throwing shadows

[bible]

She remembers so many terrible things.
The white-hot agony, the strobing vision, the wounded cries that went unanswered.

And there, still, a phantom pain at the very center of her. Something like talons ripping through the meat of her. It comes and goes in waves, knocks the air out of her, kicks the earth off its axis until she can suck in a sharp breath and force everything back into order.

She remembers the child. A child like the devil torn out of her uterus. And then the impenetrable darkness. She remembers moving slow toward the gate, buffeted along by the rest of the dead. She had not known, in the beginning, that she was dead. Had not known she was dead until she emerged from the afterlife and stumbled up the beach back toward civilization.

Perhaps she should have, with the way she’d staggered through so many worlds, crying out for the child. Her child. And no answer ever came. Sometimes she swore she could hear him, though, crying out for her.

And then she’d returned to the world and known that the child had never answered because she’d died and the child had not. This filled her with some great hope, Bible, hope that she might find the child somewhere out in the world.

She had drawn in her first breath on the beach and it had burned all the way down. It burns even now, as she emerges in the meadow. Is this where she’d given life to the child? Is this where she had given herself up to save it? Is that how it had happened at all?

She does not know how long she has been dead. She does not know that it has been years. She does not know that it will be no use when she tips back her head and cries out for the child again.

ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went

@[Jassal]

[ghaul]

GHAUL

i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back

He has thought of his mother often but he has never voiced the things that play out in his head. Somehow, the knowledge that she would die was with him even before the other dreams came. Ghaul had braced himself for it and he had tried so hard not to be afraid when he slipped from her belly and into the snow. Still warm with her blood, he had felt a gnawing loneliness – his first emotion. And then he cried out for anyone at all to come and care for him, to hold him to their chest and love him. Gospel had answered and named him. She had bared her teeth and defended him. For a long time, she was Home to him.

Dawn had tried to be his mother, and she had done her best. She kissed his face and sang him to sleep until the shadows chased her away. Anaxarete took him under her wing, but she is close-fisted with her affections. She only touches him as a reward and it leaves him starving for something more.

He drifts from Nerine only for now, deciding it is time for a break from the terrors he wreaks upon their home. Her scent drifts across the wind and his small ears perk up when he catches it. Mother. First sacrifice. The hellbeast swallows hard and then he bounds forward with his wings tucked tight to his sides. The outline of her is warmer than when she died and it is the shape of sanctuary for him. The tall boy croons and the sound is achingly desperate when he draws near.

He wants to be cautious, to not suffocate her with his love, but he is ravenous when he tucks his great head under her chin. Her awful son is careful not to catch her soft skin with his horns or the barbs that protrude from his spine despite his feverish hurry. A trembling begins in his muscles and he feels his chest tighten at the feel of her warmth against his cheek.

“You were gone for so long. I was so cold,” he mumbles as his wings droop down his sides. “I thought I would die, Mother.”

And somewhere, in the distance, a figure watches with hatred in his eyes. But the looming shadow does not draw near – he only turns and leaves for now.

@[bible] larva sees them but he'll come back later to beat everyone's ass.