"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Anaxarete did not particularly care for pregnancy. She had honed her abilities to a point where she no longer felt possessed to incubate her children naturally, but with these children she had elected to keep them close. After all was said and done - the shadowmare still possessed some sense of sentiment. Perhaps it was little more than paranoia. After what had happened to Kensley she was unwilling to take undue risks, even though she would like to see anyone try to harm her children. She would make certain it was the last thing they’d ever do. Even though she may appear a hard, absent parent - she still possessed a strong maternal instinct. And this instinct was not just restricted to those that shared her blood, as evidenced by the robust youth population of Pangea.
She had many children over the years, but she had felt a connection with these children the moment she had felt them quickening in the womb. She could sense the mixture of blood and magic and power - the blend of both herself and their father made them significant. Perhaps such was natural when her last string of pregnancies had been born more of experimentation than anything.
The familiar pangs of labor lead her deep into the limestone canyons of Pangea. Regardless of her power and ability childbirth was still very much an exercise in vulnerability. She did not call her creatures, however, she slipped quietly into the darkness of one of the caves cut deeply into the stone. She disliked having an audience for such things. So it was there, in the shelter of darkness, that the pair of children drew their first breath.
She called out for Kensley - mentally, peacefully - bidding him to come meet their children. She stood at the entrance of the cave - beckoning the children forward into the light. It was cool, and the sun was already beginning to slip below the lip of the canyon, but she was simply content to watch. And to wait.
02-22-2020, 10:22 PM (This post was last modified: 02-22-2020, 10:28 PM by kensley.)
Kensley had lost the majority of his warmth some years before.
So much of it had been lost when he’d watched his sister draw her final breath.
And then the rest of it had leached out of him in the weeks, months, years that followed.
But even as a dead thing, there had been some glint in his eye. The last tendril of what he’d been in the before.
And now.
Now there is absolutely nothing left.
He can feel the heart in his chest, the way the ice splinters and reaches outward, and there is some comfort to be found in this. He’d heard once that it was better to feel pain than nothing at all, but he knows now that it isn’t true. Because there is such sweet relief to be found in the nothingness.
He is lingering at the edge of the river when she hears her call. It slips so easily into his psyche that it’s almost as if she’s whispered it directly into his ear. He feels no quickening of his pulse, no sharp jolt of worry, not only because the call had been calm but because these things are well outside of his reach now. He goes to the cave without knowing how to find it, drawn there by whatever magic she has woven into her call. The feet carry him without instruction until he reaches them.
Anaxarete and their children. One gray and one black. But, upon closer inspection, he finds that the boy is not black at all. At least not in the most traditional sense. A shadow creature. He’d heard of them, certainly, but had never seen one. And the girl, beautiful like her mother, but he can tell just by looking at her that she is like him. Living but not alive.
Were he softer still, he might have felt some swell of guilt. He might have closed his eyes and shook his head and apologized to all three of them for the things he had done and could not undo. But, he is no longer soft. So, he smiles and touches each of the children’s heads and then presses his cold mouth against their mother’s head. He no longer feels that bone-deep ache when he registers that he’s touching her but cannot feel much of anything at all.
“They’re beautiful,” he murmurs and then draws away. “Have you named them?”
i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams
Even magic wasn’t enough to temper the fatigue of childbirth, much less the birth of twins. She watches the children as they explore their surroundings as she waits for Kensley to find them.
The children were an eccentric mixture of their parents. The boy, a creature of shadow, born from the depths from his mother’s magic. The girl, like her father, is alive but not truly living. There are other gifts too - she can feel them under the surface, waiting to be explored. Anaxarete is not one to coddle her children, but she certainly has a fondness for them. That fondness is deeper than blood - for there are many here in Pangea that she’d taken under her wing. But she watches these two with as close to affection as she was capable. They felt special - what they represented - and so she allowed herself to feel the full force of that maternal pull, even if just for a moment.
Kensley finds them easily. She knew he would. She watches him - curious about his reaction to meeting with children after….well….after.
The girl presses into her Kensley’s touch - recognizing that not only was this her father but he was like her. He was like her in a way that her brother was not. The girl’s scarlet eyes flickered with curiosity, but she was still too young to articulate the slew of thoughts bubbling in her mind. The question of what, exactly, she was and why she was different from mother and from her brother. So instead, she hovered close to her father, as if hoping just his proximity would be answer enough for now.
The shadowmare’s tired eyes close reflexively at his touch. She allows herself a moment before turning to Kensley. “No. I haven’t. Why don’t you,” the shadowmare breathes, her gaze slipping from Kensley to their children.
