly into her forehead, never letter her lips leave the damp skin; an astral cloak unfurls across her bird-delicate body. “Look at you, Gleam. Your daddy can teach you the names of all those constellations, one day.” She is just like him and it is anguish to let her go when the contractions come like the clouds of a storm.
(She loves him.)
Alight presses her head into the sand, bearing down on the earth below her. She can hear the soft sounds of Gleam moving behind her, shaking in the darkness. Woosh. They come again, reminding her of Tephra’s shores and the waves that lap the sand up like dessert. ‘Ooff,’ she grunts, her eyes closing tight. Woosh. The ache draws her free wing in a wide, errant arch down across to clutch her belly, wafting heated air into the cave. ‘Ahhh…’ she knows this pain. Caustic and unbearable, her body does not relent to it like it had before the flowered mare had saved her, but the tissue that burns and dies must do so before it is replaced with another sacrifice. Over and over, she moans in torment as his head and feet are thrust free, and she panics, twisting to look over her shoulder at Gleam—“careful,” she just barely months, before her eyes lose their focus and she droops back down, his smoldering wings slipping free from her, loose of their singed sac.
***
She lays with them, careful not to touch Gleam with her wings and careful to keep Gloam’s contained, too. “My beautiful loves. You must hurry.” She stands, and this prompts them to try, too, searching for their mother’s milk as she delivers the placenta onto the dusty ground, an offering this ugly hell does not deserve. She lets them nurse, admiring the twinkle of her and the conflagration of him.
They are little mimics, in opposite, so perfect and tiny.
“Come. We’ll go see daddy, now.”
***
She does not notice their struggle, though she keeps them close to her, wings draped over their heads in mean defensiveness. “Just a little farther, now, my dears,” she coos at them. The walk from Pangea to Tephra is a long one—walk and swim—and she does so lathered with sweat and sore in the groin.
(All of this is for them So they can be together.)
She sets her teeth and drags on, deaf to the complaints of her babies, marching along on either side of her. (Gloam huffs and groans, staggering now and then over uneven ground, catching himself on his mother’s side with his bright, burning wing. Every few steps he peeks under her belly at his sister, sighing in her direction.)
The swim across the strait is hard.
Alight lingers on the shore for a while, pacing and considering the consequences of failure. But they are so close, and perhaps these babies are like her and mother, and cannot be choked out by the water. She considers Gleam, her perfect skin and knows she could test the durability of it—her wings snap and spit sparks, their cruelty stills her. It is a chance she is unwilling to take. Alight clings to these maybes, anyway, and to the draw that keeps her pining for the volcanic island, late night making the water dark and daunting. “Come on, then. It’ll be fun. You’ll have to get used to it eventually.” She tries to hide the shake in her voice, flanking them to nudge their bums with her nose, guiding them into the cold water.
***
She sees them across safe enough, hurrying them from the water and checking the nooks and crannies of their little bodies. “Not so bad right?” (Gloam coughs and grumbles, standing still for his inspection, his eyelids blinking sleepily.) She smiles and comforts them both, then turns to look across the beach and into the thick nest of vegetation at the foot of the volcano, Gloam to her left and Gleam to her right.
The waves come and go, softly as they wait, the mare intimately aware of the nocturnal way he wanders.
“GIVER!” she calls, finally, a demanding bellow that echoes rudely across the slumberous kingdom. (Gloam startles and squeaks.) Alight smiles, nudging one and then the other with her nose, “he’s coming.”
He cannot help it.
PHOTOGRAPHY © TASHA MARIE
![[Image: RS84HN4.png]](http://i.imgur.com/RS84HN4.png)
Pollock x Malis
pixel base by bronzehalo