[private] thread by thread, i come apart; shahrizai

[Ilka]

Faultlines tremble underneath my glass house

She welcomes the dark of the rising dusk with a quietness in her chest that comes from years worth of experience in childbirth. It comes with a pang of anticipation, that eagerness of being able to finally lay eyes on the life that has been growing inside her. A someone she feels she knows so well and yet somehow not at all.

There is hardly any nervousness when she finds a place secluded deep within the forest, a tangle of briar and knotted undergrowth to keep this beautiful moment as private as it should be. Just between herself and Shah, and the child born between them. It isn’t that she wishes her family gone, that she finds their company unpleasant in some way, it’s just that those first many moments always leave her heart in such a beautiful, aching tangle. The struggle and the exhaustion, and the way it fades to something far less important the very instant her eyes find that small, beautiful silhouette curled and waiting in a bed of soft grasses and moss. It is brand new every time, that thrill of love and pride and untethered joy as her lips brush the whorl of a small damp forehead, follow the curve of ears that seem too small to be possible.

It is in this perpetual beauty that she has forgotten the cruelty of nature, the wickedness of a world that loves to wounds.

Forgotten to be afraid.

But she remembers it the moment she finishes struggling, finishes pushing and turns to meet their beautiful child. Beautiful, and empty. He has eyes and ears, two perfect little nostrils. But there is no life behind those beautiful brown eyes, no light. She doesn’t understand it right away, wrestles forward to nuzzle his darling little face, that mask of steel just like his father. But the only warmth in him is the damp spread across his still little body, the only movement the shudder of limp bones as she nudges him more desperately.

Dead.
The thought lands a fatal blow, lodging in her heart so deeply she feels her vision smear dark at the edges.
Gone.
She cries out, looking between their beautiful boy and the man come to stand beside where she lay crumpled and crying.

“I don’t understand.” She says, the words a confession choked out of her by the pain flooding through her veins, bleeding from her broken heart. “Shah, I don’t understand.” And she can’t stop touching that little blue body, so delicate and perfect, so very much theirs despite that he is already cooling in the embrace of the outside air. “How can he be gone, what did I do wrong? Is this my fault?” It’s a tangled tumble of guilt tripping over her lips as she curls her neck over their beautiful boy, chasing away the cold like it might also chase away the truth. Like he might feel her love, her touch, and stir with a soft nuzzle to the bruised surface of her chest. But he doesn’t. For so long, he is still and empty. “I didn’t get to meet you,” she murmurs, tear-choked and so thick, holds him close to her chest, “you never got to know how loved you are.”

The pain in her heart and the numbness in her mind blinds her to the pain in her body, to the contractions ripping through her like a snarling, furious beast until she can’t help but give in to them. There is no joy left inside her now though, no gentle eagerness as she lifts those broken, bruised eyes to her husbands face and begs him to stop this somehow, begs him to turn back time and undo this evening. “I can’t,” she cries out, digging long furrows of brown through the emerald grass, “I don’t want to do this, I can’t do this.”

Can’t turn to find another child lost, another set of beautiful eyes open and empty as though all the life had spilled out of them. She fights it for as long as she can, desperate and aching, terrified until she feels Shah’s nose at her neck and her cheek, feels the warmth of his sweet meadow breath fogging against her skin. Those soft, gentle sounds urging her on, chasing that wild terror out through the shattered cracks of her broken heart. She is exhausted when she finally surrenders to it, numb and heaving when at last that small body slides into the damp grass behind her. She doesn’t even turn to look, doesn’t do anything but breath hard in the furrows of dirt she carved out in her struggles.

Her voice is a whisper, all breath and brokenness as she stares ahead at the boy she will never know, that perfect face that makes her heart tighten and shatter to pieces in her chest. “Shahrizai?” She shudders - with pain, with dread, with exertion. But she can’t bring herself to look, is so ashamed of how weak she is, of this tattered heart so ready to be blown to bits by another set of those hollow-glass eyes.

