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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


    i will have to die for this, isilya
    #1
    The pain had been tremendous.
    The child had kicked and writhed.

    How foolish she had been to think she could safely carry a child. How she had gasped and begged and apologized while the child tried so desperately to get away from the agony of it.

    How foolish she had been to think she could care for a child. It occurred to her too late that to burn the child from the inside would surely mean that she would burn on the outside, too. The child would die if she did not find help.

    She had no choice but to abandon the home she’d made for herself in the meadow, someplace where Pentecost could always find her. She had whispered a stilted apology as she’d gone, promised all the empty air that she would return. She would bring their child home.

    But she is not certain she will make it to Tephra now. The child kicks her swiftly in the ribs, knocks the air out of her as she trudges. Almost takes her to her knees. She has to find Isilya, the magician who had smiled so patiently at her when she’d touched her nose to a bird and watched it go up in smoke.

    She collapses at the edge of the kingdom. She cannot bear it any longer and the child will not wait. It makes her wail, sobbing into the quiet, until the child finally emerges. And the child is all crooked limbs and a beating heart and Leonora cannot even touch her.

    She rises, automatic, despite her exhaustion. The child follows suit, standing on trembling limbs, teetering closer. Her mother’s desperation fills the child’s chest, so big she almost chokes on it.

    Astra,” her mother gasps and the child blinks up at her, gets one step closer before her knees give out and she collapses in a great heap.

    We have to get help,” she whispers but doesn’t dare touch the child. And the child tries to clamber to her feet again. Sways on her too-long limbs. “Come with me,” her mother whispers and the child does. Shaky, trembling, all full of her mother’s pain. A different kind of pain out here in all this open.

    It takes hours to find the magician and Leonora swallows all her panic, her despair, unaware that the child feels it, too. “Isilya,” she cries, relieved. They’ve made it. And the child, exhausted by the journey, collapses between them. “Please,” she heaves. “I can’t feed her.
    and in the dark, i can hear your heartbeat
    leonora



    @[Isilya]
    #2











    The joy at seeing the filly she had made fire-proof flowers for all grown up fades quick as she hears the pain and exhaustion in her voice. Isilya watches in horror as the star-strewn filly collapses between them and she hurries to the girls side - and understands Leonora’s pleading immediately. “It’s going to be okay, Leonora. I promise.” She calls her magic before the first syllable is out, drawing nutrients from the ground and infusing them into the young girl’s body. It would ease her pain, and lend her the strength she needed from that first feeding.

    As she does that, she also plucks the white flowers from the vines on her back and weaves them into birds like the ones she had made for Leonora when they first met. She infuses them with more nutrients but, after a thought, re-arranges them so they are not birdlike at all.

    She worries that the filly would not eat them in they looked alive.

    Hoping that the initial infusion had given the young girl a boost, Isilya weaves a feast of magical, pastel flowers together and they float in clumps to land before Leonora and before the filly.

    “I can make it so you can nurse her, if you’d like. Or I can.” The flower seemed less intrusive as a first step, and she smiles a little sheepishly. “But you both need some more strength before we can consider that. Please eat.” The blooms will practically dissolve into the mouths of the two girls, they only needed to pick them up - Isilya sparing no trick or ounce of energy to care for them and make sure that she can keep her promise and make it as easy as possible for them.

    There is no judgement, no scorn - as if Isilya could be capable of such things. Only a very pure concern as she hovers near the mother and daughter. Ready to make any adjustments to her methods as required.

    And then, when she thinks of something else, she casts a warm smile at Leonora and comments with a gentle laugh. “Yours are fire-proof.”


    soft and sweet

    art by azagus


    @[leonora]
    #3
    The child can taste her mother’s relief, too.
    And something stronger. The magician’s warmth. The magician’s conviction.

    It is almost enough to spur the child to her feet. But she is so dreadfully tired.
    It is both her mother’s exhaustion and her own. The child feels these things so intensely.
    Even more intensely than her hunger.

    The child feels all of these things while Leonora wishes more than anything that she could touch her. Just as fiercely as she had wanted to touch Pentecost. Just as fiercely as she has always been forced to want these things.

    But there is some tremendous comfort in Isilya’s presence and the memory of how the birds had burned and the magician had smiled good-naturedly and made them anew. Made them in such a way that they did not ignite when she hesitantly reached for them again. When the magician tells her that it’s going to be all right, Leonora believes her.

    And so the child believes her, too. Although the child does not know how horribly things have gone wrong. All the child has is her hunger and the women’s emotions and a memory of all the ways she had burned.

    But they are safe here. Her mother knows it, so the child knows it, too.

    The child delights in the way the flowers turn so effortlessly into birds and then back again. She watches in wide-eyed wonder, the same way her mother had some years before. The child hesitates only a beat before she takes one in her mouth, chewing it with vigor. And she can feel her mother’s relief – even more potent now – flood through her own veins.

    Thank you,” her mother sighs and Leonora does not look away from the child while she eats, giggling quietly at the way the flowers burst and bloom before her. The child can taste the magician’s concern, too, but does not know how to identify it. It is something that merely itches at the base of her spine.

    It is several moments before Leonora has swallowed enough of her panic to eat herself, nearly choking on her breath of shuddering, grateful laughter. After a lifetime of surviving on the charred remains of her food, the flowers dissolve on her tongue so sweetly that she could weep.

    I don’t think she’s like me,” the mother says after a beat of silence, turning to the magician, something like shame in her eyes. “I don’t know why I didn’t consider the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to care for her.” She looks away, fastening her focus to the child, before she asks, “is that terribly irresponsible of me?” 
    and in the dark, i can hear your heartbeat
    leonora




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