[private] Out with the golden we sew // Rapt

[Kagerus]

Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.

(He's addictive, in more ways than one. She finds herself lost in his pretty gold skin, and the way his lips trace her spine and soothe her to sleep when the nightmares worry at her mind. And when he comes with her - often, as often as she can manage - the dreams are sweeter, lovelier, indeed a kind of rapture that she is wont to seek, again and again. Because with him, it's simple. He lives to please her - to watch her face contort in pleasure in that other-world, and to feel the heat between his legs with his finger tips, with his tongue. And her, well, she lives for more than this, but what everyone sees is just her mask - the part of her that exists in the real world, and not with him, Beyond.)

Tears streak my face, cries burning my lungs.

(But as the months passed, their dreams together gradually darkened, tainted by a growth that neither of them imagined possible. Suddenly his lips on her skin felt more like razors than kisses, and when he looked at her, she couldn't help but want to look away. He started asking her why she spent more time in Hyaline and less time with him in their thicket, and she never could find an answer that quite satisfied either of them - but it was rare enough for Rapt to ask her anything, and so they fell apart, slowly, but apart all the same.)

He's not here, in the thicket, and I won't be able to summon the courage to come looking for him again. Or maybe it's the strength that I'll lack - of character, of body, of mind.
I call out for him, desperate, hating the news I bear, but somehow, hating him more even than that.

Kagerus

sweet nothing

@[rapt]

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever She leaves him, falls through his cupped hands like water. He doesn’t know what it is, he does whatever she asks. He devotes himself to her, travels with her to whatever worlds she conjures. He worships her, wretched and wonderful, but she stops meeting his eyes. She leaves, and he is unable to follow. She does not invite him to her kingdom, and he is left on the outskirts, in the meadow or river or forest, and sometimes she returns and then she doesn’t, and he is alone. Alone is worse, now, because he knows what lies at the other end of the spectrum. Her touch, her smile, her eyes boring into him so hot he shivers. The solitude is worse, for he had grasped at something else, and it had slipped through him. He’d known, of course, that she would grow tired of him. What could he offer? He has no powers, no particular strength, all he has a singular devotion, a wont to kneel. Amusing, perhaps, but nothing desirable for longer than a few months. Still. Still. He wants to prolong it. One more time. Then one more. Yet when she calls out, for a moment he freezes, as if her voice electrocutes him. He goes. Of course he does. Towards to sound of her, the scent of her, then – oh! – the sight of her. He wants to smile, but the wrecked look of her face, the streak of tears on her cheeks, stops it. “Kagerus,” he says, aching, “what’s happened?” rapt caius x else

[Kagerus]

Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.

One more time. Then one more.
Always praying that it would leave us with a sweet aftertaste, a contentedness, something that could hear "goodbye" without shattering. But it's that sweet taste, that idea that just maybe we could have it again, that keeps me coming back. Only then the sweet taste turned sour - but still we hoped for it. Still, I came to be held in his embrace.

"I'm -- I'm in labour --" My face contorts, and I stumble into him, leaning into the curve of his golden body. Still, still I reach for him to comfort me. Because god knows he will.

The contraction passes, and I pull back, voice desperate, higher than usual. "Rapt, there's something else."

How the fuck am I supposed to say this. Say that the child we hadn't intended to create would now, today, come to kill me. That because of our impulses we have destroyed my life - not just destroyed, but ended, too. I want to smile, for the last sight he has of me is a happy one, but I can't - I can't - I can't -

"I - I need you to give birth for me." The words fall bluntly, without warning, a kind of storm that takes you all at once to a place you never knew existed. My eyes swim wetly, hating that after all the ways I've manipulated him, I've yet another favour to ask.

To demand.

"I'll die if I give birth to our child, Rapt," I tilt my head, reach for him, beg him to reach out for me too. But my face contorts again, and my knees buckle; I don't sink down, but one of these times, I will.

"Please... There isn't much time."

Kagerus

sweet nothing

@[rapt]

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever Of all the things he’d imagined, it wasn’t this. There was a way of things. Ways the world worked he never questioned. While Rapt’s seen unnatural things, while he’s lived in wild worlds, he’s never questioned something so mundane as childbirth. His body is biologically incapable of such a thing, and thus, he’s never thought much of it. But now – Now she’s before him, sweat on her brow, stomach taut with a child that wasn’t meant to be. Asking him something impossible. Of course he’d do this for her – he’d do anything for her – but he doesn’t have the faintest clue how. He’s stupid and useless in this body. “How?” he asks. He hates that he has to ask. That she’s shaking and tense and laboring and he’s there, useless. Tell me what to do. He touches her. As if he could absorb the pain this way. (He thinks it’s just pain. That that’s what frightens her. He doesn’t know of her curse, of her temporary immortality.) “I’ll do anything,” he says. Promises. “Just tell me what I need to do.” rapt caius x else

[Kagerus]

Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.

His eyes glow with an undeserved innocence - they have witness monsters and chaos, nightmares and pain - as my request tumultuously arrives. Were my pain less, I would be angry with him, trying to make him understand - but as the pains of birth wash over me, there is no room for anger: only desperation.

Just tell me what I need to do.

"I love you, Rapt."

Before he can reply, we are spiraling through the portal from wakefulness to sleep - except that I do not allow the easy transition of regular sleep, instead tearing us from one realm to another in such a way that leaves both of us winded and sick to our stomachs. Tears still roll down the length of my face as my eyes blink open to see what's around us - but for once, nothing has changed. We stand exactly where we had; not a blade of grass out of place.

