H U Y A N A
the world is drowning

The thought of being a mother had never suggested itself to the rain child; she had simply assumed that the path of knowledge was a lonely one, the passage so narrow, unsuitable for the clumsiness of little hooves. Perhaps the lack of parents and the loveless childhood she had led put her off the idea, or perhaps she was far too preoccupied with learning about the world and its mysteries to give it much thought. She had never fawned over the idea of babies, nor had she given a second glance to mothers doting their children— first and foremost, she was an intellectual, not a machine meant to produce and create carelessly, too preoccupied with the conception and production of children to wonder and think and learn.

But she had been through darkness and neverending night and was tired of this lifeless world.

New life flourished within her—she could feel it bloom within her womb like a burgeoning flower, the growing child contorting her slender silhouette into something cumbersome. At first, she had been apprehensive of her impending motherhood; perhaps in the very recesses of her mind, Huyana was afraid that her own children would suffer the very same fate as she; unloved and abandoned for greater ideals, cast away like driftwood upon a rocky shore for higher callings, but something deep in her chest said that her children did not have to endure the same experiences of she—this was new life, a new beginning, the onset of something thrilling and unknown. A child would not put every dream she had on halt, would not crush her aspirations—it would be something to love, something to teach. She would cherish this child, teach it forgiveness and love in a world which had none; she would tell it stories and watch it play in the rain like she had once, so many years ago, though this time it would have the loving gaze of a mother watching it.

Huyana moved quietly through the fringes of the glass lake, starlight shimmering through the ripples of her steps; she thought of Deimos, and felt a smile tug at the corners of her lips, embracing the mild delicacy of her face like the new now clinging to grass. This child was to be half reaper and half rain; an amalgam of two different worlds entirely.

Cleft hooves moved leniently through the water, dispersing the little pinpricks of light with every graceful step. The night was flush with warmth and promise, the full moon lending its light to the serene mare and the valley in which she dwelled, gently illuminating the pleasant plumpness of her abdomen. Her face tilted up softly as she gazed at the moon's face, that pale disc reflecting across her wondering blue eyes.

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