07-20-2020, 07:38 PM
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.”
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]