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It is the dark slate of the cavern's walls that swims in to focus first, the blaring sound of silence that sends sparks of light across your vision, the rusted scent of blood (so strong that you can taste it on your tongue, despite your lack of understanding) that trickles through your consciousness. At first it is only enough to cringe from the noise of the world around you, blinking rapidly as your eyes stare out in to the bleakness of the first hesitant breaths of winter, watch as your own breath spirals outwards, dissipating until there is nothing left to be seen. Somewhere within the fogginess of your mind there is an urgency, something, an unnamed fear, that claws and pulls at you, settles a sense of panic in to your bones. Only as you try to gather yourself, your breath catching in your throat as you attempt to listen to anything but your own wild heartbeat, the ringing in your ears, do you become aware of something that sends a tremor down your spine: another's breathing has filled the absence of yours.
Your head shoots up entirely too fast and you scramble for some sense of stability as the world spins and pieces of memory flood your tired mind, the cause for that strange urgency sunk somewhere in your consciousness becoming alarmingly clear. A whimper escapes you as you think to search for him, for the child that you had brought in to this world, fleeting images of your first moments with him still clinging stubbornly to your mind, so foreign to you in the state that you're in. Your heart is all too silent in this knowledge, hushed and hidden from the overwhelming affections that it is to love a child all your own, your body too tired to want such things, your mind too afraid to lose them all over again. It is not enough to simply recall the minutes you spent admiring him, cleaning from all the filth of birth, entirely too happy to feel his hummingbird heartbeat, feel his tiny breaths, to listen to his mews of protest. It is not enough to hear him breathing now, feel his warmth against your flank, and you are too terrified to ask for more. To look for him feels like it would be to lose him, and it is something that even now you flinch from, teeth grinding together in all of your anxiety.
Within the depths of your changeling heart, there is something else: a name, a boy with his liar's smile and broken promises, all of the anguish that it is was to love him and the way that it felt to leave him, knowing that he wanted you gone. As it was with her, and despite everything in you telling you otherwise if you would just allow it, keep your heart from being so stubborn, you are worried that you will not love this child the way you should, for all of the ways that his father has wronged you. Worry that, for all of your hurt, you will neglect him, that you will not be the mother that he deserves simply for being.
As you look to him, to that little cherub face, those eyes like sea-glass, searching and hungry, all you can see is him. Him, in the delicate lines of his youthful face, him in the way that those little wisps of lily-white hair curl, him in the way that he smiles as he looks to you, new and unafraid. Him, and it is alright. Your heart swells painfully at that smile, brows furrowing as you feel yourself reach for him, skin flinching as his warmth radiates against your own. From that first touch, you only crave more, kissing the bridge of his nose, his forehead, smiling at the two dark little nubs within the small expanse of white. He squirms beneath your touch, your loving gaze, and you can only shift your weight, move your tired body to better see him, to examine every inch of him and know him intimately, knowing that he is yours and only yours. For every moment spent admiring, touching him, breathing him, there is a distinct absence, a loneliness that gnaws ever so quietly on your heart; a rasping sound of doubt and sorrow just loud enough to be unable to shut it out, a face stapled to the back of your eyelids, a ghost’s touch along your skin.
It is only as your eyes open again, your vision blurred, that you recognize the burn within them, feel the wetness along your cheeks. You cannot help it as you laugh softly, weaving your neck around your child’s fragile little body, pulling him so close, needing him so. “It will be alright, my little heartling—we will be alright.” You do not know whether you are trying to comfort him or yourself more, though you are certain that he does not understand just what he lacks, all of the worry that sits like a weight against your chest, all of the things you fear you will not be able to give him. “I'm here,” you breathe against him, in to him, the warmth of your breath scattering across his skin as you smile a secret little smile. For all of your uncertainty, there will always be at least one thing that you can offer him: never have you loved anyone more. “and here is where I will stay.”
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like punching in a dream, breathing life into a nightmare