i never said that i would be your lover
i never said that i would be your friend
i never said that i would take no other
Further down the canyon stones clatter but she recognizes the sound reluctantly, not moving at all from her sorrow or her place wedged up against the bleached trunk. Pangea is a place of darkness, secrets and perhaps even monsters. She should be afraid for herself in a land gone all the more lawless with its Lord dead, especially when that place is Pangea, but she just doesn’t care. Not for herself, not for the child heavy and restless in her belly. All the pain she has kept carefully to herself is roaring in her ears, tingling in her teeth, and forcing the air from her lungs before she can capture oxygen. All the while his face is there behind her eyes: silver snowflakes catching starlight... flickering to the blood on his lips when he last said her name; the joy in every fiber of his being when he met his daughter... becoming a lion screaming silence into her throat so that her strangled wails turn into ragged gasps.
If he had taken the cure for himself she would have been glad of it. If he had given it instead to one of their children she would still be mourning, but the bitter, cloying flavor of guilt would not accompany the grief. The last time she had seen him he had sired this child and then she had sent him away, or so it had seemed. Really she only meant to tell him she did not want to hold him back from the life he was building, that she didn’t expect him to come running back to her anymore. She hadn’t said those words though, only left him thinking she didn’t still want him more than any other thing in this world. Or that is what she assumes when she replays the moment and wishes she had at least watched him go.
Kensa’s head is hanging when the ghostly stallion stumbles into the sand opposite her, in her tear filled eyes he swims like a spectre his movements stretched and compressed, glittering. His voice is tight when he says her name. He says her name. Her dark lashes flutter, eyes stinging as she lifts her head, nostrils flaring as she struggles to catch her breath. “Lie?" Her topaz eyes ring with white, and her pale hooves shift anxiously because she knows she should not believe. He cannot be here and yet she cannot close her eyes to the image, she needs to fill up on him even if its a lie. She was wrong before… even just a tiny piece of him is suddenly all she’s ever desired.
The discovery that he is real is far more overwhelming.
He splashes through the water and flies towards her and she can’t even catch her bearings enough to react beyond tossing her head before he is there, pressing his face to hers in a gesture so familiar that she whimpers. Oh, fuck… he says and she laughs, hysteria gripping her. He is real, solid, himself. “You. Its you.” Her face is wet and she presses her cheek to his. A moment later drawing back to press her forehead to his, every breath catching in her tight throat. He says her name again, then again, and it is like he has given it to her, like it’s the first time she’s heard it in her life and it is beautiful. Kensa is sobbing still, and the pain has not subsided but twists around her like a serpent, her chest is a too-small cage for her frantic heard.
“No” A pant, still unable to catch her breath, clenching her teeth against the cry that has curled up in her throat. “Never.” Whispers, all she can manage as she tries to gain mastery over herself enough to tell him everything she was supposed to if this impossible moment ever came.
Instead she gasps as the coils tighten and fear dilates her pupils, her eyes too bright. ”Litotes." Its not too early, but so much is wrong. This isn’t her place, she isn’t ready. Her water breaks, her shocked body heedless of her fear. Kensa shifts frantically, light from above flashing over the gold veins in her hide as she sidesteps and then drops to the ground almost before she can decide to do so. This is only the third time, but it is happening more quickly than before, too quickly for her to make sense of it. She tries to rise again, front legs striking out but they don’t support her and the sabino squeals anxiously. A sweat breaks over her skin as she forgets herself, forgets he is really here. “Stay with me, please stay.” The words are broken by panic and pain as her rebelling body brings forth his son.
“I love you." She has to say it, afraid for some reason that she won’t get to say it again, irrational with pain. Somehow telling him the things she has wanted to without meaning to, or understanding that she has.
When the boy is born into Pangea, his mother lies flat with glassy eyes and her shallow breaths gently stir the dust near her dirty, tear streaked, and sweat darkened face.
[litotes]
