When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: OOC (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=24) +--- Forum: Archive (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=81) +---- Forum: Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=98) +----- Forum: Nerine (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=91) +----- Thread: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing (/showthread.php?tid=21703) Pages:
1
2
|
When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Sabra - 11-11-2018 Minds are powerful things. Capable of immense calculations, holders of all the knowledge you could care to possess. They also have a certain talent for self preservation. Whether we like it or not. I had been in denial for... as long as I'd been back, it seemed. Every symptom, every discomfort, they could all be attributed to the damage and resulting strains of healing I'd been experiencing. Aches, pains, nausea. Even the sensation that my skin didn't fit quite right. Somehow I'd managed to convince myself that nothing further was amiss than having touched the brink of death and come back. You'd think that would be enough. On a day that dawned cold and clear, I realized I'd been lying to myself. With good reason, maybe, but it was an unwanted discovery nonetheless. From the moment my eyes opened, something felt off. Lucky, then, that I was living so far from the world. The way I was feeling, the next horse I saw was liable to walk away with bruises. Much as I wanted him near, maybe it was just as well that Cas was away these last few days. This rocky cliff had been my ivory tower while I recovered my strength, safe from the danger of a changing world. Soon, I'd be well enough to return and see for things for myself. Beqanna had become disrupted while I'd been in my death-sleep. The very geography had shifted as once dormant lands rose again, and my sons had melted into the chaos. I could only hope that their paths would be good ones, and that they'd find their way back to me some day. I had paced the length and width of my craggy haven a hundred times over by the time midmorning sunlight reached me. The warmth was welcome, but did little to ease the restlessness I'd woken up with. Only when the first pain rippled through my abdomen did I cease my frenetic motion. So it was true. Klaudius had left me more than scars and memories that day. Against all odds a piece of him had taken, and survived to make itself known. The latest insult in a saga full of them. It was a familiar ache. I'd felt it when I'd birthed Kwartz in the shadows of Ischia, not knowing what he'd grow to be. Again, when his half brothers joined the world. I loved each of my children as well as I knew how, hoping I could make things right in their worlds, even if I couldn't fix mine. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Now I stood shivering and alone, waiting for the instinctive thrall that would herald this newest babe. I had been excited when my sons were born. Alone as I had been at their deliverances, they'd been been conceived in joy, breathlessly awaited gifts. That wasn't something I could claim today. Today my body clenched and my breath caught in waves, all for a child I didn't want, by a man who wished me only ill, while the one who's children I did want harbored me. Tears pricked in the corners of my eyes as another spasm washed through me. Was this too much to ask of him? He had taken care of me, dead or alive. And even as I dreaded facing it, I wanted him to be here with me. My selfish heart wanted his touch to distract me, his warmth to sooth me. From the day we'd met and done our best to kill each other, he'd ignited something deeper than any lust I'd felt before. That had to mean something, but everyone has their limit. Maybe this bastard would be his. Maybe it was mine. @[Castile] RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Ilma - 11-13-2018 Ilma And there's a lesson waiting to be learned the firestarters always get the burns and the good guys never get the girl
She never really speaks of it, any more. and shooting stars cannot fix the world @[Sabra] RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Castile - 11-19-2018 and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was castile @[Ilma] @[Sabra] RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Sabra - 11-19-2018 Hooves clatter on the stoney ground, drawing my attention away from my own anguish. The steps are too light to be the dragon stallion, and if that wasn't enough to give me pause, then the effervescent glow that precedes my guest certainly is. Suddenly my dim residence is illuminated by a mare bathed in white light. An angel, surely, for how else could she know my name? She touches my neck softly, and my chest aches as the muscles of my belly harden again. "Take this from me. Please. I...AH! Please! I know I haven't done anything to deserve your help. I know." My voice falls into a tiny note of fear and pain as the contraction runs its course. The pressure that has been building all morning is growing too intense to ignore and I drop to my knees as another contraction chases the last. Tears that have been threatening now begin to spill out, leaving silver tracks down my cheeks. Between spasms I hear the sharpness of landing footsteps again, heavier than before. The rhythm is the one I've grown intimately familiar with. My heart leaps as the familiar splashed face comes into view, only to fall with realization. Something is wrong. He's winded. Castile, my unbreakable Castile, is winded and stumbling. My focus internalizes for another long moment, and I can only breath as he greets my angel. My next comprehension is the stoney expression he's fixed me with this. This is wrong. This is all wrong. He should be anxious but excited, I should be caught up in anticipation, not dread. This should be his baby. And he knows it. My eyes meet his as my defilement replays itself. "His. Before he stabbed me but after he tore my wing, he... he did this." I can't stand the way he's looking at me. Like I willingly allowed this. Like I betrayed him. My breathing is growing more erratic, its getting close to time. The pain is incredible. "Cas, believe me. Please. I didn't want this. You're mine as I'm yours, and I would never choose another over you, I swear." My voice is rough with misery, vision blurring. I'm breathing too hard, too fast, head feeling light with the beginnings of hyperventilation. Like fire in my hips I can feel the contractions begin to produce meaning. If I wasn't already in labor, the stress might have been enough to trigger it. As it was, we were all about to witness the culmination of my abuse. Cas and his ire would have to wait until afterward. Now it was time to strain and push and give life to the one who almost died with me. @[Ilma] @[Castile] RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Ilma - 11-25-2018 Ilma And there's a lesson waiting to be learned the firestarters always get the burns and the good guys never get the girl
