Shahrizai steps close to touch her shoulder with the soft of his whiskered mouth, her name hanging like a promise on his lips, and she cannot help the way she melts against him in that moment. There is so much love swelling in her narrow chest, so much affection glowing for her small, perfect family in the hollow lines of her dark, delicate face. It is so different from the first time. She can remember feeling hollow, carved out inside when the twins had looked up at her with coldly sharp eyes and then disappeared in the dark to the belly of the black night. When she finally found them huddled with their grandfather, they had seemed irritated that she felt the need to interrupt them. Never had they looked on at her with love and innocence. Never had she felt so painfully alone.
But Shahrizai had changed all of that with his smiles and his sadness, his secrets and the burdens he kept hidden from her. He had filled her days with light and bright and love she had not thought herself capable of, or deserving of, for so many years. He healed her. She reached out once more, nuzzling his neck tiredly and tasting the dampness of salt from the sweat on her own lips. “Shah,” she whispered softly, the almost gold of those quiet eyes resting gently on the blue of his perfect face, “you’ve given me everything.” She is quiet when he pulls away to meet his children, quiet, though she thinks, and I love you.
The crushed gold of those impossible eyes follow his gaze to watch their children again, those impossibly perfect little bodies. Heartfire’s eyes seem to settle on her father, and then after a moment so do Illum’s. The colt, have nursed in the moments before, toddled forward on ungainly legs until he had crashed gently against his father. The boy nickered quietly, his wings held out to the side as if to steady him, and his tail flicking behind like a tiny black scrub-brush. At first Ilka did not notice, but the longer she watched father and son, it became readily apparent.
“Shah,”she breathed, surprised, lifting her dark face to his and then motioning back to Illum’s dark skin again, “look.” Shadows hung in the satin of the boys glistening skin, subtle at first until it seemed to thicken and collect around him like odorless smoke. But the boy hadn’t seemed to notice, because his attention was directed to Shah’s long, blue legs which he was nuzzling and lipping at curiously.
With a smile still etched into the pale pink and white of her velvet mouth, Ilka moved carefully forward to Heartfire. Her nose touched the filly’s forehead, ruffled her forelock, lipped at the impossibly soft skin behind her dark blue ear. Then lifting her head to look back at Shahrizai, she whispered, “You are. And they are the best parts of us.” She pauses to try and coax the beautiful blue child to her flank to nurse, and then turns back once more to the roan stallion at her side. “I love you, Shahrizai.” Her voice is as gentle as starlight as she reaches over to leave a kiss in the hollow above his dark mouth.
ILKA
makai x oksana
@[insane], oh gosh, me too. their little family is the most perfect thing ever. <3 i