Desert

She aches in her chest, knowing what has happened. She aches and a part of her is furious that her contender was interrupted. It felt wrong, competing with someone not present -- but worse, she feels too laden down by the newest child she has with Cain.

Only something feels different, off, and she knows it is early - but she has had four children now and can see the writing on the wall, so to speak. She knows that her fourth will be born earlier than he might have been without the stress of Melisma’s capture. She knows that this child was somehow too strong for his own good the second that the contractions started too close to shore for her comfort. It meant days of spending days near the shoreline in the desert heat. It meant more suckling than she had experienced in a while. It meant that she hadn’t the resources as she had had with Enoch and she is suddenly too glad that there was no second child to care for this season.

Soon, she is laid down and experiencing one of her easiest births. A smooth time that was almost a five-push-and-done situation. The boy that comes is utterly to die for; fiery in color at his belly, throat, and front of his face, but with a dark shadow over it like thick black smoke. He had two back feet with stockings that ate up his hocks entirely and one oblong sock that covered his foreleg fetlock but turned into a coronet in the front. His blaze was broad and covered just his nostrils and upper lip. He was dappled like sparks of flame all over and had pangare licking at the undersides of his legs and his nose, the latter that made him look so much like his mother.

She saw the perfection of him as she saw the perfection of all her sons. His first day was spent in the glorious blessing of desert sunshine, ocean spray, and mother’s milk. He would meet Harlequin, Enoch, Vulcan, and his mighty father in the first few days - learning his name and spending his time ignoring it when his mother would shout at him from higher on the beach dunes.

What happened next was the first unfortunate foray, though, into tragedy.

He was playing while his mother sought out Cain, unaware that he had gone to find and bring Melisma back home. Not too long, not too far, but still far enough that Sinai managed to make his way up the beach and trigger the first sorry circumstance of his young life