Sabra... a sparkly mare, delusional in the river. Former queen, believing herself a failure at the time, and ill, so ill - she had nearly drowned just from trying to get a drink. Ilma remembers the day clearly; it had been the day on which she had decided to take her daughter out of the kingdom and accustom her to exploring the world - instead she'd had to send the winged girl back in haste, to look for Solace. and shooting stars cannot fix the world @Sabra @Castile RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Castile - 11-27-2018 and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was castile @[Ilma] @[Sabra] RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Sabra - 11-27-2018 At the white woman's prompting I turn my attentions back toward the matter at hand, trying desperately to ignore the vicious words whirling around me. Still, things get through. The reality of my situation makes itself painfully clear as I feel the cramping agony reach it's zenith. I force control on my breathing, in and out in steady rhythm, biting back the screams I want to make. There is no room for that now, not when the very air is clogged with grim energy. One final moment of exquisite pain, a rush of hot fluid and its over. Blood slicks my thighs and smears the small form that's slipped between them. Groaning softly I rise to my feet once more, sweat drying on my flanks. With a mistrustful glance at the pacing stallion, I drop my head to examine the tiny being stirring at my feet. Pastel toned, as my children tend to be. The colors become clearer as I clean away the residue of birth, and if things hadn't been damned before, they certainly were now. A girl. I'd wanted a daughter for so long, a beautiful child to stay by me when my sons were gone on their own ways. The flare of joy melts into despair as I take in her coat. The fluffy softness of her infant fur is as clearly purple as my eldest son's, as obvious a marker of their paternity as any could wish. The pale rosy tufts of mane and tail echo my own points, and as the moisture dries from her body I can see that she shimmers like new snow. Tiny down-covered wings decorate her thin shoulders, full of promise. "Miela," I whisper, heart in my throat. "May life be sweeter to you than it has been to me." She is a beautiful, perfectly formed babe that peers up at me with steady, blue-grey eyes. Her newborn scent fills my head, and I know that as much as I hate the thought of her sire, I can't hate this tiny girl. I want to. Gods, how I want to. It would make the next moments so much simpler. "Castile, calm yourself. You must listen to what I'm about to say, because I'm only going to say it once." My undamaged wing spreads partway to obscure the child from view. Tearing my gaze from her I instead fix it on the painted man scowling towards us, jaw set in firm defiance. "Klaudius sired her. We cannot escape that fact, as much as I wish we could. But she is here and she is mine. Do you love me? I can't believe that you don't, not when I've seen the lengths you've gone with my care. You never abandoned me. Don't do so now. She's right. You have a chance here that you didn't have with the boys, to be a better father than blood could have ever provided her." I leave the words hanging between us, fettered with an unspoken promise. This is the only option I will allow. If he wants me, it will be with this sparkling girl at my side. I am standing between her and them, knowing what I'm asking of him, and unwilling to let him act on his feelings. I can see it in his eyes, the frustration and anger that rouses the flames of his being. I do not want to choose between them. But if he should force it, I know that I can make just one choice. I can't fail the glittering girl at my side, not like I failed the brothers who preceded her. @[Castile] @[Ilma] @[Miela] RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Miela - 11-27-2018 Life through death - growth through decay. Like so many have been born into Beqanna, she is no different. She emerges from the womb, covered in blood and amniotic fluid. A living, breathing creation of her mother and father, knowing not the circumstances of what brought her here. She squirms, breaking free of the sac that homed her for many moons now, and (like so many before her) attempts to stand. 'Up.' Instincts tell her, so she rises onto four wobbly legs. Flump! She falls back again, snorting with frustration, wishing her legs would just work. Again, she stands, and she wobbles, and she...flumps! back to the floor. Lavender ears pin back and the determined little filly again rises. She shakes, she wobbles but this time, she stays up. Carefully, she teeters towards her mother. 'Drink.' Instincts tell her...has she always been this hungry? Mother looks at her, eyes welled with tears. The filly peers up at her, and tilts her head in wonder. Miela. Mother says. A name, for her! May life be sweeter to you than it's been to me. A statement lost on the foal - maybe, in time, she would understand. Children know nothing of the weight of life's burdens - no, not yet do they know the heartaches, loss, betrayal, and bloodlust that comes from the adult world. She is innocence, in every sense of the word; from the gentle pastel shimmer of her bodice, to the way she looks at each of the horses around her with the twinkling cerulean gaze, unsure of why their words lay so harshly upon her ears. Her mother's wing rests protectively upon her side, and Miela takes this opportunity to drink. Her body rests comfortably upon Sabra's hind leg as she nurses, the words of her elders lost to the wind as she drinks. @[Castile] @[Ilma] @[Sabra] RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Ilma - 11-28-2018 Ilma And there's a lesson waiting to be learned the firestarters always get the burns and the good guys never get the girl
She's not at all pleased with whatever sad excuse for her former friend this person is - but she focuses (with a lot of restraint) on Sabra instead. The mare's birthing is quick enough, and despite the circumstances, at least the birth seems to be normal. A purplish filly falls out, glittering, and Ilma is amazed by that little fact. She hadn't quite seen a glittering horse before... no wait, she had! But that was long ago and she had been drunk so she couldn't be exactly sure. and shooting stars cannot fix the world @[Sabra] @[Castile] @[Miela] RE: When you feel yourself grow colder, wrap the night around your shoulders// Birthing - Castile - 11-28-2018 and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was castile @[Ilma] @[Sabra] |