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[P] be ignited, or be gone - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: [P] be ignited, or be gone (/showthread.php?tid=2821)

be ignited, or be gone - Eik - 10-12-2018


They haven't seen each other in a while, except in passing. They are always in passing; Eik going one place, or Bexley going another, or both at the same time, exchanging weary glances across the quiet space between them. In this way they shared a certain something-- a moment of camaraderie, or some other silent communication that has no words. It was just a meeting of the eyes, and sometimes more than that.

He never really understood Bexley, and he doesn't think she ever really understood him-- but to be fair, most people didn't. Anyway they had a certain arms-length agreement. They were on the same team, in the same extended family. At the end of the day he'd kill for her, probably. Probably. 

(Really it all depends on who, and why. But probably, regardless.)

So when they stumble across each other, each by themselves with seemingly nowhere else to be, it seems like an odd sort of miracle. In the momenta that follow he looks at her, really looks at her for the first time in a while. His first thought is that it is an odd thing to see Bexley so... so fat. 

"Bexley," he says with a wide grin. It is unlike him to smile so broadly.

Part of his mind is racing. Remembering. His heart sings, but it also aches. He has not seen a child since--

Since his own.

It is impossible to not think of his loss, but he manages to do so distantly. He can still find joy in the few places there is joy to be found. His grin still holds steady. "Congratulations." It is the single happiest, most sincere thing that anyone in Novus has heard him say. He half-reaches to her swollen belly, stopping himself just inches away. She must feel his breath on her side. He hopes it will not make her recoil. "May I?" He tilts his head, poised to reach across that last bit of space and feel the child separated from the world by not much more than skin and a thin layer of muscle.

It would be so easy now for him to reach out with his mind and make acquaintances with the infant. He could learn her name, tell her stories of her mother, show her what the air feels like in your lungs and what the earth feels like under your hooves. 

Bexley would never even know.

But he refrains, sensing an undefined boundary that he is not yet ready to pass. Not yet.



Preggo @Bexley <33

RE: be ignited, or be gone - Bexley - 10-13-2018

one good honest kiss, to feel alright

It’s awful.

The sickness, the ache in her limbs, the heaviness that seems to drag her into the sand until she thinks she might be sinking.

It does not fit her. Bexley is supposed to be beautiful and capable, and right now she is neither - just tired and irritated and perpetually exhausted by how ugly she looks, fat and sloppy, consistently working to avoid her reflection. When she does find the courage to leave her tower, it’s usually in a mood so foul Solterrans weave a wide circle around her, perturbed by her glare and whispering speculations.

She’s not sure how many of them know who the father is, or if she’s fooling herself to think that anyone doesn’t. Still there’s some solace in thinking (whether it’s true or not) that there is a part of her still hidden from the Court, a little silver of her life not overtaken by government, by gossip or political influence.  

And so when she sees Eik in the streets a brief moment of dread overtakes her, dread that he might ask her a favor she cannot complete for him, or a question she will not answer. Overhead the sun winks its easy eye. Still she walks toward him, wearing an expression that is almost sheepish, and when he grins - really truly grins, the biggest smile she might have ever seen him wear - something like relief rushes through her, and she smiles back, wild-eyed and excited.

Sure, she answers, and angles herself closer; the god inside her shifts, slightly, and she swallows the urge to remark on it.  
credits


RE: be ignited, or be gone - Eik - 10-13-2018


He can only imagine what it would feel like to have a tiny universe in your belly. All that promise, all that possibility. It isn't that he's jealous of her. Few things seem more foreign and horrifying than literally growing a child inside of you. But... there is something a little glorious about it.

This thought brings back memories so heavy that he must scramble to think of anything else. In her broad smile is the perfect distraction. Even without flexing his magic, he can read the excitement in her grin. For this one moment they are not regent and emissary. This is not business, or politics. This is a moment of calm between one storm and the next.He enjoys it, knowing full well it won't last long.

With Bexley's permission, he reaches out and gently rests his muzzle against her bulging side. After a moment of stillness, Apolonia kicks out violently at his touch. "Oh," he breathes out in surprise-- and then all his walls are gone. The walls that he spent months learning how to carefully, steadily build-- crumbled at the touch of a tiny hoof. The filly's thoughts slide into his head, mingling with his own in a wave of energy he's never quite experienced.

Oh, she is something special.

Dumb with surprise, all he can think to communicate with her is "hello," but she must also pick up the thoughts he does not have words for: the smell of her mother's skin, the feel of sun on his back, the weight of a long life.

His walls rebuild themselves in an instant, but the impression of her touch remains. In the silence that follows, Apolonia's dreaming mind haunts him like a ghost.

Eik draws back and blinks. "Have you chosen a name for her?" That word- her- is one of those things you can't take back once spoken. Did Bexley know she carried a daughter and not a son? Did she at least suspect? He carefully watches her reaction, heart fluttering nervously.



