She took to his rough care as if she were made for it. The tiny velvet nose exploring his ripped skin and solid bone was a persistent heat determined to thaw the ice in his stern expression. And it was working. Even her tickling little snuffles at discovering his rusted blood were melting him gradually, watching how she didn't balk or turn away and instead how she took so much interest in this monster she should hate.
He was completely won over to her by the time she found his stars settled in the corner of his mouth. She pushed at it, nuzzling so insistently as her little tail flipped happily. She liked them and somehow that was deeply pleasing to him. The soft smile that stretched that spot of star-flecked blue was hesitant and helpless until it ended as an involuntary grin and he nuzzled her back, nudging the hollow between her nostril and cheek almost playfully in his rough way, huffing a smiling breath over her.
Luster groaned again and his attention snapped to her, black eyes sharp and watchful as her legs made their paths into the earth, tensed with all her beautiful strength as her belly squeezed and she pushed. It must have hurt so bad. He couldn't even imagine. He knew what it felt like for bone shards to thrust forcefully out of his body, but nothing comparable to bringing new life into the world.
He only knew how to take it.
Her struggle upset him and he quickly shifted closer, reaching over the small, dark girl to drag her helplessly with him, tucking her in close with a firm touch. Luster reached for him blindly and he met her with the side of his nose, brushing against her in reassurance and hating that he couldn't protect her from this, couldn't strike down this pain as swiftly and easily as he had so many lives.
"I'm here," he whispered, his voice soft and tight with concern. "You're alright, you're almost done. I've got you, love."
Love. He'd always called her that and it slipped as easily from his lips now as it always had. He pulled back, subtly more guarded because he shouldn't speak to her that way. She belonged to someone else, it would seem, and perhaps so did he. Her youngest spilled with a last powerful heave then, Dovev's eyes still on her weary, beautiful face. She must have been exhausted but she pushed herself up anyway, turned to the little colt to clean him as attentively as she had for the girl.
The crooning sound of Luster's voice demanded his attention though. After sneaking a quiet nuzzle to the sleeping girl against him he settled black eyes on the child winning her pleasure that way.
He froze.
And he couldn't look away. Couldn't breathe.
The boy was a dark, steel blue over his hips and shoulders where his baby fur couldn't completely disguise the roan underneath, damp and nearly as black as his father. And there was no denying that anymore, not with the soft galaxy blending in with pitch black, outlined in a gradient of white slivers where some edges of his secret tobiano lit brightly and faded into a smattering of celestial stars.
"I love you, baby," she told their baby boy. God, how was that even possible? Their kids. His. How could it not be though with his daughter's endless velvety black eyes and hidden armor of light, the boy's darkness and stars and that wicked little glint in brown eyes that finally turned to him as if his gaze held a natural dare in them.
Each of them was a perfect melding of their parents. The best pieces of Luster and the best pieces of him shared between the two newborn foals. His eyes on this one, her eyes on that one. His color here, her color there, mixing all together into a beautiful, impossible family from a dream.
"They're gorgeous," he murmured in contented awe. How could this even be real? The only time he'd slept with her was... not even real, right? But it must have been somehow. He frowned. But... If that actually happened?
He watched in tense silence as she coaxed the babies to their feet. Theirs. His mind was reeling, replaying the familiar dream he'd relived in his mind a number of times - never while he was with Violence in case she might see too much, and not since he'd gone too far with Heartfire.
But he'd asked her to marry him. Luster.
Fucking crazy, right? Him, married?
He tried so hard to push it back and bury it down deep as he stood, reaching down to assist his dark little daughter. He didn't want to hate himself even more, but he already knew he had every reason to. Even more reason now. He'd abandoned her as if she'd been a damn dream, a goddamn fantasy as if all his aching for her was nothing more than his stupidity for falling in love with someone that probably didn't even exist.
Now she was here, he was here, everything was real. And he wasn't able to step back into that fantasy. He belonged to her sister, he thought. Possibly. He never really knew with Heartfire, but at least on his end, he was trying. But it was mixed up and confused, because if this was the reality, then he belonged to Luster. Really belonged to her as he never had. But he couldn't.
He sharpened his focus onto the here and now, onto their precious babies and their gorgeous momma. He would think it through later. His other twins had barely been born too, and he would need to return to them soon. To Heartfire. To try and hopefully catch even a little bit of sleep before what would certainly be a long, confusing day.
"I don't understand why it happened, or how it's even possible, but I'm glad it was you."
He nodded silently, stiffly, his face still tight with confusion and a racing mind, processing everything slowly and frantically, every little thing between them he'd so unknowingly fucked up as if she didn't matter to him when she did. She mattered so much. But he had nothing to show for it. Only mistakes and poor outcomes, everything that showed her the opposite, and he had no way to set it right.
Once again he was trapped by his cataclysmic existence into harming those closest to him as deeply as possible.
we're slaves to any semblance of touch
Lord, we should quit but we love it too much