"Lie down," I say, gritting my teeth, and he does. Droplets of sweat discolour my mottled figure, falling gently as contraction after contraction cause my frame to convulse. It won't be long now - I don't have much time.

Closing my eyes, I focus my energy on the foal inside of me, and then on Rapt's poor, ill-equipped body. I cannot hear his reaction as his anatomy begins to change - a sensation that I can only imagine as wrong - and by the time I am dreaming that our child lies in his womb and not mine, it's too late for me to heed any of his words anyhow.

Kagerus

sweet nothing

@[rapt]

So option a) Rapt gives birth to the baby in dreamland and they all wake up or b) they wake up and give birth in real life. Either way Rapt will be stuck a mare for this thread, and anything that happens in dreamland i.e pain/damage will transfer to real life.

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever She goes, he follows. From this world to the next, except there’s nothing magical about the world, it’s the same as ever. Except then there’s a shifting, his body changing, warping. Anatomy upended, stomach stretching grotesquely as the child is shifted from her body to his, taken apart and put back together inside him. It hurts, the change – his body no longer his, changed and stolen by the impossible child, crushing his organs, dragging him down. The contraction hits then, following the child, nature eager to deliver the baby even in the most unnatural of circumstances. He moans – pain has never mattered to him, but this pain is so bone deep, begot in the most inward, private places of him. His own body, changed, hurting, betraying – The urge to push overwhelms him, and he bears down on his strange, warped stomach. Dirt sticks to his sweaty skin, mottling him. He cries out again, feeling the child inside him, the strange inner pressure of its body against his. (At some point he wakes, but he doesn’t know he wakes. The remnants of the dream remain, his body changed. Not for long – but enough. Enough to see it through.) He obeys the urges, pushes again and again and again and his muscle tremble, exhausted, and then the sensation changes as the child slides from him. It’s a boy, he notes, as the child breaks through the sac. A son, gold and white, a perfect mix of them. He’s suddenly aware he’s crying. Still prone on the grass, he looks for her, to make sure she’s all right. “Kagerus,” he says, soft, “we have a son.” rapt caius x else

[Kagerus]

Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.

He doesn't notice the shift from sleep to wakefulness, but I do. When his body stays rounded and mine slim, my breath billows out of me. Relief. It worked.
It... worked.

I stand with him, head lowered, lips pressed to skin that is damp with sweat. An uncanny sensation of displacement consumes me, my skin twitching, ears pinning against my lover's cries. This should have been me. I feel my loins contract uselessly, my body begging for its rightful pain - I built the child that now slides out of Rapt. I created his every fold.

And now? Now I am not even his mother.

There's tears in his eyes, and he's speaking to me with the reverence that only birth-mothers know -- and I can't help it. My expression sours. That should have been me.

(But oh, silly Kagerus, would you not have died?)
Maybe I should have. I broke the rules.
(Well, there's still time for that darling. For now, look upon your son - if you can even call him that.)
Go to hell.

"You have a son," I rasp in reply, smiling, though my brow creases in a tumultuous frown. A laugh cuts through my empty lungs, but I turn my eyes away from Rapt, not knowing how to proceed from here. My mind feels dissociated from my body - I float above myself, untethered, mad.

That's when I really see him - the foal.
Gold and white, a perfect mix of us.
My lips turn down, stomach squeezing. "He's beautiful." It's not a compliment.

"What would you call him, Rapt?"
Because god knows I shouldn't be trusted to name something I so innately despise.

Kagerus

sweet nothing

@[rapt]

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever It’s been said before – Rapt is not a very smart boy. He’s faithful to a fault, he’s pretty, he’s loving – but he’s not smart. Especially now, dazed in a new body, hormones flooding a body and mind not built for such things, looking at the child, slippery and slimy but oh-so-beautiful, because it’s his. Theirs. Their impossible, strange child, conceived in a dream, born on the edges of dreams. (He’d never wanted to be a father. His own father was loving, but always looked at him strange, like he didn’t quite know what to do.) If Rapt was smart, he’d see the disconnect, the way she looks at them but doesn’t see, the slight edginess of her. If Rapt was smart, he’d say something – the right thing – to assure her the child is theirs, wholly, that the strange way he’s come into the world doesn’t mean anything. But he’s too busy staring at the son. He doesn’t know he’ll say it until the name leaves his lips: “Abysm.” For all those places the child was made. All those dreams. For the white place where she gave him monsters. It’s a tribute, to her. Rapt should know better. He was never a very smart boy. rapt caius x else

the entire point of this post was to work in a pun thanks.

[Kagerus]

Out with the golden we sew, and the lower past that crawls.
Now, to the doorway you run, to the girl that's not lost.

He's dazed, and I can tell. He reeks of birth and sweat, looks like he is called: rapt. The taste of him in this state leaves me trying and failing to swallow, leaves the contents of my stomach pressing further and further up my esophagus.

Abysm.
How suiting.
Named after the place of his conception.
My skin shudders at the memory.
Shudders, because I'd just wanted to feel him beneath my skin then; because I'd been naive; because the way my name sounds coming from his lips made me felt like I could remain in a liquid state permanently.

"He's -- beautiful." The words coming jarringly from me, as I stare at the tiny creature - spindly and sticky, with eyes that can't seem to focus. Somewhere inside me, the urge to clean him kicks me in the gut; but I can only frown and look away. I inch away from them, away from what should have been, away from that which leaves me utterly confused.

"I'll --"

And, as always, I disappear into the underbrush, wishing that that was enough to keep my demons at bay.

Kagerus

sweet nothing

@[rapt]