"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
05-03-2015, 03:49 PM (This post was last modified: 05-03-2015, 03:50 PM by Scorch.)
WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT
There are no words for what she feels.
In a sense, iron flows through her veins. She has conquered the trials of motherhood five-fold now; two more children is not even half of what she has already gone through. And yet, as she remembers her first attempt at motherhood, she remembers the largest difficulty: there being two of them. Twins. Double trouble. Anxiety gnaws at her edges, but no one will see; her girth hides any chips in her skin. Her weight conceals the fear which grows alongside her coming children.
You are fire, she breathes to herself. You are strong. And she could not have thought any later, for in the coming hours, the pangs of birth begin their advances upon her body. She meets them with determination, refusing to find the thicket where she has borne each child, save Rain. Instead, the Khaleesi finishes her patrol of the border stubbornly, gritting her teeth with each contraction. By the time she reaches her destination, the first child has practically squirmed his or her way from Scorch’s womb. The little devil.
Falling ungracefully to the well-trodden earth, Scorch clenches her jaw and slips into the terrors of birth. The Jungle’s magic is ever-present, aiding her with invisible fingers and comforting her with silent encouragement. The sensation is unlike anything Scorch has experienced, and perhaps one of the few things which give cause for excitement at times like these. Alas, it does not last forever, for eventually, two wet bundles decorate the thicket.
Heaving her mighty body to her powerful legs, the Khaleesi first shakes off the twigs and dead vines which have attached themselves to her hairless body. Droplets of sweat are flung as well. With a sudden weight in her throat, Scorch pivots slowly to face her newest children, unsure of what she will feel when she first sees them.
Of course, affection greets her first, directly followed by the need to protect them. Leaning down, the mare begins cleaning her children. The first looks uncannily like Ea, a little bay boy, all roan and silver. He smells sweetly, and she is glad. Boys have always, always been her forte, despite the fact that she literally has dozens of sisters. Ironic, I know. Nibbling her ears affectionately, Scorch searches her soul for a name. When one does not come, she simply exhales warm air atop his wet little head, deciding to let that responsibility fall upon Hestoni’s shoulders.
The next child is unlike any others she had, including the twins with their eyes, Simeon with his normalness, Shahrizai without his tail, and Ea with her traits. This girl is bay. Solely bay. She should be roan. And her hew of bay is frightening, for Scorch has seen it before. No. It cannot be. Clenching her jaw, Scorch cleans the girl quickly and with little attention to gentleness.
As the final scraps of birth have been disposed of or consumed, Scorch pulls back her large head to gaze at her progeny. “Fucking hell!” The curse comes out incredibly suddenly, for it is only now that she notices the girl’s eyes change colours. But they do not move constantly like her Dragon eyes; they simply shift very slowly and accordingly. Wrinkling her nose with sudden revelation and disgust, Scorch spits out her youngest daughter’s name not dissimilarly to the way she just swore.
That is the first thing she notices, the roughness. She is used to warm and soft, to the gentle press of another body against hers. He is here, she can sense it, but it's so cold, and it's so rough. There is no warmth for her, not here.
She hears the voice, so cold and angry, and her small eyes settle on the source of the voice. She doesn't know her eyes have been changing, not any more than she knows that her coat is bay, not any more than she knows why she exists. She is too young, too impossibly sweet, to ever understand. She doesn't know it, but they shift like uncontrolled rainbows, a gentle sway of colors, beautiful to watch and terrible for her. Terrible for her mother.
All that she knows is that this thing, this large thing that was just touching her, is now angry. She doesn't know why.
She watches with wide eyes, still laying on the ground where she'd been born. She doesn't understand anything, doesn't know where the anger comes from. All she knows is that she wants to soothe it, to take it away. No one should feel that. "S-sorry?" Her voice is so soft, so delicate and gentle. It's a fitting first word for her, a word that will come to define who she is in so many ways. She doesn't know what she's apologizing for, doesn't even know why she is doing it, but she hopes that it will do something – that it will make things better for the angry mare.
Slowly, tentatively, with great wobbly difficulty she heaves herself to her feet. Swaying and unsteady, she tries to struggle forward toward the angry woman, to touch her and thereby further soothe her. She doesn't understand that this simple attempt will likely make things even worse. "Sorry?" she repeats again, apologizing for all the woes of the world, apologizing for whatever might have happened and never dreaming she might have caused it.
