The silence is unbearable. Eyes dance around searching for reactions while ears attentively swivel. Cerva, and even Atrani, doesn’t have to look up to see the guilt washing across Dovev’s face. The disappointment radiates from him and electrifies the couple while they lie on the ground curled into one aother. Atrani, muted by her confusion, lifts her chin and blindly scopes the area around them. Betrayal, hurt, defeat – these must all be the norm in this new world. Is there no happiness when a newborn is in their wake? A snort quivers her nostrils from having drunken their scents, mixed with the copious number of noisome flowers. Reassuringly (emptily), Cerva reaches for the child and glides her muzzle down her neck, feeling the feeble muscles and wisps of mane for the first time. Despite how destroyed her heart is, she smiles and closes her eyes.
”Atrani,” she whispers her daughter’s name, but it goes unanswered except for a hollow glance. Weak, still bleeding, Cerva forces herself away from the newborn and rests her head on the cool ground. The tall grass fingers through her mane and for a fleeting moment, Cerva is able to reflect on her childhood when there was not a single care in the world. There had only been family and home. When she opens her eyes, however, she remembers that she has long left her world of fantasy. Her life has been grim and much darker than what she envisioned herself. Amid the turbulence there was at least sprinkles of laughter and joy, but none of it ever lasted. She should have known that it wouldn’t.
Dovev reaches down to guide Atrani to her legs and into his chest. She obliges, knowing not what else she could do but follow and obey. Her velvety lips grope for his warmth where she finds the point of his shoulder and cradles it for a heartbeat before stepping away to simply be her own self and not an image melted into her parents. Her petite head jerks suddenly when she hears mother’s voice, memorizing it as best she can. ”I loved you, Dovev,” the confession is almost as unbearable as the silence that had preluded this, ”and you left me like everyone else.” She should have known she wouldn’t be enough; she has never been for anyone or anything. ”May she be a reminder of what you put me through, of the months that you never came back to me.” She pauses to lift up her head and stare into his hooded eyes. ”May she remind you of what you were when I found you.” Lost, weak, and ignorant. He had been a boy then, but that time has long since passed. He has found company – love – in others, and she cannot bring herself to fathom it all.
Broken and exhausted, she curls and exhales deeply as her mind reels with memories, almost forgetting her own newborn who stands separated from the others with searching, hollow sockets. ”A reminder,” the child says to no one, latching onto the things mother has thus far emphasized, ”of evil.”
Cerva