when we went under a dragon moon; to mother love
Posted by slv. Ilium on February 28, 2009, 10:24 pm
64.13.13.50
Funny, how things change - and stay the same.
- When it all winds down, she doesn't belong in the desert. She knows this because, swollen with a pregnancy she never wanted, she slips between the tangled vines and creaking trees of the mountains, and feels at least a little bit home. "Mother," she says a little, without realizing her lips have opened - those beryl-green eyes are glazed over with weariness. At length, the mare finds a spot deep in the shadow of the mountains, and sinks slowly to her knees and then the ground. Perhaps she chooses the spot, or perhaps she simply will not walk any further.
- Her barrel is grossly distended. Sweat lines her smooth scarred flanks, her shoulder with its slender knife-blade scar. The grass twines about her, and the branches of trees beat a quiet tattoo of clicks against one another in sympathy. Sparks of electricity leap in the air; the mare cries out, if only a little. Is it not enough, she wonders, that she had to watch him die - but that his child must tear her apart?
- But it is the way of things. Before long, she is breathing heavy and even more exhausted than she was from her strange and unplanned pilgrimage - but beside her on the ground are two tiny creatures, each smaller than most, but breathing. Slowly, carefully, the warrior rises and begins to clean the children - her children. One is pale yellow, a buckskin who (in coloring, at least) looks much like the stallion who is not her father. Iah, croons the earth in the child's blood; moon, sweetling. The second is a colt, tiny and perfect, and Ilium's breath catches sadly in her throat as she licks his painted black and white fur. He looks so like his father. His father, who tried to kill Anatole. His father, who died because of Ilium, who fell under her beloved Anatole's hooves. Betrayal.
- Excelsior, she thinks, and laughs. Perhaps he will be unlike his father - Excelsior! Ever upward, while his father spiraled nothing but down. Electricity sparks on his coat, clings to him in loving embrace, and Ilium shudders with weariness and regret. "Mother," she says to the trees, at length, "I came back. To you." It has taken this long to realize - long enough that, soon, the warrior and will have to leave the Element forever with her children - but, at last, Ilium is home.
[XDXD ILIUM CAME BACK. ALSO SHE HAS BABIES NOW.]
ILIUM
the thickets darkening, the ravines ugly -- |
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