"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
She is alone when the first contractions come. But they come so soon that she does not believe them, does not worry as she should. She knows she is not due yet, that the life inside her could not possibly be finished growing. So she does not look for Nightlock or any of their children, does not think there is a reason to seek help until it is suddenly too late to do so. She expects this pain to disappear again, to stop and be forgotten by the time her husband returns home again. But these contractions do not relent, instead they twine like fingers in her belly and squeeze until she is kneeling and gasping in the sand.
The children come quickly, too soon and too fast, so terrifyingly small. She is scared to look and see if they breathe, scared that when she reaches out to press her nose to such bright chestnut skin it will be cool and still and empty. The first is a girl, and she is so beautiful. Bright chestnut skin and splashes of white just like her mama, even a small smudge of it on the pink of her nose. But she is most beautiful when she opens those luminous eyes and Wonder finds blessed life and a shade of seagreen every ocean would be jealous of. She is quick to wash her clean of the birth, to let her velvet skin dry in the warmth of the sun and briny noon breeze. She grooms the child until new pain rips her away again
The second is even smaller and somehow stranger than all the others who have come before her. For a moment Wonder can only gaze quietly down at her, brow furrowed beneath her forelock and jaw so tense. The pups had been odd in an unexpected way, but at least she had known what they were. At least they had looked alive. This child is something altogether stranger, something that births fear into the darkest parts of her beating heart. She cannot even tell if this creature lives, for when she tentatively presses her lips to the child’s cheek, it is hard and cold and wholly still.
She feels panic rise in her, decides to follow an instinct rather than any logic, because there is no logic that can explain this. She cleans more of the birth from this girl, her daughter, and every swipe exposes more bright, gleaming glass. Glass. Like the pieces of smooth, bubbled matter you can find in the sand after a lightning strike. Like thick ice over a winter pond - and even more horrifying are the thin fissures and cracks that spiderweb all across that delicate body. She looks so fragile, so helpless.
She traces the fissures all across that little body, starting at her neck and moving all the way down to her shoulders and then her ribs, pausing when she notices the faintest movement there. Such a tiny breath followed by the flick of an ear, a little ragged gasp for air that just hisses back out of that shining body. Wonder is frantic when she realizes, dragging both of them so carefully close to her as she calls out to a quiet, oblivious world for help.
02-26-2020, 03:01 AM (This post was last modified: 02-26-2020, 03:03 AM by Nightlock.)
— I'll break you a hundred different ways —
He is rarely from her side anymore, especially once he had realized she was again with child. The birth of the quadruplets weighed heavily on his mind as the weeks passed; afraid that it would happen again, afraid that this time her body would fail her and she would be taken from him. He never voiced these concerns, of course. His granite expression serves as a barrier between his thoughts and the outer world — even to her. He carries his worries as his own burden, keeping them tucked away so that she might not suspect that he was anything but happy at the prospect of them having more children. And he was, of course. Because it made her happy, and he had long ago come to the understanding that he would do anything to make her happy. Anything at all that would chase the sadness out of her seagreen eyes, anything at all to make sure he was never the reason they might cloud with sorrow.
It will be a long while before he forgives himself for today, for thinking he could be gone for a few hours.
He is almost back to where he had left her, in their own secluded area of Tephra, when he hears her voice. He can nearly taste the panic in her cry, the sound of it turning his blood to ice as he rushes forward, the dread in his chest threatening to weigh him down like an anchor.
When he sees her there, with two small (and they’re so, incredibly small – even he can recognize that) forms curled near her, not even he can hide the worry that that darkens like a storm-cloud across his face. “Wonder,” he cannot say her name above a whisper around the fear in his throat, but it doesn’t matter because he is already burying his mouth against the top of her head, and trailing it down her cheek. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left, I didn’t think–” He cuts himself off, because it’s unlike him to talk so much but also because there is nothing he can say to possibly make up for this. The guilt that has taken up root in his chest spreads like a web, because he knows this could have been a far different scene; unbidden, the memory of Choke’s birth and stumbling across his dead mother infiltrates his mind, and he clenches his jaw until he his afraid the bones of it might crack.
With his nose still touching her he finally looks closer to the two littles girls nestled into their mother’s side. The one looks so much like Wonder, with her red and white skin and ocean-green eyes, and when he gently touches her forehead he thinks he can feel where antlers will someday push through the skin.
But then, there is the other little girl. She is so small and still he is certain that she cannot be alive, but if he stares long enough he thinks he can see her impossibly small rib cage quivering in an almost useless attempt to breathe. He almost does not even notice the strange way she glistens, or how smooth she feels when he tentatively touches her forehead, too. All he knows is that she is fragile and helpless, and she is theirs, and that he cannot let anything happen to her. “Thorn,” is all he says at first, before looking at Wonder and continuing, “Maybe Thorn can help heal her.”
Tamlin is lazing about, thinking about how wonderful it’s going to be to have another litter of puppies to play with once their mother gives birth. Although he is dimly aware that it is more likely that she does not have another 4 siblings again, that’s where his mind is as he lays sprawled out on the jungle floor with one of his wolf friends. Two boys and two girls again, obviously, otherwise things would be mis-matched. He hopes they have wings so he can teach them how to fly.
Perhaps he might be able to name one of them! It only seemed fair - their mom and dad got to pick the names of him and his siblings so it was obviously their turn. And Tam would be there first to make sure none of the others got to put in a claim. Surely they would all agree on a name - but he wanted to be the one who said it.
When he hears a cry in his mom’s voice, the idle boy leaps to his hooves - wings almost smacking the young wolf in the face. It’s through magic that the wolf has learned to trust Tamlin, and vice-versa, and the snapping of his attention draws their bond thin so that the canine leaves while the greying boy hurries forward.
There are his parents, and he’s surprised that his new siblings have come ahead of schedule. Those sneaky buggers!
Oblivious to what is happening, he pokes a head around a tree to try and get a good look at the new lives that are curled up against Wonder. Only two? Where were the rest of them?! And they weren’t even furry! “Oh. I wanted them to be puppies.” Tamlin states with an obvious note of disappointment as he more fully comes onto the scene, wings drooping a little as the excitement fades - but he still does not picking up on the distress of his parents. It does not occur to him that there is anything that could touch their family, any hardship that would break his mother’s heart nor touch his own. All of his siblings are so full of life in such wonderful ways - even their Old Man in his own funny way.
It’s only when Nightlock mentions his brother that Tamlin starts to grown uncomfortable, this boisterous boy is not made for serious situations. He cannot think of what to say - a first, for he is not often speechless - but his mind works for him. He is sure that Thorn is not far, but he calls out to his friends the wolves anyway - asking them to see if his brother is close and to encourage him (nicely) to join them if he can be found.