Many miles away, entirely unobserved, alone on a dune in the Desert, a black magician smiles.
press my nose up to the glass around your hearti should’ve known i was weaker from the start
In the days and hours and minutes of the spring season (which thereby includes birthing season), the titan keeps a careful watch on his fire. He always does, but whenever she is with child he is more careful than normal. And this time he is, perhaps, even more careful – her extremely swollen womb is in the same formation it was during her first pregnancy, a sure sign of not just one child but two.
They had failed parenting their first twin daughters, something that’s obvious in the chilly lack of eldest sisters among their tight little family. While Simeon, Shaharizi, Ea, and now the two coming are all close with their parents, Kaida and Noori are torn from the family. It is their own doing, the titan is sure – their job of parenting had been so off the point of perfection that a brutal shard of an ice-wall separated the twins from their parents, siblings, and each other. Each time spring comes around, the red titan is forced to reflect on how much they have improved since then, and how he should get back into the art of loving his children – even the two he hasn’t seen in years.
Nonetheless, caring for his fire is his immediate job and he sees to it that she is comfortable and relatively happy in the months of her pregnancy. When she heads out for a border patrol (just mere hours before the contractions of labor and groans of birthing pains bring forth two children), he keeps close. Sometimes he knows she can sense his presence; other times he likes to fancy a daydream where she is unaware of his careful watching and caring. The ripples of labor grip her sides before she is finished with the patrol, but he sees the determination in her dragon eyes.
And she doesn’t lie down until she is back in that secure thicket where she birthed every other child except their dear daughter of the afterlife. Always irked by the process and deliverance and weakness of birthing, the titan steps back into the shadows and waits anxiously for their children to be born.
It is only when she swears loudly that he steps away and springs through into the thicket, eyes searching for whatever thing she would curse upon. The first thing his eyes land on is the older of the two – a bay roan identical to Ea with the exception of the dragon eyes. And then to the other child – a bay (none of their children have been bay so far, it just seems genetically incorrect) filly with eyes that shift and change into colors more beautiful and strange than the Jungle’s own kaleidoscope.
“Scorch!” His voice broke the haze of anger suddenly curling over the thicket. “They’re beautiful! And look at her eyes!” The filly, having an imperceptible sense of emotional feeling already, began explaining how sorry she was, as if something had happened that she had done. But the innocence in her color-changing eyes proved she didn’t know what she was talking about. “Oh, miele,” the titan cooed softly, “you don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
And then the roughness breaks, soothed by a male voice.
She looks to him immediately, her kaleidoscope eyes gently curious. She stumbles toward him, distracted from the anger of the woman she vaguely recognizes as her mother. The man seems pleased with her eyes, and she gives him a gentle smile. Everything about her is gentle, sweet, kind – such a contrast to Scorch herself, such a contrast to the magician through whose meddling Wrynn herself had been made possible.
The voice coos to her, and she is transfixed. She smiles at him, a toothy, sweet grin, and giggles a little bit. "My-el-e" she tries to mimic his words, failing adorably and giggling as she does. With a filly's determination, she pushes herself up, starting to toddle over to him relatively unsteadily, but adorably. But before she gets very far, she remembers the angry one, and takes a few tentative steps to close the distance, intending to touch angry mare with her muzzle, hoping to calm the anger somewhat. She wants to know this new horse, this stallion, this one who seems calm and happy, but she has to make angry happy first.
"Sorry." she whispers, softly, close to Scorch's skin. She is not afraid, but she is terribly gentle. She knows only kindness, and how to be sweet. The world will teach her unkindness, but it hasn't quite yet.
And then she turns back to the stallion, her eyes shifting to match his eyes, pausing momentarily in their rainbow mood-ring effect. "Hello." she walks toward him, her eyes wide as she focuses on him. She pauses when she reaches him, touching him gently with her small nose. "But she's angry." the small girl explains, obviously referencing Scorch. "Can you fix?"
Because that's all she cares about, fixing the angry.
05-19-2015, 04:13 AM (This post was last modified: 05-19-2015, 04:14 AM by taz.)
