07-29-2018, 03:44 PM
The last shell I place is large and pale, a conch half-cracked to expose the soft pink heart. It balances easily on the top of the pile, the centerpiece. I take a step back to take in my handiwork, but despite the hours of effort it had taken there is no warm glow of satisfaction at its completion.
A mound of sand at the mouth of the river, moved by gentle hooves until it covered the tiny body completely. There was no sign of the birth, of the buckskin colt that I had labored over for hours, who had never even taken a breath. He had looked just like his father. Just like Arthas.
All those months of fear that the foal I carried was not his, and I had never thought to fear this.
I'd felt him moving yesterday. I'd swear it. Just a few little taps (nothing like the internal battering when he'd discovered his feet), but something. Something.
There's nothing now. Just a little lump of sand and some shells. The nightfall creeps up without my even noticing. The ocean has grown black, and the shoreline is barely discernible in the light of the crescent moon. Below me, there is a painful and swollen reminder that I do not have a child to nurse. The physical pain is somehow less than the darkness that roils around me, and I do my best to focus on that instead of my thoughts. I turn south, unsure of where I am even going. It doesn't take long for me to catch up with the other creature that takes the trail back to Loess, though I hadn't even been aware I was follwoing someone until I raise my head.
There, not a dozen yards ahead of me.
A buckskin colt, a newborn, wet and spike-haired in the dim light.
His mother is not nearby, there is no doubt of that. He is far too small to be alone, and I glance at his hollow sides and breathe in the smell of salt and sea on his yellow coat. "Wait up," I call to him. I am banking on the fact that he is too young to be anything more than instinctive. He is hungry and I offer readily available food. Children have no memory of their births, and there is no reason for him - for anyone - to think that I was not the one who birthed this green-eyed colt minutes earlier.
ooc: lepis: dibs, basically lol
A mound of sand at the mouth of the river, moved by gentle hooves until it covered the tiny body completely. There was no sign of the birth, of the buckskin colt that I had labored over for hours, who had never even taken a breath. He had looked just like his father. Just like Arthas.
All those months of fear that the foal I carried was not his, and I had never thought to fear this.
I'd felt him moving yesterday. I'd swear it. Just a few little taps (nothing like the internal battering when he'd discovered his feet), but something. Something.
There's nothing now. Just a little lump of sand and some shells. The nightfall creeps up without my even noticing. The ocean has grown black, and the shoreline is barely discernible in the light of the crescent moon. Below me, there is a painful and swollen reminder that I do not have a child to nurse. The physical pain is somehow less than the darkness that roils around me, and I do my best to focus on that instead of my thoughts. I turn south, unsure of where I am even going. It doesn't take long for me to catch up with the other creature that takes the trail back to Loess, though I hadn't even been aware I was follwoing someone until I raise my head.
There, not a dozen yards ahead of me.
A buckskin colt, a newborn, wet and spike-haired in the dim light.
His mother is not nearby, there is no doubt of that. He is far too small to be alone, and I glance at his hollow sides and breathe in the smell of salt and sea on his yellow coat. "Wait up," I call to him. I am banking on the fact that he is too young to be anything more than instinctive. He is hungry and I offer readily available food. Children have no memory of their births, and there is no reason for him - for anyone - to think that I was not the one who birthed this green-eyed colt minutes earlier.
ooc: lepis: dibs, basically lol
