"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
for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
In the dappled light of the spring meadow she is alone. In these last few days she’s grown anxious and reclusive and so Kensa has retreated up to the overlook where she is concealed and protected.
Beside the cold spring she drops her pale lips to the water but does not drink, breathes in the sweet fragrance of the clover that grows at her feet but does not eat. Her flaxen tail she snaps against her gold-freckled hips, kicking at her white belly. Her winter coat has shed to leave behind the new pattern,her liver chestnut splashed in gold and white.
The many women who raised her have prepared her for this. She has witnessed births, knows how this will go in theory. She is still a little afraid, still wants to be alone in order to pace to the drumbeat of her thoughts and ride the ever more frequent waves of pain and pressure. Shifting between the aspens and the wall of rock down which the waterfall tumbles, looking for a comfortable place but when the moment comes she is standing among the long bent and trampled grasses in the central part of their private nook above Hyaline.
She does not lie down. Kensa plants her hooves and brings her daughter into the world on her feet. When the infant slips to the ground she is quick to be beside her, and free her from the milky shroud before she realizes what she is doing. The filly’s color is beautiful, unexpected, whatever has changed the mother has changed her daughter as well. Kensa inspects and cleans her perfect firstborn as the child gets her bearings in a new world full of air and bright light.
”Hello my Hilde. Welcome home.”
Home to Hyaline. A place gone quiet and polluted by plague, but it is home and Kensa and Litotes will teach the new generation loyalty and love for their corner of Beqanna.
kensa
for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.
i'm a geyser, feel it bubbling from below hear it call, hear it call, hear it call to me, constantly
Despair plagues Brunhilde’s father as he makes the trek up to their secret hideaway. Kensa’s newly reclusive nature tells him that it is almost time - his path to their meadow well-worn from quietly checking on her daily. He has grown to expect her pacing quietly or napping beneath a tree, but this time is different. The tension that has built just beneath his surface finally pops: long, pale legs bursting into a hardly contained canter.
There’s a tiny, bright, spindly thing wobbling to and fro beneath her mother. The Primarch swallows, forgetting his partner (for once) and rushing to inspect their little creation.
That is Brunhilde’s first memory of her father: wide and frightened eyes followed by a sweet caress. The filly haphazardly swings her head to look at her mother again, an instinctual imprint beginning to form before she stumbles and falls ungracefully on her bum. The squeal her thud creates is followed by a sneeze that shoots out half a foot of flame - her little golden eyes twinkle in delight. The flame-girl giggles just as her father murmurs finitely and stupidly, “What in the hell . . .”
One could define Hildy’s next noise as another squeak, but to close ears it is a scream of delight, high-pitched and ever playful. The flame lurches upward, tumbling headfirst into the grass then joyously rolling onto her back. Two tiny fires burn in her nostrils as she stares up at her bewildered father (who would be raising an eyebrow if he had one). The cremello turns to look at Kensa, uttering something the newborn has yet to understand. Suddenly, the ombre babe rolls to her feet and begins running in circles, repeating her father:
“Hell! Hell, hell, hell, hell!”
Litotes gawks at Kensa before sputtering; ultimately he fails to form a single word. Brunhilde is beginning to grow tired when a butterfly lands on her nose. She stops with a soft hmpf before falling on her butt once again. Slowly, countless butterflies begin swirl around her in their own fluttery dances. The filly is mesmerized for only a few seconds before she squeals hell! one more time and lights a butterfly on fire.
Innocent and sweet despite her chanting (and . . . murder?), she turns her goofy smile back to her parents.
and hear the harmony only when it's harming me it's not real, it's not real, it's not real enough
for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
Things really don’t go the way you expect them to. When Lie joins his family in the meadow she is happy to see him (for the first time the last week, poor fellow) and expects to have him greet his beautiful child and praise his beloved for her hard work. That’s...not what happens. She is brushing her lips over her child’s hip, preparing to reach for Litotes after reassuring herself that their beautiful child is real when Brunhilde totters, fumbles back on her rump and releases a sneeze… made of flame.
Kensa tosses her head, eyes nearly rolling as she snaps them toward Litotes. What in the hell and she can not agree more, but there are little ears now. Over the sound of angelic giggles Kensa shoots her lover a look of bewilderment. Pretty tongues of flame hover over the girls nostrils, and Kensa’s anxiety and confusion keep her too distracted to hear what Lie says to her. “...What?” She manages to ask, but she is trailing a few steps after squealing happy girl who has returned to her feet and is running and shouting out words she should not yet know. Kensa turns a dark look on Litotes, who is still speechless.
How sweet the filly looks as she settles in the grass on her rump and a rainbow of butterflies draws in to flutter around her. Kensa cannot believe her eyes, draws closer, a butterfly alighting on her own mane, resting from its worship of the darling girl... hell.
A butterfly is immolated, falling away into ash. There is an angel smile on that wild little face.
“I don’t even know where to begin.” Kensa says trying her best not to sound exasperated. What a memory this will be… but right now she is just as confused as Lie. So she glances at him and the goes to their little one, brushing her lips over the short red curls atop Hildy’s head. “Those are butterflies darling. They’re prettier if you don’t burn them.” She realizes that the filly might not agree but as long as they can get a few more words into her vocabulary beyond ‘hell’ they’ll be doing an excellent job as parents…relatively. Kensa looks at Lie, wants to ask him whose child this is (a joke) but instead smiles encouragingly or a little insistently say something.
kensa
for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.
Stari had known the form the very minute that she had settled down beside her in the beautiful setting of Hyaline. Her color was not the same, but the horn, the soft flutter of her wings. All of it brought back so many memories from that first day. She wants to be mad, wants to rage and yell, but in those quiet introspect moments she had she was starting to understand. She smiles a small smile. Intante just returns it before the small white and blue form of another makes itself known. “Your momma and daddy are beautiful, kind, and loving. Tell them, this is your brother Crynn.”