Ilka

if you're stalking you should know that this baby was supposed to be born like two seasons ago

[Shahrizai]

We're caught in the crossfire

of the war inside our soul

The evening stretches bruised fingers across the sky, drawing with it a blanket of velvet stars framed by the red and gold of the setting sun. Such a lovely setting for such an auspicious night, though he hardly knows it yet. When the pangs of labor begin, he awaits with the same eagerness as she, the beauty of each previous birth having long ago led him to forget the horrors nature could condemn them with.

Though each new son or daughter filled him with such nervous wonder, he couldn’t not help but feel the anticipatory joy of birth, of new life. Of someone so perfect and blessed to love, just as much as he loves all their children.

He’d almost forgotten even his most ancient of troubles, the darkness that still lingers in his bones, in the furthest reaches of his soul. That their children, so innocent and sweet, inherited pieces of those shadows had nearly ceased to bother him. But fate, it seems, has a wicked sense of humor, and later he would wonder if this had occurred to remind him he is not truly free from the darkness of his past.

Would wonder if his son’s life had been punishment for his hubris.

For a moment, it’s almost surreal. That a moment of joy and beauty could so quickly turn to horror is nearly unfathomable.

It takes several long moments for the sickness of reality to settle. For understanding to dawn as Ilka raises panic-stricken eyes to him. His heart pressing against his throat, he eases forward, his lips tracing almost desperately over her damp shoulder, as though her touch might erase the nightmare of the scene before him. As though something so simple might spark life in those empty brown eyes.

“Ilka,” he whispers, shaking his head, as though that might erase the evening. He presses closer, still almost disbelieving. But he could not dispel the truth that lay so still before him. Her broken pleas stir something fierce inside him, but there is nothing he can protect her from. Nothing he can do to defeat this kind of evil. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry.” He squeezes his eyes shut then, pressing his cheek against her, his breath harsh against her skin. “You did nothing wrong. Nothing.” He shakes his head again, cheek rubbing against her. “You could never be at fault.”

If anything, it is mine, he thinks, though he dares not say it aloud.

As she holds their son, desperately wishing life into him with her touch alone, Shah can only press closer to her, his lips trailing grief-stricken kisses along her crest, tangling in the dark strands of her mane. He can feel the way pain seems to ripple through her body, but when she turns her heartbroken gaze to him, he can only stare back with a matching pain.

Closing his eyes, he eases forward. After a moment, he opens them to peer down at the empty shell of his son’s perfect little body. Tears spill then, dampening his cheeks as he leans down to press a trembling kiss to that still, cool forehead.

With a raw gasp, he steps back, unable to mask the pain of the moment. With shaky movements, he lowers himself slowly to the ground, pulling his wife’s trembling body against him as she cries out in grief and denial.It is all he can do to hold his own in check, his nose pressed against her.

“You can do this,” he whispers against her, his voice raspy. “If not for yourself, then for me.” He clutches her tightly against him then, unwilling to face the thought of losing her too. “Please.”

An aching hollow burrows into his chest as she labors with a second child. This is nothing like the first time. Nothing like the miracle their first two children had been. And he knows fear. A fear nothing like any he had felt before.

Because she is everything to him. He doesn’t know that he could survive the world without her.

When his name sounds from her lips on a question, the soft whisper shattering the air, he breathes out a harsh, uneven gasp. His gaze instantly jumps to find hers, such hollow fragility shining from those beautiful eyes that his heart splits apart as he is forced to swallow his grief. Slowly, he turns, dreading what he might find nearly as much as her.

But as his eyes land on the wet, struggling bundle, the incredible weight of the moment seems to fall and burst around him. With a sharp inhale, tears overwhelm him once more as he gently kisses Ilka’s shoulder. “He’s alive,” he breathes into her skin, almost a prayer in the early morning air.

Gently extricating himself, he moves to the colt, tenderly clearing his nostrils as his tears fall freely onto damp blue skin.

Shahrizai

I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING