05-04-2016, 12:37 AM
"we pull apart the darkness while we can"
Her breath catches in a grunt as another contraction ripples through the sinew and muscle beneath her bright blue skin, but still she says nothing. There is no one here to call out to. Her family no longer names the Chamber as their home, and she is not a creature designed to make and keep friends. She is strange and she is volatile, all sharp edges meant to hide the things that live within. But this life is a tangle of things that do not make sense. Feelings she cannot (will not) unravel, truths she denies because ignorance is easier. She would have Killdare here if she could choose it, but how, when she cares as she does, could she choose such a thing. There have been many times where they have spoken of Dacia, and she can see even without his words to reaffirm her quiet conclusions, how deeply he loves her, how desperately he does not want to lose her. And even though she thinks she can see a little of the same when he looks at her, when he touches the blue of her neck and she folds reflexively into the curve of his chest, it is what she cannot see that holds her quietly at bay. There is no room in this puzzle for her. His doubt would not exist if there had been no seed of uncertainty planted.
How could she bear to wound him, how, when she would readily cut down those who tried. How, when he had carved out a place beside her heart and she found she liked the weight of him in her chest.
Another handful of contractions race to greet her and she tenses with a groan, stretched so that her cheek is pressed damp against the dirt and moss of the shadowed forest floor. She pushes and pushes again, a slave to the impulses of her sweating, exhausted body until at last the contractions have gone and there is a small, perfect silhouette laying still beside her. With a quiet whicker on her lips, she twists to nose the filly, urgent until the child stirs and she can see the rise and fall of her tiny ribcage. She rises carefully then, steady on her legs as already her body works to heal and regenerate. With a tender gracefulness that does not match the rippling coils of muscle beneath the blue of her skin or the pointed obsidian horns springing from her forehead, she steps forward to draw her tongue across skin that is cool and damp and the same rich brown of her father. She does this until the child is clean, until the blue and the brown are free and visible, until she has stolen some of the dampness so that this perfect creature will not freeze when spring touches her flesh.
She shifts again, tired on her feet, tracing her mouth across this girls bare forehead until her little face lifts to lip soundlessly at Malis’ cheek. Already some of the softness fades from Malis, some of that easy quiet, and it is replaced with a sort of feral possessiveness as she glances around them with eyes like raw emeralds plucked from the earth. It is many long moments before the instinct fades and she remembers herself, remembers whose kingdom in which she resides, under whose protection she remains. Killdare can be trusted. Even hidden away at the edge of the kingdom as she is, she is certain he would let no harm come to her, to their child. Certain that the beast who looked both horse and goat and devil would not find her here. But when he had split open her skin, he had buried doubt in the crevices to let it grow and fester.
And still-
Killdare can be trusted.
With a brow furrowed with quiet uncertainty, Malis returned to nosing her daughter, touching her cheek and her shoulder and her flank until at last the delicate girl clambered to her feet to nurse. Satisfied, the quiet blue mare returned to drying her child, her heart tightening at the way the brown dapples of her body melted into brilliant blue points. “Victra.” She breathed finally, nosing the small pair of dark leather wings folded against those narrow withers. And then she is quiet again, still, when the filly turns to nestle gracelessly against the warmth of her mother.
MALIS
makai x oksana