this world is brighter than the sun; dempsey

[Oksana]

you taught me the courage of the stars before you left

how light carries on endlessly, even after death

It isn’t that she is surprised when he answers an unasked question- she had known he had heard it as soon as it fluttered to the front of her thoughts, but she was surprised to find it did not bother her as much as it had that first night. It was true that she was used to her thoughts being private, being her own, but it did not feel like a violation when he caught this thought before it faded into nothingness. Maybe it was because he had seen her at her worst, known her in the instant she was most vulnerable with a heart mangled beyond recognition. He had known her then and he had not minded, had not twisted that knife even deeper into her chest. And in knowing her, even then, even in that darkness, he had given her Isle and Wyck.

He winks and she can feel a smile tightening the corners of her mouth. It isn’t for the first time that she feels grateful for his levity, for the way he refuses to acknowledge her need to dwell on unchangeable things, impossible worries. When he speaks she does not bother to say anything back, he would already know how she felt by the fervor of her earlier thoughts.

When his attention shifts back to their children, their children, so does hers. But when he turns back to her again and his mouth is against her ear, his words crumble the world around them. Suddenly there is a hook in her belly, an anchor, and it’s pulling her dangerously close to that place again, the dark place, the place Dempsey was so nonchalantly adept at pulling her out of. Dismay threatens to spill out over the red of her delicate face but she conceals it carefully, burying it in a place she hopes Wyck will never find. “Broken.” She whispers before she even realizes she has said it aloud, and the word crushes her. There was nothing in this world or the next more perfect than her children. Nothing.

Her eyes return to their children curled together beneath the feather and sinew of her overly large wing. “Different is good, love.” And when Wyck disentangles himself from his sisters embrace to butt his head against her side she can feel her thoughts, thoughts of love and pride and belonging (strong but so universal she isn’t sure Dempsey will have anything tangible to grasp, anything individual), consume her. His ears wiggle and his mouth curves, those soulful eyes widening pointedly. None if it is wasted on her. An identical smile appears on her mouth as she flicks her ears and widens her eyes too. “Yes, Wyck,” she says and she laughs (and it’s the most genuine laugh she has shared in a long while), “I hear you, love.” She reaches out to him, brushing his forelock aside to leave a kiss on his forehead.

When Dempsey speaks she almost misses it, she’s far too wrapped up in watching the way the twins twine together and smile. The way their tiny ears flick back and forth, and those delicate noses flare at all the new smells. She loves their knobby knees and impossibly small feet, the way their manes are tufts of color and their tails just a puff of curls. They’re so perfect, so perfect, and it’s hard in this moment to notice anything else. Except Dempsey. Because in him being there with them, in the way he smiles and touches them, the way he makes them titter and groan, it amplifies the contentment fluttering on wings in her stomach. This is all she has ever wanted, this family, this moment, and it will be a moment (a memory) that sustains her in the darkest periods of her lonely forever. But she does catch his words, just barely, and she groans conspiratorially and swats at him with the tip of her wing. “Oh, but your father isn't nearly as clever as he thinks he is.”

oksana