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 Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 5:13 pm
 "Snow!" the voice is desperate, not quite shrill but definitely without all the bitterness and mockery. It's not a sound anyone in these parts knows. The only time this doe has spoken was years ago. And though they pass each other, no words pass between them. They are not friends. Some would call them enemies-- "Please! My son--" her voice chokes, as she stops in her movement. Beneath her is the frail abandoned son she has coaxed back to life. And she will not lose him. It doesn't matter what she has to do. He is going to live even if it means brokering a deal with the goody fair maiden. She doesn't even balk at the thought nor does her lip sneer. He is everything. The bend of his knees and she glides out like a cloud, bending to catch him in his fall. She hiccups in her laugh. "It's all right. You're just young, my little one." The assurance comes easy despite having had none herself. Which is why she's here. She was not raised right; she was not raised at all. And she's seen this Snow Storm in passing with little ones... It's all she has to go on but deep down she knows she can trust her for this. "Snow!" she cries out, once her head is turned and feels all the blood in her body go cold.
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 7:35 pm
She heard her name, but she couldn't be certain it was from the throat of the one she swore it was. Snow's ears flicked to and fro, hesitating in her belief even as she barreled through the Swamp towards the cries. It couldn't be who she thought. How could it be? Well. It could be a trap. But would the cry bleed raw if it were false? Snow had no idea, and it almost didn't matter; the urgency to respond to the cry was greater than her caution, which could be merit or folly, she'd never be certain. Bursting through the foliage at the side, she took in a sharp breath, a wild sort of fear and doubt weighing in her chest - and just as immediately ignored. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe it wouldn't. But it wouldn't start on the wrong hoof by her step. " You," she breathed, looking at the doe before abruptly dropping her gaze to the pale colt between her legs. My son, she'd heard the cry. She'd heard it with her own ears. Even standing there, she was relatively certain she'd hit her head and was having a fever dream. Even if so, it was no reason to be idle, not when the fate of a (possibly imagined) child hung in the balance. " What -- what do you need?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 8:06 pm
And here she had to make the choice. She could the moment fracture, each shard spinning into a different response as far as the swamp reached. Defensive, angry, tearful, trusting. That had always been her curse; she felt, her emotions were not shallow but instead bled deep into the soil like the great trees of old. Nothing was superficial with her and that had always been a problem.
The skin of her body twitched; she hadn't believed the doe would come. She'd hoped but she had not believed. No one had ever come when she needed them. It seemed she had been cursed since birth with that. And yet--
"I," she breathed each word like it was a weight of stone, "I need your help." It stung, wasps burrowing their stingers down into her bones, but she would not dally. "I found him--abandoned--but I had no good mother before and no mother at all this life," she admitted. There was pain in the doe's eyes. The mother she'd had once had not been kind and beneath the fur there still lay scars. She refused to be that way. He deserved better.
"Help me raise him better than I am."
That was the crux. She could have raised him alone. In some manner, she would have excelled. And yet she would not have the support. Even that little suffering, she could not allow. He deserved everything.
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 8:15 pm
I need your help.
Snow looked at the other as if she'd grown a second head. She blinked slowly, but listened, trying to even fathom what she could possibly offer that the other could not - better hunting grounds in the area? Foraging? A safer place to rest? Her gaze wavered, returning to the colt with a pelt as pale as her own. She had never left her own children to their devices, though she herself had been as a filly, but the way the suddenly-found-mother spat the word with such venom made her truly feel that it was the case, irregardless of the nature of the kin.
Bafflement made her tilt her head, watching, yet listening still. Did she want...mothering tips or something? She opened her mouth, not yet sure what she'd say, or if there was indeed anything to say, but the other spoke again and Snow's jaw simply hung open with words dead before given life.
It would be almost a solid minute before she realized she'd stopped breathing, drawing in a sudden lungful of air and feeling the cold crisp of it in her chest, stinging her eyes to near tears. This isn't a fever dream. The other had truly sought her out and...and asked her to be parent to a forgotten child. Her. Her.
Her mouth finally moved again, and the words that tumbled out were, "Your name. What -- what is your name?" She paused, nodding to the boy. Oh, no. Our boy. Oh, MotherFather. "And...and his." She couldn't say it out loud. It still felt like the very carpet of foliage beneath her would be yanked out and she'd be beaten upon by the wild doe.
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 9:03 pm
Disbelief startled her into stillness. She hadn't dared hope that the doe would help her. Nothing had allowed her to cross the imaginary bridge to even think it. And now, she blinked tears away.
"Atone," she admitted her name in a voice that knew the significance, continued to be humbled and insulted by it. Since her birth it had inspired and tormented it. A name too big for her; a name so monumental that she could never live up to it. In this moment, she cast it aside. There were more important things, like this little one.
Softness made the doe look youthful as she turned her gaze to the foal. He was a tiny little boy at the moment. And yet his name was solid, even when he could barely speak. His name was the only word he knew and as it was gummed into a voice, it seemed so far only she could understand it.
"His name is Bone," she told the doe after a pause. It was as if she was telling a secret, her most trusted one. This name that was a prize. That she knew and chose to pass on.
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Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:23 am
She gazed at Atone with her warm eyes still rife with uncertainty in the wisdom of what was transpiring, her chest still tight, her doubts still there. This was the doe that had knocked her down in a bad mood, who likely would have ended her had the day been anymore sour. This was the doe so full of rage that an accident had burned weariness in her mind for every day thereafter.
And yet, this was the doe that was asking her for help. Where was the weight greater - the misdeeds of the past, the needs of the now, the hope of the future? The sins of the parents, or the nurturing of the young?
No amount of hesitation was capable of changing her mind, a decision made when the askance of help was posed. Snow nodded, just a little, almost more to herself than the other. Closing the space between them with careful steps, she lowered her head and very gently touched her nose to Bone's hoof, letting him get her scent. "Hi, Bone, you sweet little sugar reed. You're going to be okay."
Lifting her head again, she smiled in the same uncertain way she felt, but spoke with the same conviction she carried in her breast. "We will help each other, then." She made no assumptions that she would be this amazing force of good in their lives, or that Atone would change her stripes -- only that they would pool their knowledge and do the most they could with what they had available to them. It was the best she could do.
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Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 2:07 pm
There was no turning back now and she had to bite down on the instinct to growl that he was her son. He wasn't just hers. He was theirs. And he would be all the better for it. Mute, she nodded in agreement.
"Thank you," the words came out clearly sincere. Still it was difficult; who had time for manners when everyone hated you and wanted you to die? She frowned at the thought before swallowing it back. Now was not the time for brooding; no. They needed to get the little one healthy and then, she expected she would have a lot of talking ahead of her.
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