03-19-2022, 07:45 PM
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Spring feels different this year.
On the Isle, the weather is only slightly warmer. Glass flowers tinkle and crunch beneath her hooves instead of releasing a fragrant scent where she moves through the tundra. On the Isle, not much has changed. On the inside of the mortal star, much has. In the last few months of pregnancy, the child within had made its appearance known. Ciri had been land-bound, finding herself exhausted and keeping to the shelter of her new cave (one further up on the glass-blown beach) for the majority of it.
Had carrying Takhar been like this? It had been such a long time ago and the circumstances had been far more weighted and depressing. Carrying her new child had been a different experience, one that she was careful of. As if the gift Carnage had placed inside of her was fragile. As if at any moment something might happen to take it from her. The impending birth was were most of her nerves had gone. It wasn’t the fear of pain and contractions, she had faced far more brutal violence then that of childbirth now.
Last time, the lady of time and space had been taken from her son. What she feared was history repeating herself.
The air is cool and crisp when she emerges from the cave, hungry and eager to root through the sparse tundra for anything she could nibble. The golden light from the late afternoon sun remains hazy and inviting as she searches, her stars starting to twinkle with the promise of nightfall in a few hours time. It starts as a pinch, a twinge, in her lower abdomen. Strange aches and pains during pregnancy are not abnormal (as much as she hates to remember Jah-Lilah’s advice, she has nowhere else to turn to) and so she doesn’t pay it much heed. After a few minutes, they become stronger. And then something else seems to press into her brightness, stirs the light within her.
It’s a need. A call to somewhere that she had never had any inclination on going to, especially not in her current state.
It takes her a moment to realize the need is not her own.
It’s the child’s.
The Forest. There is a strange image of thick foliage, dark green leaves and twisted gnarled roots. It plays in her mind as the contractions come again. Another image of thick woods, the soft rustle of small animals hidden from view, the call of a raven hidden within the shadowed canopy. She shudders at another darker memory. The call is stronger.
There is a few moments of hesitance. where she thinks of Taiga which is much closer. It’s mist, fog, and strange giant trees. No. That’s not where she needs to be. The Forest.” Her contractions intensify and without a second thought, the star is in the sky.
By the time she lands on the outskirts where the meadow merges into forest, a thick layer of sweat clings to her ravaged coat and there is strain in her face. Ethereal light sluices through her scars as the pain becomes evident in the stars shooting across her silver gaze, twisting her features as she winces and pants. There is an urge and she follows it, moving as quickly as she can (still graceful, her red stars prominent in the now oncoming darkness) into the cool shadows of the trees. Blinded by the discomfort, it is instinct and that strange beckoning call that finds her eventually sinking to the damp earth beneath her without realizing just how far into the forest she had gotten.
Had it always been this painful, the first time? It’s hard to remember. Her stars darken as the child begins to force itself into the world. For a second, she thinks more stars have fallen to her as company and support. Then she realizes, in a strange hazy world of pain and confusion, that it’s not stars but eyes. Many eyes that watch silently overhead from the branches. Ravens, like from the Underneath. They do not attack her, do not graze their claws over the many wounds she still carries from them. They simply watch, silent guardians. Fear clouds the silver of her gaze but she cannot focus on them, not when her foal is adamant on its arrival.
There is a sharp cry that escapes from her that should send the birds flying overhead. They do not. Instead they stay, watching and waiting, for what they had come for.
On the Isle, the weather is only slightly warmer. Glass flowers tinkle and crunch beneath her hooves instead of releasing a fragrant scent where she moves through the tundra. On the Isle, not much has changed. On the inside of the mortal star, much has. In the last few months of pregnancy, the child within had made its appearance known. Ciri had been land-bound, finding herself exhausted and keeping to the shelter of her new cave (one further up on the glass-blown beach) for the majority of it.
Had carrying Takhar been like this? It had been such a long time ago and the circumstances had been far more weighted and depressing. Carrying her new child had been a different experience, one that she was careful of. As if the gift Carnage had placed inside of her was fragile. As if at any moment something might happen to take it from her. The impending birth was were most of her nerves had gone. It wasn’t the fear of pain and contractions, she had faced far more brutal violence then that of childbirth now.
Last time, the lady of time and space had been taken from her son. What she feared was history repeating herself.
The air is cool and crisp when she emerges from the cave, hungry and eager to root through the sparse tundra for anything she could nibble. The golden light from the late afternoon sun remains hazy and inviting as she searches, her stars starting to twinkle with the promise of nightfall in a few hours time. It starts as a pinch, a twinge, in her lower abdomen. Strange aches and pains during pregnancy are not abnormal (as much as she hates to remember Jah-Lilah’s advice, she has nowhere else to turn to) and so she doesn’t pay it much heed. After a few minutes, they become stronger. And then something else seems to press into her brightness, stirs the light within her.
It’s a need. A call to somewhere that she had never had any inclination on going to, especially not in her current state.
It takes her a moment to realize the need is not her own.
It’s the child’s.
The Forest. There is a strange image of thick foliage, dark green leaves and twisted gnarled roots. It plays in her mind as the contractions come again. Another image of thick woods, the soft rustle of small animals hidden from view, the call of a raven hidden within the shadowed canopy. She shudders at another darker memory. The call is stronger.
There is a few moments of hesitance. where she thinks of Taiga which is much closer. It’s mist, fog, and strange giant trees. No. That’s not where she needs to be. The Forest.” Her contractions intensify and without a second thought, the star is in the sky.
By the time she lands on the outskirts where the meadow merges into forest, a thick layer of sweat clings to her ravaged coat and there is strain in her face. Ethereal light sluices through her scars as the pain becomes evident in the stars shooting across her silver gaze, twisting her features as she winces and pants. There is an urge and she follows it, moving as quickly as she can (still graceful, her red stars prominent in the now oncoming darkness) into the cool shadows of the trees. Blinded by the discomfort, it is instinct and that strange beckoning call that finds her eventually sinking to the damp earth beneath her without realizing just how far into the forest she had gotten.
Had it always been this painful, the first time? It’s hard to remember. Her stars darken as the child begins to force itself into the world. For a second, she thinks more stars have fallen to her as company and support. Then she realizes, in a strange hazy world of pain and confusion, that it’s not stars but eyes. Many eyes that watch silently overhead from the branches. Ravens, like from the Underneath. They do not attack her, do not graze their claws over the many wounds she still carries from them. They simply watch, silent guardians. Fear clouds the silver of her gaze but she cannot focus on them, not when her foal is adamant on its arrival.
There is a sharp cry that escapes from her that should send the birds flying overhead. They do not. Instead they stay, watching and waiting, for what they had come for.
-- Ciri