what the snow hides shall never be found
In the light of the crackling lightning (her lightning, your lightning, another shared echo) you see it.
The shadow that rests beside her.
The figure.
The heartbeat.
The child.
Dappled. Slender. Small. So much like a perfect daughter you once bore it tears into your soul, and the golden eyes that look at you are hers, as certainly as the green ones are yours. For a split second you are the unicorn mother and the babe is your foal, your fawn, one of a perfect set, the love of your life, the reason your wake and live and breathe.
Then you blink, and you are a woman again, and the foal is not Romina.
But it is alive.
The mother is dying. It's obvious: you can smell it, see it, taste it in the air. You can feel it in your soul, as surely as you feel your heartbeat. The mother is dying, but so long as she lives she will not let you touch her child. She will fight you tooth and nail and horn, a mother, a Valkyrie driven by instinct and fear and feral love.
The mother is dying. But as surely as you know that this, you also know that if you do nothing the child will die too.
What will you do?
The shadow that rests beside her.
The figure.
The heartbeat.
The child.
Dappled. Slender. Small. So much like a perfect daughter you once bore it tears into your soul, and the golden eyes that look at you are hers, as certainly as the green ones are yours. For a split second you are the unicorn mother and the babe is your foal, your fawn, one of a perfect set, the love of your life, the reason your wake and live and breathe.
Then you blink, and you are a woman again, and the foal is not Romina.
But it is alive.
The mother is dying. It's obvious: you can smell it, see it, taste it in the air. You can feel it in your soul, as surely as you feel your heartbeat. The mother is dying, but so long as she lives she will not let you touch her child. She will fight you tooth and nail and horn, a mother, a Valkyrie driven by instinct and fear and feral love.
The mother is dying. But as surely as you know that this, you also know that if you do nothing the child will die too.
What will you do?
