Fire Dancer used to flutter, a waif-like creature of too-long-leg and too-narrow-side. Her legs are still too long, to be fair; her ribs and shoulders still make prominent ridges beneath the copper colored coat. But the roundness of her belly is undeniable, and the duality of her offspring means it only grows wider as each day passes, until she feels her girth must be greater than her length, that her proportions have collapsed and expanded away from anything resembling reason. Like a child's drawing of a fat man on stilts she totters through the world, resentful and remorseful, her brother a tutting midwife who follows in her wake.
The twins are sleeping, and the Fire Dancer takes a moment to graze, to relish this welcome peace. Their magic has kept her in a whirlwind of emotion far greater than anything mere hormones could wreak, and often not in their benefit: more than once she has come close to terminating her pregnancy, only stopping in the final moments as Natraj's presence in her mind outweighed that of her unborn offspring. She thinks about this as she chews tough grass- what life do they really have, with the world going so incredibly to shit? With a mother who will always view them as a mistake, a father who might feel the same? What will Amaris think of her now? Who will help her raise them- certainly not Sacre, once he learns what she's done. Will he take Mortimer from her, too? Tightness closes on her chest, a fist of terror and anger and fear. Her heart beats like a captured thing; she chokes, her eyes widening; she-
Twins! Awake! Natraj snaps into her mind.
"FUCKING! BRAT! CHILDREN!" The girl's usually deep, usually calm voice beaks into the silence, aflame with fury and choked with pain. These goddamn children will be the death of her - and again she feels them move, and imagines them giggling, as tough satisfied with the havoc they are wreaking on their mother's psyche. Fire Dancer glares pointlessly at her belly, as though willing the hellions to behave, and for the moment it seems they may be listening. She can feel her emotions winding down, the brief flash of fear and rage fading into something almost normal... that, or she's simply learned to live at this level of misery. Both seem possible right now.
She sighs and settles back into grazing, her brother maintaining wary watch.
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