I'm at work and don't have an account for leiland yet >.> so bare with me cause I'm on my phone
The gentle cleaning he was receiving had been a comfort and within moments he was opening his eyes to peer up at his mother. It would be in only these hours he knew her as only that. Not as the leader of a band of strong, independent woman living in the forest that surrounded them. And it was in these hours he'd cling to her the most. Slowly he looked around before noticing the small girl he had shared the womb with and it was when he heard his mother curse that he began to stand.
With a shudder he threw his right foreleg forward and then his left and pulled himself to his feet, coming to a slightly wobbly stance and holding himself up before stepping quickly to his mother's side. All he knew then was that he wanted to get away from what was causing the distaste in his mother's voice whether she was his sister or not. And in silence he turned his head only when hestoni came through the brush almost scolding hscorch for her harsh words. The stallions gentle nature towards the bundle that made his mother angry was then what began the confusion.
With slight hesitancy he looked from his mother to his father, refusing to try and speak before looking towards his sister and staring unblinkingly. So talkative. So sweet. And then begins the tug at his heartstrings. The first time it would happen is now, as he struggled to understand whether or not he should side with one or the other. Pressing his side against scorch's chest as he moves in front of her he whispers quietly, "momma," and looks up at her and then into his sisters eyes and as they change colors he presses his lips together.
At that moment he knew one thing. His father, this gentle man wasn't siding with he'd on something that upset her and he knew he had to be the one that stood with her. Regardless of the confusion running through his mind. At one moment he wanted to comfort his twin, but the desire to be there for his mother was a much stronger one and so he stands there. Pressed to her, silently showing her that he would be with her even if nobody else agreed. And when she changed her mind, he would too. But not until that moment.
Of course she wouldn’t know. Of course the roughness came unexpectedly; of course. Wrynn knows nothing, just as Scorch once knew nothing. For the first ten years of her life, Scorch did not know (did not know how she was raised a princess in the wrong kingdom; did not know that her mother was a kidnapper, a kidswitcher; did not know why her mother’s scorn was upon her). As Wrynn whispers an uncertain apology, Scorch glares into her beautiful eyes. So beautiful.
Wrynn’s begging is rough. The remainder of her life could be smooth, if only Scorch could hold herself to a higher stander of motherhood than Echion. It is all too clear to her that Wrynn is not of herself, is not of Hestoni, just as Echion knew that Scorch was not of herself. As the small girl clambers to her hooves, Scorch remembers how Crito had been the only source of vitality in her life. Yes, Echion fed them, bathed them, but aside from that, it had always just been them, tucked away, useless, hidden.
They had both turned out okay. No, better than okay. Wrynn would be okay too. Eventually, she would be.
Her mouth opens to reprimand her faux-daughter just as Hestoni arrives, his voice leeching the anger from her blood. He calls them beautiful, tells her to look at her eyes, tells Wrynn not to apologize. Like trees suffering beneath the wind, the mare’s ears tilt back until they are one with her skull. The anger, though subdued, boils beneath her thick skin.
“It’s... Not your fault.” The words come begrudgingly, sounding far harder than they ought to. Wrynn’s tiny nose against her shoulder causes the skin to ripple as though a fly had landed in the very same spot. Scorch looks watches her supposed daughter turn to Hestoni, asking him to fix her, to make the anger leave. Nice try, darling.
It is only then that she notices her son’s stance. He stands next to her, pressed to her in solidarity just as her husband and her ‘daughter’ stand together; two united fronts. Through her fury, a smile comes, though it is temporary. Leaning into the small boy gently, Scorch gives no attention to Hestoni or Wrynn, instead curling her neck around her son in a loving fashion. Her rough lips nibble his ears affectionately, curving around the name which the Khaleesi suddenly decides upon.
“Leiland. Mio figlio”
Eyes closing in determination, Scorch unravels herself from her silver boy, turning her coal-black gaze to the other members of her family. Her eyes meet Hestoni’s, disapproval buried within them, and perhaps pain, as well. She understands all too well how her decision to raise Wrynn will affect things. She remembers the pain of losing her first daughters; and yet...
![[Image: scorch2.png]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/d3f8827d56fd033f445fc5aa8055947a/3778d5ee43303690-eb/s1280x1920/532e323d08dfe066db7c4d27a9277d571bf7cdb2.jpg)