@Bexley

RE: be ignited, or be gone - Bexley - 12-05-2018

one good honest kiss, to feel alright

Almost she wants to shiver at the touch of Eik’s muzzle to her stomach. It is a soft touch, no violence, no pressure, and the feeling of it, even the idea, is so strange she almost does not understand what it’s like to know a touch like that. (How long has it been?) Even her meetings with Acton are fraught with teeth and bruises and little pricks of pain. This - this is something different. Something foreign.

She watches him. The way he seems so engrossed by the life inside her, like he is feeling something she cannot. Jealousy overtakes her, a pinprick knot in her chest, growing and growing and growing. Already she cannot help the feeling that this child is never really going to be hers in the same way that Bexley was never really her parent’s - this child, she thinks, is going to be kicking and screaming from the moment it’s born, and what else could Bexley expect from her own blood, and Acton’s?

Have you chosen a name for her?

Her. Hm. Bexley cannot pretend she does not have her own suspicions, and for Eik to confirm them seems like more of a blessing than an intrusion. She smiles, a wan, flickering thing, and says, Apolonia.

It came to her in a dream. A terrible dream - somewhere on the ocean where a church burned to the ground and left gold smoke in the sky - but a dream nonetheless, and she had woken up gasping at the kicks in her side.

She does not think it worth telling him, or perhaps some part of her already has.
credits


RE: be ignited, or be gone - Eik - 01-21-2019


In the place he was born and raised--

(in the place where a part of him lies buried like the ancient roots of a fallen tree, like sleeping, like a forgotten god)

In the place he was born and raised, children were sacred and adults were dispensable. He never really understood why that was (wasn't everyone a child once) but some habits die hard.

(Some
don't die at all--
and some shouldn't.)

So he feels the bump in Bexley's belly, feels little Apolonia kick at him 1-2, 1-2 like a pugilist, and he feels closer to god than he did that day on the mountain when Tempus' voice made his bones ache. It will probably be hard for the child to grow up in Solterra (there are so few children here) but it will be right. "Apolonia," he repeats like a chant, and he smiles a slightly odd little pleased smile. Maybe the word Apolonia should make him think of lightning and ash, but instead he's picturing a large golden apple in Bexley's large golden belly, and the palomino has never seemed to him so vulnerable nor so beautiful.

He wouldn't say that in a million years but he also wouldn't lie, and so his smile tilts like a secret is hiding behind it. It fades when he draws his muzzle away.

"A good name," he knows this opinion is useless but there it is, presented as plain as the earth is round. "Is there anything I can get you? Anything you need?" He looks away, looks back. The sun is about to set and a gentle breeze sweeps through. It is quite comfortable at this golden hour, quite rare, and Eik is in quite a good mood. A baby is going to be brought into this world, and the future seems unusually bright. "Have you ever tried the merchant with the stuffed dates? He sets up most evenings after sunfall... my favorites are the ones with candied walnuts..." Eik trails off longingly... He doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, but there are a few fine exceptions.



@Bexley

RE: be ignited, or be gone - Bexley - 01-27-2019

one good honest kiss, to feel alright

I’m okay, Bexley answers, and for once it is true. The sun is light at their backs and O stirs in her stomach, and despite the aches in her bones and the sweat on her brow, all is right in the world. It is quiet and still and golden, and the strange feeling that overtakes her must be peace. She holds it tight-fisted.

At least until Apolonia is born, everything will be alright. Who knows what will come afterwards - one of them very well might die, or Night and Day fall into war again, or the gods come to chastise them with twice the fury of before - but for now Bexley is guaranteed, at least, a few weeks of peace and a child who needs her. It would be selfish to ask for anything more.

Strangely enough, “selfish” does not seem to fit her, now.

She has to grin a little at the way he trails off, their strong, darling emissary, incapacitated by candied walnuts: I haven’t, she admits, with a false sheepishness, but they sound delicious. (They don’t appeal to her, particularly, but the adoration on his face and in his voice makes her think they would be worth a try anyway, if only to see that look stick around a little longer.)

Shall we? And in the softly-setting sun Eik might as well be as gold as she is, as gold as Apolonia might be, and there is something magic about it that she is loathe to put a name to.
credits


RE: be ignited, or be gone - Eik - 02-23-2019


She says she's okay, and he guesses that's as good as anyone can hope for these days. Honestly she doesn't look okay with her belly bulging like that, but the okay-ness of pregnancy is not anything he'll ever understand, not even with his telepathy.

(the world needs some mystery, doesn't it?)

Maybe later they'll hate themselves for this: for all the things they had that were not cherished enough, or all the moments they wasted pretending to enjoy sweets, or all the times they did not say the words they should have. All they can do for now is let the golden light wash over them and enjoy that okay feeling that both follows and precedes loss.

He smiles that small smile at his regent, before he turns and leads the way to the markets.



@Bexley <3