07-08-2016, 03:32 PM
Hot damn, triplets are exhausting. I don't know how anyone manages them alone. One mouth to feed is a lot of work, but three? My daughter and I have been sharing the task, but I'd forgotten how much milk a newborn belly needs. Now that the first few weeks have passed, we are able to take shifts more, giving each other time to wander while still leaving the girls with a readily available source of their next meal. It's my turn, and with a quick kiss goodbye to each of my little loves I sprout dragon wings and take to the sky.
God, I love the silence up here, the way the sky swallows all sound but that of the air rushing past my ears and my heart beating like mad to keep up with the demands flight puts on it. Oh, I could reshape myself, let my limbs melt into something built more for flight than a heavy draft horse; dragon or bird or hell, anything that comes with wings would do, but the burn feels good, feels...alive. The way my lungs heave for enough breath to keep up with the churning of my wings through the air, the way my heart races in my chest to pump all that oxygen to cells not built for flight, it's such a rush.
And I've been needing a goddamn rush.
Still, I can't afford to push myself until I'm utterly exhausted and unable to get home. So sighing, I head back toward the ground, zeroing in on the Meadow as the nearest, most obvious destination given my trajectory and how much free time I have. And when I touch down, those lovely leathery white wings of mine melt away, reabsorbed into my back like they never existed. I don't know that I even want to talk to anyone, so much as just appreciate the freedom and the space. I just walk, letting my feet take me where they will for a while.
Turns out that “where they will” is a familiar place, and one with happy memories instead of weighed down by old sorrow and haunted by ghosts. And I'm not the only one to find myself in the shadow of a lovely young willow tree. “Did this one sass you too?” I ask, walking up behind Vanquish, stepping into the space between the edge of his draping wings and his broad black side, and laying my head across his back. “Looks like a mouthy fucker, doesn't it? Bet if a little bit of wind picked up, it'd whip you with those branches you're playing with. You're lucky I came along when I did, love, or who knows how much trouble you'd be in.”
God, I love the silence up here, the way the sky swallows all sound but that of the air rushing past my ears and my heart beating like mad to keep up with the demands flight puts on it. Oh, I could reshape myself, let my limbs melt into something built more for flight than a heavy draft horse; dragon or bird or hell, anything that comes with wings would do, but the burn feels good, feels...alive. The way my lungs heave for enough breath to keep up with the churning of my wings through the air, the way my heart races in my chest to pump all that oxygen to cells not built for flight, it's such a rush.
And I've been needing a goddamn rush.
Still, I can't afford to push myself until I'm utterly exhausted and unable to get home. So sighing, I head back toward the ground, zeroing in on the Meadow as the nearest, most obvious destination given my trajectory and how much free time I have. And when I touch down, those lovely leathery white wings of mine melt away, reabsorbed into my back like they never existed. I don't know that I even want to talk to anyone, so much as just appreciate the freedom and the space. I just walk, letting my feet take me where they will for a while.
Turns out that “where they will” is a familiar place, and one with happy memories instead of weighed down by old sorrow and haunted by ghosts. And I'm not the only one to find myself in the shadow of a lovely young willow tree. “Did this one sass you too?” I ask, walking up behind Vanquish, stepping into the space between the edge of his draping wings and his broad black side, and laying my head across his back. “Looks like a mouthy fucker, doesn't it? Bet if a little bit of wind picked up, it'd whip you with those branches you're playing with. You're lucky I came along when I did, love, or who knows how much trouble you'd be in.”