[private] i see fire; ruan/birthing

[Reagan]

heaven above me, take my hand
shine until there’s nothing left but you

 
He still had no idea.
 
His world, shrouded in darkness, and the little light he had had been snuffed out by the one anchor that he thought he could ground himself to in the time of the worst storm of his life. Impatient, that anchor had set sail for calmer waters… and was unsure how to get back to the safe harbor of their love. Their relationship. She wasn’t sure she could navigate his heart any longer.
 
Or if she wanted to.
 
And yet, as she pulled herself away from the rest of them—having left the Taiga for a darker part of the forest—she felt the quickening. She had said nothing as she took what was left of her dignity and had surrounded the borders of her home. She would continue to defend and protect it as its Alpha, from the outside. She would continue to love Ruan, until the end of time, even if her poor heart was confused about what she wanted. There was the new stranger; Aleksander. So calm and so patient, and beautiful. And then the way her heart beat for her black wolf. That thundering that would never abate.
 
She had known that he had approached—she would have been a fool not to have noticed, as it was her magic that had given him his abilities—and she tried pointedly to ignore the way her ears sounded with the thudding in her heart and brain. Even when he was angry, he was magnificient. Her wolf.
 
The father of her children.
 
Her child.
 
The one he did not know existed. At least not yet.
 
And so, in the places where the brush is thickest, there lays the den that she and Ru have birthed all their children. He may not love her anymore, and he may have banished her from their home, but this child would be born of love in the same way as her brothers and sister were. She would be born at the family den.
 
Reagan reaches it just with enough time. She casts a spell of protection, just as is tradition. The only one that could enter, if they so chose, was Ruan. The last person who would be here. The las one who would care.
 
The old grey mare has done this a fair few times in her life. But this is the first time she has ever given birth with a broken heart. And as she lays down, she feels her chest muscles ripping apart as she cries out her pain. Alone, and broken, she lays there in a pool of her own blood, throwing back her tail and pushing, to no avail. Covered in a lather of sweat, , she looks downward, straining to see.
 
The baby is breech.
 
She screams aloud, and hangs her head, sobbing as she continues to push, feeling her insides ripping from her. She is in pain, and exhausted.
 
And more alone than she has been in her entire life. As the haze in her eyes brings the blackness, Reagan feels the dizziness overtaking her as an audible crash sounds—her body has rejected the baby, and she is bleeding out.
 
The last image Reagan sees before she passes out is Ruan. And she wonders what Ruan would have thought of the little girl inside her. If they had both survived.