the Rift


[OPEN] A second summer breeze [Birthing]

Nephele Posts: 82
Dragon's Throat Guardian atk: 4.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Mare :: Pegasus :: 16.3 :: 7 HP: 64.0 | Buff: NOVICE
Atreus :: Lammergeier :: None Nova
#1
The Fury of Fire


As the sun began it's ascent above the cragged rocks and orange peaks of the Dragon's Throat, casting long shadows as it sought to purge the cold from the sun kissed realm, the Warrioress laid within her nest of grasses, feathers and down with a pain expression upon her chiselled features. She had silently prayed to the Sun God that her foals would be born in the coat tails of Orange Moon, and not the cold chased days of Frost Fall where the nights had turned bleak and icy. Yet, her foals did not come as the days had frittered away to the pitiful few, her sides remained swollen and peppered with occasional hoof prints.

No they had held on, she would have to give them that, and now with the dawn of the first of many days of Frostfall, she felt for the second time in her life the familiar pains of impending motherhood. She gave an uncomfortable groan while her head found comfort in the gradually warming sands, her pierced nostrils flared to inhale lungfuls of crisp air. Twins once more, twice she would have to struggle and hope that both were okay, both would come into the world strong, fit and every ounce the fighters she hoped they would be. Her daughters were vivacious and fiesty, ready to stride into their amazonian prowess the moment they skipped onto their second birthday. The vision was a firm one in her mind, each child of hers would be headstrong and proud, head held high and thrived in the heat of the moment.

As the seconds ticked away into minutes, the pain raising higher like a sea eagle on the rising currents of the tides, she huffed and snorted out her cusses and transgressions against their father. She cussed the Sun God and even fate itself as she pushed and shifted, wings splayed out against the nest and the red sands she had woven her home upon. Finally, after what seemed like hours, hours of stuttered agony and mental chanting to the most high, a wave of relief (and disgust at the sticky fluids that accompanied the foal) rushed through her as the first foal made contact with the world. Nephele's neck immediately raised so she could turn her dual coloured gaze to finally meet her child — and her breath catches in her throat.

The babe is the colour of the dappled forest floor in autumn, rich earth tones paint him (it's a boy, a son) while white paints his forelimb and his side with the stark white tree she remembers his father having. Her lip threatened to quiver at the thought of the ginger stag, but she refrained. No, this is not the time for irritation, anger and annoyance to fester in her heart fire. It is not these earthen touches which draw her breath to catch and her eyes to widen. It is the barren space upon his shoulders which drew tight the strings of her heart.


She didn't have much time to ponder, pain wracks through her and demands her attention. While her son sniffled and huffed a bleated snort from his mothers side, her dead unceremoniously dropped as she resigned herself to the throws of birth once more. It doesn't take long, as she's careful in her discomfort not to accidentally strike her newborn son as her legs twitched and her sides heaved. Her second child followed in another rushing feeling of euphoria, relief and anxiousness. Her first child had been barred the blessing of flight, and as she once more turned to glance at her second child, the stone within her stomach doubled. He was the same shades of autumn and sunbeams wrapped around his strands, and the same tree marking ran instead up his flank. They were so very beautiful, but she could not help but feel a loss for them.

Both her children, doomed to never fly. Blue and gold look over each of them in turn as she shifted, her wings outstretched to gather them beneath her banners as she set to work cleaning them. Part of her wanted to weep, part of her wanted to burst into flame over such a thing. A bigger, more ferocious part wanted to coddle them both, keep any questionable stares and sneers away from them, at how odd they would look toddling at her side. How different they would look stood next to their elder sisters, should their elder sisters come home. Her feathers spread further to nestle around her growing family, they needed names. Could she possibly give them fitting names, Verro and Tasokh had been named in the warriors tongue of their fathers land, her thoughts drifted as her cleaning efforts came to a close.


As she laid in the quiet stillness of the morning, her head laid between her sons small bodies with her breath falling in even breaths. Names flittered in and out of her mind, faces and tales from the years she spent beyond Helovia's mountain ranges. Then there was more recent tales, muttered stories shared around the fires and then among the groves she explored while her children were still within her. "I think you shall be Byron." Her head tilted slightly to press her pierced muzzle against the elder of the twins, and then her head did the same to the one who had come just minutes before. Her voice was warm, and surprisingly soft, a breeze which promised a summer storm should the wind turn afoul. "You shall be Jude."





Love, my territory of kisses and volcanoes.


@Jude

“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.” 

― Terry Pratchett
Please tag Neph in all replies!
Force & violence permitted with the exception of maiming & death

Jude Posts: 8
Dragon's Throat Colt
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: Two Seasons
Space
#2
JUDE
so give me hope in the darkness and I will see the light

For the longest time, the darkness had been a constant in his life. He did not resent it. What was there to fear when you knew of nothing else? That place was free of ghosts and monsters, void of sadness or pain or regret. All he knew was contentment, safety and comfort; the darkness was warm and close, gently supporting his mindless form and providing all he could ever need of nutrition and shelter.  

He even had company.

