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    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


    [private]  the fight for you is all I've ever known, Jarris
    #1
    When she had first felt that familiar flutter of life growing inside of her, she had been elated. It had been so long since they last had children; so long since the last time she had been able to see them blink their eyes open for the first time, and stare in wonder at how her and Jarris could possibly make something so perfect. And she knew, not that far in, that it was twins. She had learned with Kennice and Kensley what it felt like, and now she recognized the feeling of not one, but two heartbeats coming to life. It made her heart ache a little, to think of them – their first set of twins, and possibly the two children that had been the most like both of them. A true mirror image of their hearts creating something new, but she had to push that longing and sorrow aside. Dwelling on the past wouldn’t do her any good, and instead she chose to focus on the good – that Jarris was still here, and that come spring, their newest children would be here, too.

    But nature had other ideas, as it so often did. She tried hard to ignore the pains that gripped her sides early in the evening, closing her eyes and silently willing it to just be that the babies were feeling restless. Curling closer into Jarris’ side, burying her nose in the wild tangles of his mane, she bit her lip against another, more urgent pain, until eventually she couldn’t deny it any longer. It was too early, and it was cold, with snow still on the ground outside of the shelter of the trees she had secluded herself in, but that didn’t change anything.

    The watery moonlight can hardly strain through the trees when she is at last forced to the ground, and what little light there is finds the copper of her skin and catches where her neck and sides grow damp with sweat. The night is oddly still and quiet, save for the soft, pained sounds that accompany the arrival of the first filly. She tries to forget the contractions that continue to wrack her body as she turns to inspect the first born; beautiful and bay, and she gently presses her lips to the little girl’s face as she says to Jarris in quiet disbelief, “She has wings.”

    She wants so desperately to pull her closer to her, to keep her from shivering in the bitter winter cold, but the imminent arrival of the second filly keeps her from doing so.

    Only, this one is not as easy as the first.

    It takes too long, and too much effort. She can feel her strength dwindling as the night wears on, and white sweat flecks her neck and flanks, and her red mane plasters to her neck. When their second daughter finally emerges, and the earth around her is torn as a testament to her struggle, she finds that she is too weak to look at her. She lays there, incredibly still save for the shallowness of her breathing, her eyes closed as she tries to find the willpower to at least sit up. The feeling of the newborn stirring behind her is the only reason she finds the strength to do so, and when she turns to find another bay little girl, just like her sister but without the wings, all she can do is whisper meekly, “They’re perfect. Both of them.”

    P L U M E R I A
    when all of the light is gone
    a single spark is all I need.


    @[jarris]
    Reply
    #2

     
    It does not happen in a single moment.
    He does not come to the stunning realization all at once.
    It is the way she refuses to fade at her edges.
    It is how completely he loses himself in the heat and the weight and undeniable life of her.

    It is the way her barrel swells to accommodate the life growing inside of it.
    He wakes sometime in the night in the early days of fall. He touches his lips to her chest to feel her heartbeat and then to the swell of her stomach to feel the flutter of life there, too. He smiles and heaves a relieved sigh as he settles back against her, whispers, ‘you’re real’ and then falls easy back into a dreamless sleep.

    They are inseparable. He ignores the hollow cries of that bastard heart because he’s finally made his way home to her. This is where he belongs and he cannot help but feel as if they don’t have much time left. (She will not last forever, will she? Despite how desperately he wishes she could).

    It is not panic he feels when the first of her contractions tear through her, take her to her knees, but it’s something close. It tightens a vise around his throat and he murmurs sweet nothings into the shell of her ear when, despite the frigid temperature, she begins to sweat.

    The first filly arrives without complication. Wings. Confusion darkens his brow but he lends no voice to it,  simply fashions up a smile.

    He is torn between offering Plumeria support and attempting to provide the first filly warmth. He drops his head, huffs hot air across the filly’s spine as Plumeria struggles. His breath comes in heaving gasps as he watches her groan and strain and war against nature and her body. He is consumed with abject terror but he does not draw his mouth away from their winged daughter.

    And then there is absolute stillness. A second daughter. The two of them identical save for the first one’s wings, folded tightly around her as if they might offer her some semblance of warmth. All four of them tremble. The fillies with cold, Plumeria with exhaustion, and Jarris with panic.

    He goes to her, finally. Presses his forehead against her shoulder as if to help prop her up. “They are,” he says and then, “are you all right?” He lifts his head then to kiss her sweat-slick neck.

    jarris
    now I’ve been crazy, couldn’t you tell? I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell
    Reply
    #3
    She keeps waiting for the weakness to pass, but the moment doesn’t come. She remembers being tired after Kennice and Kensley, and she wonders if maybe time had caused the memory of how tired to diminish. Maybe it was like this last time, she tells herself. Maybe last time she had trembled and shivered, and she just doesn’t remember; maybe last time her muscles and bones had suddenly felt impossible to move, and she simply forgot.

    She refused to entertain the idea that something was wrong, and that there was a possibility she wouldn’t be okay.

    “I’m fine, I promise, I’m just...tired,” and she tries to force the quiver from her voice, tries to make it sound stronger than she felt. But the feel of him against her shoulder makes her want to lean into him, makes her want to close her eyes and drift off to sleep. It’s tempting, and she can feel her lids begin to close, but the girls are still stirring, and trying to find their legs.

