"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
07-24-2019, 06:27 PM (This post was last modified: 07-24-2019, 06:27 PM by City.)
This birth nearly killed her, she felt it. The pain was different, the labor was long and the child took four seconds too long to take her first desperate breath. Padme was born on the bottom of the Mountain, in a cave with only her mother and the bats that dwelled there. City made a bed of moss and pushed for hours, long grueling hours. The mother did not come out of the rocky cavern for three days and on the third night she finally emerged with her piebald daughter in tow. It was a close one.
She begins her ascent with the newborn as if it might not kill the child. She’s careful, stopping often and guiding the girl over obstacles and away from crumbling edges. This journey is as much a part of her life as anything that might lay before her after today, if she survives it, she’ll be stronger for it. The wobbly newborn is fearless, maybe stupidly slow, and begins to get annoyed at her mother’s gentle guidance, pinning her tiny ears at the gray mare. City chuckles, and mocks a bite, reminding the child she is not in charge.
The journey is long and takes them the whole night and half of the early morning. When the pair arrives at the top the child is alive and well. The mother breathes heavily through flared nostrils and her skinny sides heave just so. There is blood trickling down her hind legs still, dark and slow.
CITY & PADME the high black water, the devil's daughter
Rather foolish, she thinks, to drag a newborn up the mountain. Then again, newborns found their way up here more frequently than they should, somehow able to make the trek, driven by young stubbornness. It was a powerful thing, youth, a magic that wasn’t quite magic and yet was impossible to deny regardless.
She appears in front of the pair, the breeze picking up as she does so. “You would risk your child to save yourself?” she asks. In truth, it wasn’t the most selfish motive. A child was, usually, better off with her own mother rather than a stranger, but then again, there were no shortage of loving mothers in Beqanna to raise an orphaned child. It would be safer to leave the girl alone than to drag her up the mother, but yet, they are both here.
The blood between the mare’s legs does not go unnoticed though. She is never soft, and doesn’t intend to be so now, but she does send a wave of healing magic rolling over the pair. Restorative for the child, and healing for the mare so she doesn’t die in the middle of her quest. “Before I grant you what you truly seek, go speak to three others would can tell you what it is like to be reborn or what it is like to lose everything you love time and again.”
After all, that is the price of what she seeks, and Wysteria believes they should understand the cost first.
***
@[City] has rolled a 2 and will receive a quest. Have three threads with other characters or the NPC account talking about either a) what it like to be reborn or b) what it is like to be immortal and watch your loved ones die. All three threads do not have to be the same topic.
“ I risk my child to save HER self” City grumbles at the fairy, even as the waves of healing spread warm throughout her body. The child is replenished of what she lost, and as she eagerly suckles as any greedy little foal does, she soaks in the nourishment from all angles.
The mother listens carefully to her mission, nodding gratefully, uttering a cordial thank you fairies and taking her stilt legged little piebald baby to begin their tentative descent. It is just as arduous going down as going up. A few times her heart dropped into her stomach when the filly would slip close to the edge or be just plain dumb when teetering on the precipice of falling 1000 feet to the next rock face.
They make it though, finally, the mother is sore and tired and the child greedily nurses. City leads the baby into the forest to hide her, groom her and let her continue to nurse while they both recover to move on. Padme, the little black and white filly with her face tucked under her mother, begins to sprout small flower blooms from her ‘wing joints’. They are small and mimic the floral beauty found on the surrounding mountainsides. The red freckled mother grins, the spectacle reminding her of her other daughters; both winged and beautiful like this one. All three girls are so vastly different, the dragon, the moth and the flower.
CITY & PADME the high black water, the devil's daughter
