dear wilderness, be at your best; magnus and isle

[auburn]

Auburn

 The first thing she knows is that sudden squeeze of birth where she discovers a body she hadn’t realized existed within the fathomless dark of her mother's womb. The second is that this body has things called lungs, and when warm lips sweep away the mucus from things called nostrils, some deep, innate instinct kicks her awake and sucks in as much air as that little chest can hold. 

She blinks, and the world is blurry until Isle sweeps a warm tongue across her face, cleaning the remnants of birth from a face as gold and bright as sunshine. She flinches, but it is not out of fear, it is out of surprise at the sudden sharpening of details that change everything she thought she knew in her five seconds of being alive. There is so much light where she had known only dark, so much color where she had known only abysmal black.

And there are two faces that she loves so immediately, one dark and dappled with a wide streak of white down her nose, the other dusky and gold. The feeling of familiarity singing awake inside her chest is immediate, and she reaches for those faces, her little nose tipped upwards with tiny lips that stretch for nuzzles. She thinks the big one must be called Isle because it’s the loudest thing he keeps thinking at her, and the dark one must be Auburn because that’s her loudest think-thought.

She makes a soft bleating noise, feeling insistent as she tries harder to reach them, suddenly frustrated with this body and those leg things that seem to tangle and splay every which way EXCEPT the right way. Mama Auburn laughs and stands, and she feels a flash of envy at how easy it look when she does it. It only makes her wrestle harder - which is why she misses it when mama leans to whisper in daddy’s ear, “she thinks i’m Auburn and you’re Isle - she must be a reader like me.” And the way mama kisses him so sweetly by the corner of his dark mouth, still amused.

She’s nearly got it figured out, how to use these spindly legs of hers, when mama steps closer and runs her lips so softly over her ears and her neck, down her shoulder to the curve of her belly to help her balance. She’s too young to realize she’s indignant at the help, but her tail flaps wildly anyway until mama steps back again and she stands swaying on her feet. Her heart is pounding, those tiny little muscles quivering wildly beneath her skin, but she’s grinning and bright - and falling, instead of walking, into the embrace of her parents sides. 

I did it! She thinks, triumphant and exhausted, not realizing words need to be spoken aloud when she can hear them so loudly inside her head. She trips forward, nosing at the belly mama guides her to until her lips find and close over the teat and warm milk beads on her baby whiskers. She sucks greedily, still swaying on her feet but so hungry until she hears mama think-speak about an entirely different name. She would’ve asked who Magnus is and why mama’s glad she warned him about wild girls, but the milk is so sweet and already her eyelids seem too heavy to hold open as the soft suckles start to slow.

I drank the blood of angels from a bottle
just to see if I could call the lightning down

[magnus]

but she's bringin' the moon and stars to me -

Each time he watches one of his children take their first breath, it feels like the first time—the only time. He is endlessly enamored with their bright eyes, the softness of their noses, the way that they blink away the darkness and into the glittering light of this new world. He is fascinated with the delicacy of their limbs and soft smiles and the eager way that they throw themselves into learning, balancing and fighting for some semblance of independence even from the beginning. It is a constant source of joy for him.

Still—even so—this is different.

He can feel it in his chest, in his bones, and he settles into the warmth of it. It is a rush of protectiveness and the fragile beauty of a fresh start that he sees every time that he looks into Isle’s eyes. It is a joy of a new family that does nothing to detract from the love that he carries for all of his children; the same way that he knows this newest addition will add to Isle’s love for her family and never subtract from it.

Yet there is balance in his joy. There is fear, worry, an anxiety that darkens his gold-flecked eyes.

He remains close when Isle begins to enter into the beginning of it, and he remains close. Winter does not touch Tephra the way that it ravages the rest of Beqanna, but he still flares warmer in her presence, letting the sun that now rests in his lungs burn outward—keeping her comfortable as she brings forth life.

When she arrives in a tangle of limbs and smiles and soft bleats, his heart nearly explodes in his chest. He angles his heavy-jawed head to Isle, pressing a dozen kisses to her brow, her poll, her elegant curve of neck. He grins down at them, his face haloed by the subtle summer glow, stepping back only so that Isle can lift herself and come to tuck into his side. When she leans over to kiss at the corner of his mouth, whispering, it surprises a laugh out of him, the chuckle warm and appreciative as he glances down.

He watches with the pride of a first father as she fights for her feet, the stubbornness and the strength so apparent. He watches as she stumbles into them, as she finds her balance, and as she makes her way down to milk and then tears his eyes away to study Isle. Another laugh, the white of his teeth bright against the ink of his lips. “I happen to love wild girls,” he says, leaning to whisper into the dark of her ear.

“Just as much as I love their wild mother,” a confession that feels as natural as rain.

- Magnus