[private] at the foot of this mountain i see only clouds; obscene

[Obscene]

I can see through you, see your true colors
Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me

No matter how much she tries to soothe him, he cannot be calmed. She tries to reassure him (even thanks him) and he grimaces but not because of her. No, it's because he doesn’t deserve her thank you’s. Not when she’s only in this position because of him. His need. His selfish desire to covet her when he was unable to give her anything more than lust. She searches his eyes and he wonders what she sees there. If his guilt is written all over his face. Her voice is soft but there is no mistaking the apology and he is quick to try and cut her off. “Don’t.” He says hoarsely, his word sharper than he had intended. She continues anyway and he would shake his head but he doesn’t want to remove the flow of healing that radiates from their connection. “You have nothing to apologize for.” He finally says through a clenched jaw, sounding angrier than he wanted but unable to hide the rolling waves of his emotion.

It’s not her that should be apologizing. It’s not her he is angry at.

There had been a mare once he had found in the forest, close to death after childbirth. He was still discovering his powers when he had brought her back from the brink, something that had taken all his energy and left him shaking afterwards. This is different, the child isn’t already here and her pain is his creation. This child is theirs. So it takes something else from him this time, more than the golden light that he emits when he touches her and tries to ease her contractions. The wild blue of her eyes becomes hazy the further it carries on and for a moment he wonders if he has enough power in him to keep her here if she starts to fade.

When she can no longer stand, he slowly falls with her. Doing his best to support her body so it doesn’t crash to the grass below. Never before has he felt so helpless, even more so than when he was merely mortal. All he can do is thrust that golden light beneath her skin when her eyes glaze over, when she kicks out in pain, when she groans with frustration.

And then something magical happens, a sort of magic he has never witnessed before.

Despite all the ugliness of childbirth, there is a rare and raw moment of beauty. The foal slips from her and he hears it before he scents it, before she grows quiet and still. The night is still unrelenting in its darkness but then Light comes, as if the Wisp had been waiting all along for just the right moment. The glowing orb shines over them all, giving them just enough brightness for them to both look at what they had created from their storm. He is still as she whispers and he says nothing because she is right. He glances down at her as she looks up at him, sees that feeling in her eyes, and loosens a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. His nerves are still jumbled up inside of him, mixed with the slithering of the snake that seems confused on how to proceed.

She reaches for the child and he can see him better now, this child of dark and light. A son. He is silent as she cleans him, as instinct comes naturally for her, and he can’t help but try to remember if Tantalize and Offspring had looked at him like this when he had been born. He swallows hard as he tries to reach for the vague memory that’s just out of reach, as he looks at the perfect blend of stars and gold and black. Just as he had looked like his father, this colt looks rather like him. That lump in his throat remains firmly stuck, because he doesn’t want to fail him, doesn’t want the past to repeat itself.

For the second time, just as he had done with Cheri, he takes off another piece of his armor and lays it to the side. When he had done it for Cheri, he had done so willingly. A choice. But this… This is something that he just feels he needs to do. There is no choice to make, only the rightness of correcting a long overdue wrong. The hard lines of his face soften slightly and he offers the colt a rather uncertain crooked smile when the boy finally looks at him from the warm safety of his mother. He is drawn back to her as she offers a name and he can’t deny that he is touched by how she honors him in such a choice. “Obsidio.” He rumbles the name back in agreement, still in a state of shock and disarray at how quickly this night had turned. That he was a father. That he had a son. “How many more storms shall we weather?” He asks her with a surprised laugh, the red of his eyes suddenly brightening with a sensation he’s not sure he’s ever felt before.

He thinks it might be joy.

He cannot miss the affection she carries, however discreetly, in her gaze and he returns it with a soft caress of his muzzle to hers. And then something changes in the air as he recognizes the pain in her eyes and that joy doesn’t last for long as she flattens back out and he wonders if he should move the boy in case she starts kicking again. There’s no time to truly think and in the end the colt stays by his mother as he presses more golden light into the mare, pushing past his tiredness and the feeling of depletion that was slowly creeping over him. And then he finds it. “Another one?” He says aloud in both agitation and surprise. Two. There were two.

obscene

@revelrie