peel away the layers till you're nothing and no one; birthing, potion, wicked

[Kirke]

peel away the layers till you're nothing and no one

God she’s still so tired. But the children need her.

Her eyes flicker open, seeking out the three tiny purple bundles at her side … except there’s nothing in her line of vision. Her head pops up, not panicked yet, assuming, reasonably, that the triplets must have tried standing and walking, and changed places.

But there’s nothing there.

The triplets are gone.

She’s up in an instant, heart in her throat. “Children?” There’s a smell in the air that she recognizes, a smell she hadn’t picked up on immediately …

Potion.

Panic begins to set in. She circles the clearing in which she’d given birth, seeking out a scent trail … and there it is. Potion’s scent, leading off into the trees, followed by the scents of three little children. “POTION!” 

Panic makes her frantic and she sets off along the scent trail, tracking the path her sister and children had taken. She moves as fast as the thick foliage and her spent body will allow, but, an hour later, with her body weakening and the scent of the quartet fading, she has to admit to her failure. There’s no way she’ll catch up. Potion and the triplets had too much of a head start.

They’re gone.

Tears wink at the corners of her brown eyes and she slumps back against an old oak. She should have seen it, should have known. She’d seen the way Potion had eyed her belly when they’d run into each other in the meadow, had known the debt they would think she owed them. And now she and her children have paid the price.

But as she stands there, leaning against the oak, something more than sadness begins to build in her heart. Rage, pure, white hot rage. They’d already taken everything from her, taken her childhood, taken her innocence …

She’d done everything for them, had killed her own mother for them. And now they take her children from her?!

She will make them pay.

kirke