the courage of stars; larisa, makai

[Oksana]

you taught me the courage of the stars before you left

how light carries on endlessly, even after death

She had known the moment when it came, like so many before it. A tightening in her stomach, in her heart, a smile etched gracefully across a red whiskered mouth. She knew this pain, this anticipation, this glory like an old friend.

It was time to be a mother again.

There was nothing special about the spot she picked, nothing special save for the dark as night stallion who kept his distance in the nearest shadows. She had spent the day fretting quietly at his side, her face pressed to the curve of his shoulder and his mouth tasting the sweat darkening her neck. But as soon as the contractions had come closer, like ripples around a stone dropped in a pond, she had pushed him away. This effort was nothing she needed him to see.

It didn’t take long after her legs had buckled beneath her until a second shape had joined her in the crush of soft emerald grass. The child was small, so impossibly small as they always seemed to be, and her skin was the most beautiful brown and white Oksana had ever seen. But it made her think of Malis, that same mottled brown and white, their first – and oh, how they had let her down. It would be different this time, though. Oksana could feel that hope like a vow in her chest, breaking bones and spilling marrow.

For a second she tore her tired emerald eyes from the delicate filly nestled at her belly and traced the shadow within a shadow, the shape she knew to be Makai. It felt impossible that her heart could ache any more than it already did, but in that moment she felt it explode with warmth and pleasure and all the things that for once felt right in her strange world.

Turning back to the girl, to their beautiful, perfect daughter, she stretched her downy wings wide to block to the chill in the air. “Larisa.” She breathed, her mouth pressed possessively against the damp brown and white of her skin. “My beautiful Larisa.”

oksana