When she comes home from the battle grounds, she is victorious in more ways than one.
The land splits open before her, the hill she stands on racing down into the bowl-like heart of the kingdom. The wind pulls at her mane and tail, a southerly gale that urges her to follow the spill of green and return to everything she cherishes. Because somewhere down there, her son waits with his questioning eyes. She knows she has a lot to answer for (so much that she wonders how many sunrises and sunsets will come to pass before she’s through with her truths). She knows that he will worry for her if she tells them all. She knows that he will worry more if she keeps them behind pressed lips any longer.
She also knows that he will accept her, faults and all, because she is his mother.
Still, the weight is not any easier to bear.
Talulah finally moves her feet and meets his gaze and spills her truths. And when she is at least free of them, she can feel the freedom, everywhere and all at once. Her legs loosen with the knowledge that they won’t be running – not for a long while, because here is the pause she’s waited for. Her lungs fill more readily, effectively; her breaths are no longer stunted by all the words she’s unwittingly held back. And her heart seems to slow to a pace that is nearly as untroubled as her unbridled youth. She swears it sings when Ramiel doesn’t turn her away.
And then the unimaginable happens.
Her angel comes home. Tiphon’s light is fleeting and hesitating, but she spies it in the fall. He is there soon after, real, guiding, magnificent; she does not turn him away.
Now, the familiar pains are a welcome sign. Talulah finds the same place she’d birthed Ramiel – a high spot between the shelter of pines overlooking the river below – and falls to the ground. The pain is severe this time, as if Lupei’s white-fire has followed and cursed her long after the end of their challenge. She grits her teeth and sets her jaw. It is nothing less than she deserves, nothing less than she’s earned after the last half a dozen years. Finally, when she wonders if this child will be her end (after everything else she’s been through, how could something so pure drain her?), it slips from her.
It, she thinks, recoiling at the sight of the foal. What have I done? The monster flails under its cloak of afterbirth, desperate for its first taste of air. And for a second, the metal-mare thinks she won’t provide it. How easy it would be to leave it here, looking for all the world like the mistake it must be. She closes her eyes once, twice. Life, death. Then she works furiously to clean the undead child. Her body shakes and she’s not sure if it’s lingering birth-pains or repulsion for the nearness of her own foal.
t a l u l a h
metal woman of the dale