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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


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    jet black sky before the rain; Wolfbane
    #1
    I had asked Wolfbane for a family and he had readily done his part to fulfill the request. We both had, really; it is startling how quickly my inhibitions had fallen away in the face of unquestioning acceptance. That is the part of love I hadn't expected, after all, the part that I had never experienced before, that I had never considered possible. The haze of passion still hasn't entirely faded, though the widening bulge of my barrel suggests that our efforts at starting a family have already come to fruition.

    For days I had denied it, twisting my head to the side, staring at my reflection in the still pool beside my cave in Loess to examine myself from every angle. Only when I was sure, without a doubt sure, would I share my news with Wolfbane.

    (The nausea had been the final clue, of course)

    Yet the day that I was to tell him was the day the dappled King of Sylva arrived, the day that the plague was unleashed on Beqanna, the day that the world shifted. The day was already full enough. And so was the night that followed, when I'd held my lower so tightly that there was no room in my for fear. Time has dragged on, and only now is there a moment of peace, when I might find him away from the others, from responsibilities.

    I stand in the snow, shivering slightly in the early evening wind, and turn to look behind me at the crunch of hoofsteps.

    @[Wolfbane]
    #2

    My dreams have all come true

    They’re as far south as they could hope to possibly get and still, the snow crosses over the ghost of Loess and finds them here - in someone else’s home, on foreign soil. Wolfbane believes it makes the cold that much stronger and the crunch of his approaching steps that much sharper. He gazes over Lepis with love-drunk eyes, smiling almost imperceptibly when she turns to look. The slightly larger pegasus male wants nothing more than for them to fly away from here and return to the hills, back to Fort Hideaway and his stone spire nest where they belong, but he can’t.

    Not when he watched her curl around herself for protection last night, as if the support of his warm body was the plague itself. Their vows mock him now, in the light of day. He’d promised her a family and, without saying so, the protection that came with such a promise. How could he possibly hope to uphold that when disease and pestilence lurked around every unique bush and stone in Loess?

    Beqanna makes him feel like a failure in the eyes of his Queen.

    “I’m ready to talk if you are.” The Pirate Lord murmurs richly, trying in vain to express a cheeky outer grin. When he stops beside her though, a timid coil of fear shakes his exhausted legs and gently rattles the feathers of a wing he stretches up and over her own. He hopes she brushes it off as a side effect from the exposure to winter wind, and not for the truth: that he fears losing her. “And I love you, Lepis. In case I haven’t already said it enough. I love you and I’m glad we were together … when it happened.”

    They both know what he means.

    Like all good nightmares do



    @[Lepis]
    [Image: Wolfbane2.png][Image: 3bCHvj.png]
    #3
    I can almost imagine how this world will look in the springtime. The flowers that sprouted at Noah's feet would cover the land around us with miles of color instead of these endless snowy fields. It will be beautiful, a lovely place to raise a child. It is not the stone spires, where I had planned to build a new hideaway where our child could be born in safety. It is not Loess, but as I turn to breathe in the familiar scent of the approaching stallion, I am reminded that it does not have to be.

    Bane is here, and that is enough. We will be a family no matter where we are.

    "Always." I tell him with a matching smile.

    The wing he places across me is cold, so I press nearer, hoping for less chill. I slide my own wing back so it rests, half-folded, across the rise of his back. The position is a familiar one, tucked close beside him, and I let go of a sigh that I had not really known I was holding.

    His declaration of love comes as a surprise. Not for it's content - we have made no secret of our feelings - but for it's fervor. I'm not certain what has spurned it, but it has given me a more lighthearted opening to the conversation for which we are past due.

    "That's good to know," I say into the stripes of his shoulder, where I resume my pastime of tracing the edges of his blue markings. "Especially since we'll need to split our affections soon." I wait for him to meet my gaze, where he'll find laughing blue grey eyes beneath a raised brow that dares him to ask more. Rather than give him the chance - to ask, or to worry - I add: "But we have a few more months before the baby comes. Maybe this -" a gesture to the world around us, this place that isn't home "- is our last hurrah before we settle down and become parents."

    @[Wolfbane]
    #4

    My dreams have all come true

    Their ribs and wings meld together, creating a bulky mass of blue-trimmed gold flesh. Wolfbane enjoys the comfort of feeling pushed together, the slow warmth Lepis’ body surrenders after she sighs. It surprises him that snow drifts this far south and sticks, he’s so used to the brittle ice and nothing more. Loess had been deft at keeping the heavy snows away with her steam and saltwater, but overnight the condensation would layer atop their freshwater sources as hard-packed ice and cling to their vegetation (the plants that could bear a winter snap.)

    Now the female pegasus beside him is a winding river, hot-blooded and puffing out jets of visible warm air. He misses home, sure, but Lepis is as much his home as Loess was. Is. Sometimes he wonders if her parents fashioned her from the pale clay along the riverbanks there and breathed life into her with magic.

    Split our affections? Her mate thinks quietly, the dark angles of his face screwing themselves up over her little puzzle. His head is already angled aside towards her, one studious green eye falling into the steel-blue trap of her mischievous gaze like she knew it would. Bane is tense - he hates guessing games - and the obvious irritation, mixed with intense focus, causes him to listen silently as she speaks. At first he misses the announcement altogether; he’s so obviously ready for bad news that the good escapes him entirely. “Oh.” He merely says at first, and then “Oh! OHH!!” when the realization of it all starts to dawn on him. The baby … their baby … Lepis was pregnant!

    A change overcomes him, one wave of pure bliss and then stalwart pride that settles into every shimmering, smug corner of his handsome face. Elated, he begins kissing her like a madman. The pecks are insatiable in their nature, little prayers and blessings he silently plants like seeds over her alabaster fur until he’s running out of breath. They pepper her vellum-soft skin from cheek to neck and even when he pauses to catch a breath, Wolfbane is sure he could continue on into the day and overnight. “Becoming a father is the ‘hurrah’ in my opinion.” The drake laughs, unable and unwilling to smother the cheshire grin she’s forced him to wear. “I can't believe it. I mean I can, of course, it just seems so … unreal.” He nearly purrs.

    The mare he’s chosen to love continues to surprise him, and that same love continues to evolve just when he thinks it can’t possibly get any better. Suddenly there’s no bitter cold or outside worries over their impending doom. There’s only this moment and the gleam in her eye, both of which he’ll remember for a thousand lifetimes to come. “I’m stunned by happiness. Stunned. You hear that world?!” He shouts aloud while turning his mouth to the overcast sky, “I’m going to be a dad! I’m the craziest, happiest idiot in Beqanna and I’m going to have a child!”

    Like all good nightmares do



    @[Lepis]
    [Image: Wolfbane2.png][Image: 3bCHvj.png]




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