chernobyl

i was not caught, i crossed the line
i live among you, well disguised

They traveled mostly by night, moving from the south to north at a slow pace. Chernobyl is heavily pregnant, but is in a hurry to get Murdock back to the Falls – and her unborn child as well. There they can finally start to build something... together. She's never wanted anything more, honestly, she's never really wanted much except to be left alone to her solitude and wandering. That ended when she met Murdock and has carried her through to this day, it has been her motivation to join any herd at all, her motivation to tolerate group living and being told what she may and may not do. He squirms inside her, kicking harder these days; he is cramped in there.

Their dark figures move smoothly through the dark forest, the moon is almost wholly black and only a sliver grins among the drifting clouds. They've been traveling for a long while, several weeks, moving as fast as a heavily pregnant mare can in muddy slippery ever-morphing landscapes that go from high to low, to rocky to flat, swamp to mountain in an endless loop. She's luckily familiar with which roads go where and which routes are the quickest or easiest, if Murdock shows her a new way she happily follows him – she happily assumes he knows Helovia as well if not better than herself. The sun is still four or so hours from painting the darkness with a dash of low light. The pair is as silent as the fog, it would seem. Their hooves place themselves in careful places and their breathing soft and slow.

This moment is when her son decides he's done waiting. We're going. With one good kick from him the pebbles around her fly up into to the air and level off to suspend about five feet from the moist soil they broke from. They are all small, a circle of about sixty roundish stones float around her as she's stopped in her tracks with the stab of pain burning in her uterus. She groins loudly and her head drops, her teeth clench, her muscles bunch. The child squirms wildly as if he knows he's finally going to be set free. She can feel in anticipation, but her own is clouded in pain. The wave of intensity feels like it is fading for the moment, falling back like the sea only to return – she knows it is going to return, and probably harder than before. The tides of birth.

It's an hour more of this pain washing over her before something more begins to stir. Her feet are planted and her ears stay with Murdock, her eyes don't bother to open long enough to find him – though she knows he's there. The threshold has opened enough for him to enter the world – the gate swung free of its lock. The world will be different from these moments on into the far future. The orbit of pebbles floating in a small radius around her fall suddenly to the ground with a series of lifeless thuds. She clenches everything one last time and she can feel the little lump slip free of her sweat drenched body. She's on the ground now, but she doesn't remember folding her legs and surrendering to the ground; but she doesn't like being on the ground so she immediately throws herself up onto her shaky legs and cranes over the heap of dingy black fur and wet wings. Instinctively she licks him from tip to tip while he flails wildly beneath her nose. He's ready to be up and away from this chilly, damp moss-bed. He decides right away he's not a fan of being down there, his wings flap and his crazy long legs weakly unbend to bring him up. He falls once, twice, but not a third time, and still his mother relentlessly licks him clean of birth gunk. Yum.. He stands there with big (like, huge) bright green eyes. His pupils are split and swell and shrink with the lighting or lack of. In the darkness they are saucers with only a slit of yellowy-green, blinking wildly as they tip in every direction – trying to figure something out, anything at all.

chernobyl

i was not caught, i crossed the line
i live among you, well disguised

Things move fast and slow at the same time for her now. One second she is grooming the wobbly child beneath her nose in complete exhaustion induced autopilot mode and in the next second her senses suddenly flood back to her like water breaking through a dam. Sound gush back into her open, alert ears, the breeze brushes down her sweaty sides and twiddles the ends of her long black tail; pain swirls just behind her ribs replaces the numbness she felt moments ago. She takes a deep breath, smelling and tasting the damp forest that surrounds them. Murdock’s embraces are welcomed warmly, tiredly. She leans into him and closes her eyes against his beating chest. ‘Everything is as it should be’, she feels this whisper to her mind’s eye. She smiles with her eyes shut, drifting into a light standing sleep, listening to her lover’s voice proclaim the beauty in this moment. She hums affectionately with concurrence, leaning harder into him, loving him next to her; his wing around her, her body curled against his, their child balancing on shaky legs just in front of them.

The colt stands finally, never falling but definitely struggling. His knees threaten to buckle and he holds his wings out for balance, the little bones of his creaking and popping as his unfurls and stretches out, finding each controllable muscle as he lurches forward. His eyes are unnatural for a horse, his legs long and his wing bright. There is something else about him too that isn’t quite regular. The sun is rising somewhere in the distance and its subtle light finds corridors to gleam through between the old tree trunks. Shafts of peachy, fog-lit luminance dance across the foal as he moves – tiny scales animate across his rump and belly, patches become obvious under his plume of baby-mane. They fade back into his short, black, plain fur. These spaces will not be plain for long. There is no way to tell now, but his coat will morph with age, dawning strange and wild murals of color. His wings stretch out, bright and multi-colored, the white glows best in this pre-sunrise atmosphere. As his steps progress he becomes smoothing in his moving, navigating a small, choppy left turn to spin around and face his parents, smelling the milk and knowing it is the cure for the uncomfortable rumble in his belly. When he made his way closer his nose meets his father’s, his muzzle is enormous, his whiskers extending out to poke gently against the child’s very soft lips which are stretched out in curiosity. Not much registers but hunger, and comfort within his hour-old mind – but something is certainly fulfilling about touching noses with the big dark, shadowy figure with grass-sweet breath and a tender nose. The bond of his father is instantly felt and absorbed. After some time nuzzling and grunting against his father’s gigantic face he moves to slide beneath their bellies (as they stand side to side) and find that tap-able well of milk he’s so strongly drawn to.

Bull feels her son draw nutrients from her, relieving the almost intolerable pressure that pushed against her nipples for weeks prior to this day. He’s positioned with his body just underneath his father, between each set of legs, and his head nestled under his mother, sucking down milk ever so happily. Chernobyl drifts back to sleep, lightly, and here body begins to lose its fatigue after sometime. If Murdock moves away she doesn’t feel it, awaking fully some hours later, her son folded at her feet resting after some close by investigations while his mother rested. She shakes and blinks her eyes, finding Murdock and grinning widely, a joy that is never in her swims in her eyes now. The sun has risen into the morning now, dawn has officially gone by. Birds are active now, the owls withdrawing the deer bedding and the squirrels chattering. She reaches to find Murdocks muzzle with hers, to push into his lips with hers and to nestle her way back under his wing and against him. “Everything is as it should be.” She takes in a deep breath and bends down to brush the sleeping child. He unfolds and rises with a yawn, stretching as if he’s stretched a million times before. His wings flap flightlessly and he shakes the sleepiness from his bones. “Shall we walk on now? Or would you like to stay here a while longer?” Her eyes search his, she can probably find the answer in him before he says it aloud, but she’ll let him answer anyway. Dresden nurses a little more while they talk.