Once upon a time (birthing) - Gleam/Spark/any

[Giver]

It's in the eyes; I can tell, you will always be danger
We had it tonight, why do we always seek absolution?

It had been such a vivid dream.

He watches as she does not grow heavy and gravid, perplexed. He watches as her stomach does not move, as he supposes it would had it not be a dream.

It was a hard dream to relegate to unconscious fantasy. It had been so real. The feeling of her lips on his cheek and neck; the feeling of her beneath him, knees held tight as he explored newness like nothing he had ever felt before. For a while, he wondered if she was not just playing with him—he kept his lips tight, not desiring to hurt or unsettle her. 

It was easier, for him, to let it burn in his chest like a little candle threatening larger flames. 

If it was a joke, it had been cruel and gone too far.

But every day, she stayed the same—wild, wind-blown, earthy and small; beautiful and as she always is—and he spoke no more of it, only tossed it around in his head as he paced the hot shores, wakeful. When he closes his eyes and finally relents to dawn sleep, if he is lucky, he relives the moment—skin and warmth and all; her scent becoming more than grass and flowers, thickening with something far more intoxicating and arousing. A scent he had taken in before, but never opened up and released like he had that night. 

Or had not.
Or had in a most vivid dream.

He is sleepless tonight. Unlike what Alight might have hoped, Giver does not feel them enter the world, miles away in some dusty cave. He does not feel the earth move beneath his feet. He does not feel the stars shiver on his skin as the little girl joins the venerable. Their birth is a natural thing—though their conception had not been—and it was private, as most are.

He wanders through the forest, unknown to them and unknowing.
‘GIVER!’
His stomach clenches sickeningly. He knows that voice. It is not one he can easily erase from his mind. It had been his voice, sometimes, when he was a boy. It had been the voice he relented and answered to, happily, for many years. “Alight…” he mutters, unsure of how to feel and even less sure of how to act. A liberated sliver of him steels against the clout of that voice—‘you are not hers any longer.’

Another part unravels as easy as a woolen blanket tugged at.

He goes to her, anxiously, hoping Spark has not been alerted. Hoping nobody has, so he might have a chance to deal with this alone. His bright, twinkling body passing through darkness before emerging from the thick growth. She is easy to spot, hemmed in fire like a sun. He sighs, slowing down to approach her. They hide well beside her, small and quiet, but as she raises those great flames up and hot light casts their shadows long and strange, their faces are lit up. He stops for a moment, brows furrowing.

It does not make sense. He carries on, having not yet seen the way the filly looks like him and the way the colt looks like her.

“Alight… what are you–”

But she twinkles under that sun like a night sky, her skin like his, sharing that old energy and the tiny particles of stars caught up in that aura. Breath rushes out of him as he stares at her, his mind untangling the cloudy image of their young minds—scared, tired, confused? “Alight…” he gulps and looks to her left, where the colt stands, his own bright wings drooping to the ground, his skin gold and his eyes bright.

“Alight… what… what is this?”

Anger foams in his throat—a holy, perplexed, unfamiliar anger—“what did you do?” He takes a staggering step forward, his mind racing.

(Gloam squeezes himself with his wings, blinking up at the man.
He can feel his protective nature calling to him in a primal way, but the ire and confusion—two things he is too young to understand, a vile mixture—keep him at bay.)

It's in the eyes; I can tell you will always be danger