Before Stari can say much else she is gone and Crynn turns a dark searching gaze upon his sister. They look at each other, one so small and frail, the other longer legged and growing. Stari reaches forwards, presses soft lips to his down head and inhales, tucking his scent away and the linger faint scent of their biological mother. “Come on squirt. Our new momma is a lot of fun. She’s been slightly grumpy the last couple days though. I expect it’s cause she’s got this other baby on the way too.”
She laughs a little as they walk, Crynn quiet, but steady on his legs. He must have been warned and Star wishes for a moment she had been warned as well. She finds her momma and dad up in that secluded little area where momma liked to hide. She watches in quiet amazement as their new sister blows flames. And she laughs, drawing attention to her and the white with blue hair boy at her side, tucked in close against her.
“Oh she’s adorable!” She steps closer, Crynn tucked against her tightly in the presence of these new adults but she presses a soft kiss to Hilde before she turns her sparkling amused eyes up to Kensa. “What’s her name?” There is a moment of quiet before she realizes that she had yet to introduce Crynn. “Oh! This is my brother Crynn. My first mom said you were both beautiful, kind, and loving and entrusted him to you too.” And she beams because her family was growing and so much more than it had been this winter.
i'm a geyser, feel it bubbling from below hear it call, hear it call, hear it call to me, constantly
The flame girl blinks at her mother with wide, topaz eyes that glitter with delight. When the two other children wander up, they grow even larger. A kiss to her forehead is sweet and welcome, turning her newborn’s grin into a distant smile. Hilde lurches to her feet to observe the girl and her blue brother no larger than her, following their attention back to her parents. She stops next to Crynn, gaze darting between their fire and water coats. Opposites that she quite likes.
“Buttfwy!” she cries after Star finishes, followed quickly by, “Crynnnnnnnn?” She gives the boy a playful nudge to confirm his name.
Brunhilde is staring at Litotes when he begins to peer at the colt in mild shock. His gaze turns to Kensa then back, a smile slowly curling his lips. “Hello, little Crynn,” he says, words the flame has yet to understand. She does, on instinct, understand his next gesture: a ruffling of the appaloosa yearling’s mane. Hildy looks at him expectantly, and luckily he notices, the same warm breathe pressed to her head. The newborn beams.
“Buttfwy,” she grumbles, eyes watching the creatures as the flutter and land all around her. Two little flames shoot from her ears and stay there, wavering as her gaze traces her surroundings.
and hear the harmony only when it's harming me it's not real, it's not real, it's not real enough
for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
Kensa has acquired another newborn, and little Crynn, so dear and shy as he clings to his spotted sister’s side takes his place in her heart right alongside her girls. Hildy greets her siblings exuberantly and Kensa lets them meet first hoping a bond will form between her three darlings Star is immediately a wonderful big sister. “This is Brunhilde. Hildy this is your sister, Astarielle..Star.” She adds the older girls name on quickly, giving the newborn something a little easier to hold onto. After the meeting between the three children goes off in the most adorable way possible their happy mother takes her turn.
“I am so happy your first mom brought you both into our lives, Star. “ Kensa says, nuzzling her quickly growing appaloosa daughter affectionately. Then she lowers her head further to meet her boy. “Hello Crynn, welcome home.” She murmurs, the same words she has spoken to the others, she presses her lips to his little cheek and memorizes the scent of her third child.
The chestnut mare’s heart is so full that tears spring to her eyes and when she raises her head it is to look for her beloved. She goes to Lie then, tired and happy, to press her muzzle to his. ”We made a family, Lie.” They’d been one already, she knows, with their gentle little Astarielle filling Hyaline with a child’s joy again. But now they are five, and just like the two young lovers had hoped their special nook on the mountain will be full of children.
kensa
for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.
Star is delighted with her sister. “Butterfly.” She says, pressing her lips against her younger sister’s head like she had had done to hers a hundred thousand times by her parents. Hildy. She finds the nickname adorable and cannot help but want to cuddle close to her. She lips her fuzz, careful to not catch herself on fire and then turns to Crynn as Hildy talks to him. He was tucked tight against her side, but reaches his nose out to brush it against Hildy’s as she says his name long. A shy smile curls the very corner of his lips. “Hildy.” He says softly, in response.
And then his new dad says hello and he doesn’t exactly cringe when he ruffles Star’s mane but he doesn’t lean up into his touch, not quite yet.
Star just presses her lips against him, a bit amazed that he has attached himself so readily to her side. Likely their biological mom had went and told him some about her, especially if she had been watching them from afar.
Anyways, there’s a bit of a teary moment when Kensa mentions how glad she is that their birth mom gave them up. Star just nuzzles close to her. “Me too.” Crynn hesitantly reaches out his lips briefly to his new mom, inhaling her scent but not quite touching her. Star just smiles when she walks away and goes back to looking at her brand new sister and brother. She ruffles both of their fuzz and when Crynn yawns widely she nudges him down next to their mom and dad. “Go to sleep silly. They won’t bite.” He is wary but sleep is much more insistent. So he settles down under their bodies and takes the protection that they offer him.
Star nods slightly, pressing her lips to his forehead again before she turns back to Hildy. Then looks up at her mom. “You should sleep too. You got two troublemakers to keep an eye on.” Star grins, an amused grin before she presses her lips against her mommas neck and cuddles in close in the spot she can get touching both of them. “Come on Hildy. Group love.” She goes to nudge the girl closer and hopes that none of them get burned with their little firestarter.
