E I K
now and forever--
Later, Eik would not remember what exactly he was doing when it started. It was no doubt something to do with acquainting himself with the citadel. He had walked the streets many times already, enough to have a detailed map in his mind of what was where and the quickest ways to get about. But knowing the shape of a thing was far different from knowing its contents. He wanted to know Denocte the way he knew Solterra-- what made her smile, laugh, cry, rage. He wanted to know how the people were most likely to flow through the streets on any given day, and what those people were like.
(Secretly, he wanted to be loved by them like Isra was. It was unreasonable and unattainable, thus it would remain a secret.)
He would remember that it started to rain. It was noteworthy because rain still felt like a blessing, even though such summer showers were common in Denocte. He loved the rain fiercely, as all desert creatures do, and it humored him to witness how quickly the streets thinned at just a little water falling from the sky. The wet stones smelled like they were trying to speak, but all he heard was the drumming of the wind and rain and the steady clop of his hooves.
And of course he would remember the way his lover howled for him. He was always listening, when they were apart. "Eik," she cried across the stormy darkness,with a force that he felt as viscerally as if she jerked a rope tied round his neck. The pain and the wanting colored her thoughts crimson-blue.
It was happening.
It does not take Eik long to get to the dreaming tree, not with love and fear urging him on. (and oh, how very similar the two are!) When he arrives his sides are heaving and slick with rainwater. "Isra." The bloated sky rumbles in the distance-- thunder, over the mountains. Do the children feel it? Is that why they want out now, so they might feel the storm for themselves? (he wonders, not without a little pride, what strange and fierce star-sea-children they've made)
"Breathe," he says, gentle yet commanding. He had witnessed childbirth before, in the other life. In that place, the herd circled defensively around mother while one or two helped talk the woman through childbirth.
There was no herd here tonight, just Eik, Fable, and Isra. The children were coming fast, too fast to summon Moira or another healer. "Just keep breathing."He looks nervously to Fable for reassurance-- she'll be okay, right?-- as though the dragon was a midwife and not... well, a dragon.
@Isra :D
Time makes fools of us all
