This ancient and insane theater,
(Blood follows her like a snail’s trail, slick down her thighs, on the pine needles; shadows press against the viscera inside, and from within that rib-hall, rattles the muscular walls). Another contraction takes her, and the red woman falls to one knee, pressing her flared nostrils to the earth and exhaling.
She is not worth it. Not slick in a cloak of shade; not like her sire, penumbral and strange.
She is small and wet, shaking with the new use of her muscles. Terribly pathetic and hapless, For a long time Aurane watches the newborn squirm for something warm to touch, slick and piteous. Then the red-bay mare expels the last of her nurturing cave on the dirt, and stands up slowly.
Her ears tuck back against her skull, from the piny grey comes a wail... and a scent...
(Wind holds onto a tangle, flapping bonelessly behind her head. ‘I didn’t see her…’ and then he releases his grip and is gone). “Get. Up.” She whispers, it snaps with spittle on her lip and she whips her head around like a snake. “Up.” The blue filly is on her belly, peering shakily from her membrane clothes. Aurane closes in on her, stepping over her birthing feast, and gives a rough shove to the girl’s bony shoulder.
Instinct, fomenting the girl’s need to try and get to her spindly legs. And she does, gingerly placing her soft hooves on the damp ground...
Over the ridge of spikes, the sun is bleeding orange, lighting the way with purple shade.
(What is she doing here?)
“I don’t know.”
Over roots and pools of icy meltwater, Lilin stumbles. Her large brown eyes fixed on Her – she disappears for a moment behind the body of a tree, and the little girl furrows her brow, a tear following the path of others down her cheek and throat. And then she sparks back and the girl’s heart thumps against her chest walls, a smile creasing her soft, black lips. She is too fast…
Aurane stops, breathing hard and lipping the air for scent. “Are you following me, Crone?” It echoes back to her from all sides. The smell is strong, overpoweringly familiar. A long time has separated her last whiff of that bitch and now, but it still pulls on something ever incensed in her core. “What are you even doing here, mother?” The red woman tracks like a bloodhound; the epicenter is close, burning a hole in the green darkness around.
There is blood. A lot of blood, telling the tale of a struggle in the dragging and splattering. Aurane peers down at it with flat, black eyes, following the smears of violence. Tucked into the folds of bloodshed is a small cut of flesh, almost camouflaged against the dark mat of pine needles and predawn. Aurane’s ears level back, filling with a throng of hums and screams, a mighty swell of unbearable noise. (Take out the pretender!) She moves to it, black and shiny and small. (Why would she leave it here?)
She places a hoof on his pumping ribcage, well defined and inviting under his skin, and presses down to feel the soft springiness of it. “Where is mother?” She applies pressure, watching him intently. He raises his head, turning out of shadow, and revealing an eyeless socket. “Oh...”
Rustling loose from the underbrush, the filly stumbles into the black colt, sucking in breath. “Away!” Aurane pushes the girl to the side, moving around to examine her brother's unfortunate face. Gaping holes, black and strangely leathery looking, where eyes should blink from.
“Well now, brother. Come. Up.”
They follow at her shoulders, the blue girl and the black, eyeless boy. She brings them from the jagged forest, into the soft new light of morning. They are utterly new, shaky on their impossibly long legs. She turns to them, head tilting and blinking.
(The black boy yawns open his mouth, revealing vicious, predator's dentition. He leaps at the filly with unnatural agility, sinking into her throat and holding. Holding until her tongue lolls from her mouth and the hint of life runs from her eyes. He drags her, muscles incompatible with his baby form ripple under his coat, and places his kill beside a larger, bay body.)
Aurane smiles, touching his face with her lips, whuffing softly on his cheek.
Two babies makes for one convoluted birthing post. Sooorrry. The TL;DR is like the last part though.
lines and shading
by bronzehalo
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