Never would he ever recall at which point it became clear that they were two, not one and the same. By the time the safe haven began to contract around them however, he already knew and his first encounter with loneliness came as the other beside him was pushed away. Deprived of someone he had never thought to miss because the concept of separation had never been within his experience before, he strained anxiously within the pulsating chamber. Without the other the confined space no longer felt safe. Without his other half the added space was not freeing but terrifying, a void that needed to be filled in order to be whole.

He would never throughout the remainder of his life be able to define the source of that need. It was as basic and necessary as breathing, as natural as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

That sun was blinding as it struck his eyelids, and the ground he landed upon was hard, icy cold compared to the perfect warmth he had left behind. The sand was rough and foreign to his damp body and the wind that hit him full of impressions that bombarded his senses. Overwhelmed he squealed in fright, cried and thrashed and felt the other beside him again.

Byron!

His brothers name was the first word he learned in life. Before his own, before his mothers, before the sun or the moon or the land beneath his feet, it was the name around which his existence centered. As the warm, soothing tongue of their mother licked them clean Jude leaned into his brothers body, calming down enough to take in the world around them only as long as the contact between them remained unbroken. He watched the rise and fall of red dunes once the brightness of day grew familiar, observed the shifting waves of the sea when his mismatched gaze rose high enough to perceive what more there was to see.

He closed his eyes and listened to the earth as it sang to him, whispering hymns of life and death and rebirth. Everything was as it should. It was quiet and still, and he was content.

Flickr


@Byron



please tag Jude in all posts
Force & Magic allowed short of permanent maiming & death

Byron Posts: 14
Outcast
Colt :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: Three Seasons [Frostfall]
Nova
#3
[Image: for_arahvir_by_franset_dalzb5m_by_arahvi...an974j.png]

There was nothing but the soft warmth of another body in the cocoon of safety he'd always know, the more feisty of the two, his energy was quelled only by the presence of his other half. Like the mountain, his tide like energy was abated and calmed. Despite knowing nothing but the comforting dark and the soothing tones, he is anxious for that which lays beyond. What does this voice, this being see what he and his other part not see? He wants to see.

So he drifted, in contained comfort by the other presence until his world was turned upside down. He's torn from everything he's known in a rush of fluid and a chilled morning air. It's a shock to the system as everything became light and alive. Dark nostrils flared to suck in the precious lungfuls of air as emerald and doubloon coloured eyes blinked blindly against the morning sunlight.

He is lost, white dipped legs curled against his silvered hide while everything bled into focus in an overwhelming array of oranges, purples and pastel blues. Lost and searching for the one thing which soothed the sea of storms which rested within his breast. The waves grow as he craned his thin neck around until he sees the one thing he's been searching for. His brother's squeal pulled his own fluffy ears back against his tufted made as he managed to utter a faint nicker toward him.

Byron did not hear the land as his brother did, it's soft serenade was absent to his newly hearing ears, he heard only his brothers stuttered, frightful noises. Jude. Fuzzy ears dared to perk forward at the name, directed towards the other. Jude. It fit, strangely he knew that in the marrow of his bones. Just as he knew his own name fit, Byron.

Somewhat abated by Jude's arrival in the world, his front hooves sprawled forward to nudge himself at an awkward angle. Back end pushing him forward, and then up. Up and up until suddenly his world was upside down in a flurry of flailing limbs and sand. He bleated out a surprised squeal, scrambling to roll himself right and make his way back towards Jude and their mother.




Jude Posts: 8
Dragon's Throat Colt
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: Two Seasons
Space
#4
JUDE
so give me hope in the darkness and I will see the light

It was not the same as it had been in that dark, still place. The world outside was so much bigger, the distances impossible to grasp for one who struggled with 'me', 'him' and 'her'. Even the sound of Byron's voice and the warmth of his body was not really enough, not for long. Jude wished for a way to get even closer, to go back to that perfect unity before they became separated into 'I' and 'he'.

Byron had other plans. Always the restless one, always the one to make the first move, he began again to do something new. With his long limbs and ungainly neck he thrashed about, placed tiny cloves against the rolling dune and heaved, until he flopped right over with a sound of distress that sent the young fawn's heartstrings a-quiver. Warm eyes of blue and green widened in concern as Jude reached out to lip at the damp tufts of pale mane, soft lips trembling in sympathy. It looked awfully difficult, that; the crown-less fawn glanced down at his own lanky body with worry. Would he be able to do that when Byron had such difficulty?

Back to the silver-haired boy the troubled eyes went, and then onward, onto the owner of the warm tongue and the big body whom he hadn't really paid much attention to before. Instinct told him she ought to be trusted, the same way it suggested he ought to follow his brothers example and move.

But how?

Tentatively he shifted back and forth a bit, wiggled one white-dipped leg free so that he could test the ground. It shifted beneath his split hoof, and wasn't it awfully hard too? Soft yet hard, giving yet unyielding. Without any real conviction the younger twin attempted to push himself up like his brother had, but halfway through the heave the swift rise of his head and the changing perspectives made him dizzy. Squeezing shut his eyes Jude sank slowly back down onto the ground, and sighed.

He wasn't sure about this at all... Could they really not just go back to how it had been?

Flickr



please tag Jude in all posts
Force & Magic allowed short of permanent maiming & death


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