and I guess I’ve known it all along; cain & akello Posted on February 27, 2021 at 07:05:53 AM by vihaan.
the truth is you have to be soft to be strong Not long after sunrise, a figure emerged from the ocean and quickly moved a little ways inland, though only so far that the roar of the ocean was muted to a rhythmic swell of sound, rising and falling like the wind itself. Without waiting to be discovered, lest she be mistaken by a stranger for an interloper with ill intent in her heart, the slim mare let out a loud call for Cain, and for the sons she shared with him. The mare, shimmering a pale golden-brown in the early morning light, did not move from her spot on a small rise of sand, and stood like a sentinel, searching for familiar silhouettes approaching on the horizon.
(Where he stood, lingering on the fringes of the herd, Ahimsa heard the call and lifted his head, glancing around for his father or Akello in shock, before he managed to pull himself together, and turn his back upon that beckoning call, clearly not wanting to answer it.)
Only once they appeared did some of the tension that had settled upon the lines of the mare’s body dissipate, and she eagerly moved forwards to meet them, greeting the younger male first. “Akello, look how you’ve grown!” Vihaan exclaimed, her eyes bright and shining for one glorious moment, in which she felt almost whole. But pieces of her were missing, and in the moments following her tender greeting of her eldest, she felt hollowed out, and pulled in two very different directions. She reached for the young stallion, and if he moved to meet her, would bestow upon him a tender caress. Only after allowing her gaze to rove over the maturing lines of his face a few moments longer did the dunalino mare turn to the piebald Vanner.
“Cain, I - ” The words seemed to shrivel on her tongue, the Desert air itself felt so dry in her throat. There was so much she wanted to say, just as there always had been. And where it had never felt like the right time before, it did now, and yet Vihaan regrettably believed that her time for saying things was rushing towards an end. In an effort to delay the inevitable, she shifted her leading hoof in the sand, finding a measure of comfort in the familiarity of the sensation, and glanced aside, trying to get a read on Cain’s reception of her.
“Is Ahimsa okay?” she asked softly, the only outward sign of the turmoil of emotions within her coming in the form of a slight turning back of her subtly curled ears. Her eyes skimmed the horizon, but no silhouette of her younger son appeared, and as if accepting this, understanding and owning it, she bobbed her head in silence, before turning back to the Desert Lead and their gold-striped son. “Will you… Will you please tell him that I – I hope he finds happiness.”
daughter of Shamwari & Darshan ,
mother of Akello & Ahimsa
& keeper of Everglow