He had told her to run. He had told her that he would break her heart, but still she stayed. Still, she stayed until she waxed fatter than the full moon, full with child, and mother’s milk. She stayed, but he did not return. So, she slipped into the oblivion that is Mourning Mountains, into fog, into the jagged, toothy conifers.
Liselle was there.
Her daughter had grown strong, and beautiful. They had embraced, and laughed, and Locklyn had cried secretly as Liselle slept. For a time it was as if Liselle was just a small filly again, there shrouded in shifting fog - the two of them, alone.
When the twins came, Liselle hummed the lullabies that her mother had taught her, and Locklyn pulled them all close. But, she often wondered over Barret, just as her young heart had once wondered over Atrox. Their faces melded together in her dreams, until she couldn’t tell one from another. She caught herself staring up at stars that way He once had, and just as her mother once had studied spider webs.
He had told her not to fall in love with him, and yet a part of her had. She had not meant to.
She finds herself returning to the Meadow to find that part of her again when Liselle leaves to return to her own path. The twins cling to Locklyn as she guides them into a world beyond the mountain fog. Magdalena is the more daring of the two. She scampers over rocks, and explores every inch of her surroundings. Coatl is stoic, and stalwart, always watching over his sister.They never stray from each other.
Locklyn remembers the night they were conceived. She remembers stars, and smoke, and ash. She remembers Barret, and all his brokenness come to rest upon her. She had done her best to pretend to be an island, when she was no more than a stone within a raging ocean. She looks at her children, and she sees him in their faces. She sees herself sinking down, down, into the depths. Without them she would be gone - lost at sea forever.
They give her life. They give her breath. So, she gives them everything she has left.
She does not know what she expects to find here. Perhaps, memories laid to rest beneath the Meadow grass. Perhaps, one last breath of the smoke from His pyre. She wanders the familiar, well worn trails, while Magdalena hums, and Coatl eyes the treeline warily.
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l o c k l y n
belgarath x laiken |
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@[Barret]
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