    Drawing in a shuddering breath, she begins the daunting task of standing. She can feel the way her legs protest, how they threaten to buckle beneath her weight, and so she lets her shoulder rest against his once she is finally up. Her head lowers to their daughters again, both of them still damp and shivering in the winter cold. Her warm breath fans across the second-born, cleaning and drying her face, her neck, her back. She moves back to the first filly, her lips caressing down the crest of her neck and then across the soft, feathered wings that hug her rib cage. “My father had wings. Maybe that’s where they came from?” She muses aloud, more or less to herself. They were both flawless, and if she wasn’t struggling with exhaustion, she knows her heart would be overflowing.

    With a trembling sigh she rests her head against Jarris’ chest, still watching the twins. She should be helping them stand, she knows. They were both trying, and at one point she half-heartedly uses her nose as leverage in an attempt to help one of them make it more upright, but currently it’s all she can do to fight her way out of the fog it feels like she is suffocating in. “Do you like the name Karina? I think I want to name one of them Karina,” she murmurs into his skin, watching the little winged filly as she says it.

    P L U M E R I A
    when all of the light is gone
    a single spark is all I need.


    @[jarris]
    Reply
    #4

     
    The child is cold. And something else, too. Confused, though she doesn’t know the word for it yet. Through the darkness, she reaches out to touch her sister, rests her little mouth on the hill of her sister’s folded knee. She exhales a shaky, uncertain breath.

    And their father watches as light gathers and puckers on the horizon, as dawn comes. He steadies himself and their mother, murmurs absent nothings to all three of them, his own mouth pressed into the sweat-slick heat of their mother’s shoulder. His worry still gnaws anxious at the edge of his psyche and each chamber of his bastard heart, but he lends no voice to it. He had heard the quiver in her voice, knows exactly how she struggled to stand, yokes himself with her weight to help keep her upright.

    The voice shocks the child. But she recognizes it, too. It’s louder now, closer, and she is suddenly doused in heat. She shivers. She opens her own mouth but no sound comes out. Driven by instinct, she stretches her lanky limbs out in front of her. The body works on its own accord as she struggles to rise, shaky, and then collapses in a heap on the frozen ground again. It is only then that she cries out – in pain or frustration.

    With Plumeria’s head pressed firm against his chest, he stretches over her to nudge the fillies’ rumps. He watches them sway and stagger and he smiles, a quiet thing. Karina, she says and he nods. “The winged one, she’ll be Karina,” he murmurs. The child looks in their direction, takes one staggering step toward her mother.

    And Kade,” he says, thinking briefly of his own father.

    They need to eat,” he whispers and he kisses her head, “and then you can rest and I will look after them.

    jarris
    now I’ve been crazy, couldn’t you tell? I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell
    Reply
    #5
    The small bay filly stirs, and she tries to blink her dark brown eyes open. Even in this pre-dawn light, it feels almost too bright, and she wishes she could curl back into that impossibly dark place she had been in before. But she feels something stirring next to her; something warm and familiar, someone with a heartbeat that nearly matches hers. She feels a touch to her knee, and instinctively, she follows it. She reaches her small muzzle forward, touching her nose against her sister’s, and there is a whisper of a smile that reaches her lips.

    There are voices, too, drowning out the beating of their hearts. She flutters her too-long lashes a few more times, slowly easing the light in, and she finds the sterling face of her father. Her mother is standing next to him, her shoulder resting against his, and though their voices don’t make any sense yet, she knows that they are talking about her – about them.

    Plumeria watches, and even though there is exhaustion that drives bone-deep, there is also an unimaginable amount of love.  For the sweet, newborn girls, but for him, too. The feel of his mouth against her neck lends its own kind of strength, because it seems to jumpstart something inside of her. There is still a sort of disbelief that he is back, that he is here, that they have twins again and that they are alive and their lives are almost normal. “Karina and Kade,” she repeats after him, and even through the fatigue she manages a beautiful smile. “Perfect.”

    She leans into his touch, releasing a shuddering breath, and she presses a kiss to his neck before straightening herself away from him. She touches each little girl in turn, both of them having already managed to stand themselves up. Her lips press to the top of Karina’s head, cautious to not interrupt her precarious balance, before turning to caress Kade’s hip as she wavers on her other side. Her dark brown eyes lift to find his as they nurse, and her heart flutters in her chest. She wonders when the last time was that she felt happy like this. The last time everything felt right, and like it wasn’t on the verge of falling apart. Or like it wasn’t some fragile bubble ready to burst.

    And so she shifts again, with their girls still at her side, and she lets his mane fill her nose again as she whispers into the strands of it, “I love you, Jarris.” She wonders sometimes if she says it too much, if he ever grew tired of her hearing her say it over and over since he came back. Because he is just like her happiness; always on the verge of leaving, always just a breath away from being taken away from her. She doesn’t know when the last time will be, before he is gone again for days or weeks or years or a lifetime.

    Maybe if she says it enough, he won’t go. Maybe that was the mistake she made last time, and every time before.

    P L U M E R I A
    when all of the light is gone
    a single spark is all I need.
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