Almost an entire passed without Nephilim seeing his mother after her return from the mainlands. He began to wonder if he’d never see her again and, given the conversations he’d begun to have with others, he was beginning to wonder if that was necessarily a bad thing.
Then, one late spring afternoon, when the sky was thick with black clouds but rain had yet to fall, she came. She climbed the beach, creamy pale skin burnt slightly pink, tail wet and matted in knots at her haunches. She walked until she found him lounging in the shade of the Falls and, as always with them, a thick tension mounted the moment they were within one another’s sight. Nephilim lifted his dished skull from where he’d been grazing and blinked, golden eyes focused on her. Dock stayed still, watching him with her normal look of disgust and rage bright in her blue eyes.
Nephilim waited to see if it were going to be nips or indifference that he’d receive.
Instead, even more shocking, she actually spoke to him.
“I’m never returning and you’re not to follow me.” Her voice was cold, her tone indicating there were no room for questions.
“Not to follow you?” He asked, eyelids narrowing, ears twitching.
Anger darkened her features, as if he had no room to speak, as if he were nothing and therefore should never be heard. “Never.” She let the word fall like stone between them; the first among many which would be cast in order to absolutely shatter the fragility of their already broken relationship.
Head raised, pride hot beneath his skin, Nephilim took a step toward her rather than away. “You can’t tell me what to do.” He said. Watching mothers with their foals and actually talking to individuals on Crossing Isle had taught Nephilim an important lesson: he had a horrible excuse for a mother. Now that he knew it wasn’t normal policy for her to treat him as she had, he only found anger inside his heart and he wanted to expel that anger. But most of all, deep down at the core of it, he wanted to know why. Why had he deserved such terrible treatment? What had he ever done to her?
Both her ears turned back. “What?” She spat the word, surprised.
“I said,” his own ears turned back and he stepped closer to her – only a foot of distance between them now, “you can’t tell me what to do. Not anymore.”
Rage colored her features. Her ears pinned. A nervous roll took his gut, waiting for her to snap out and pinch his skin, but knowing this time he’d fight back. The seconds trickled by…
“You don’t belong with me. You never have.” Her voice was tense but it appeared she was actually attempting to maintain some semblance of control.
“What… what do you mean?” Her words confused him, stole into the anger that was like fire beneath flesh. “I’m your son. How could I not belong with you?” He thought of all the foals he’d watched frolicking at their dam’s fetlocks before their mother’s had reached out to gently nuzzle or groom them. His mother had never done any of that for Nephilim and the longer he thought of it and watched her, the angrier he became.
“I didn’t have a choice.” She spat, her ears pinned to her skull, whites of her eyes flashing as they rolled. Her tail cracked like a whip against her rump. “I wanted to kill you. I wanted to kill you before you could haunt me.” She laughed, but the sound was almost manic – as if she couldn’t believe she’d finally said it. Nephilim… he wasn’t angry, not anymore. He was… surprised. Devastated, even. His gold eyes were wide, mouth open, horror creeping into his gaze.
“Mother…” He barely whispered.
“Don’t call me that!” She snapped, surging toward him, nipping. He turned his head and the blunt flat of her teeth scraped his neck, a damp trail of saliva left on his dappled coat. “I never wanted to be your mother. Do you know how you were brought into this world?” Her voice was cruel, far crueler than he’d ever heard it. Suddenly, Nephilim was not an angry almost-adult, but a child; scared, confused, and wanting love rather than pain.
His eyes rolled and he took a nervous step back, away from her. “N-no,” he tried to say, but she were so hungry to tell her tale to him at last that there was no stopping it.
“The stallion who sired you kept me prisoner for three days on this very island. Refused to let me leave, refused to allow me to return to my sisters until I let him fuck me. He beat me bloody. When it was over I finally was able to go home, when he finally broke me. Yet I couldn’t be free that easily, could I? A few months later my belly began to swell. I was pregnant with you. You’re the continuation of my nightmare. Every time I look at you I see him.” She barely breathed as she spoke, tears burned in her eyes, and Nephilim’s own were wide with horror.
“I never want to see you again.” She whispered after the silence had stretched mournfully between them.
“But… where am I supposed to go?”
“Do you think I care?! I never want to see you again. Never. Every day of your life I’ve prayed you would just… disappear. I have a chance for a happy life for the first time since I’ve been born and I’m going to take it. That means there’s no room for you. Go where you belong, Nephilim, and never come find me.”
**********
The rain pitter-pattered against the foliage he walked quietly through.
Go where you belong.
His head was hung low, tail drooped against his haunches. His hooves trudged through mud, his limbs splattered up to his knees. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to where he was walking. He just… was.
Go where you belong.
But where was that? He’d repeated those four words in his head over and over, yet had no answer. Nephilim had never belonged anywhere and now he knew why. The very ugly secret of his conception was revealed and now he knew why he had been hated. Now he knew why she had kept him from calling Lyden his father. Father… Nephilim’s father was a rapist. Worse yet, not just some stallion who force-bred a mare in order to spread his genealogy, but one who stalked her, abused her, and beat her until she was so broken and alone that she was forced to consent.
If that were his father was there some chance that such a monster could reside in him?
Go where you belong.
His hooves squelched in deep mud and the thick musk of male and swamp snapped him from his reverie. He lifted his head and blinked, nostrils flaring. The Lagoon. He’d avoided this territory as he grew up on the Crossing, stallions as foreign to him as anything else, and groups of them seeming… intimidating.
But… was this, perhaps, where he belonged? Was this what she’d meant? Did he belong among the bachelors of the Lagoon? Would this be home now?
Carefully he plucked his hooves from the mud and walked forward, further into the territory, gold eyes ever watchful for whoever may be first to approach.
to love is to destroy
and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed |