Post by Rhapsody on May 23, 2011 20:25:37 GMT -5
Azami
[/font]_________________________________________________[/center][/size]She couldn't stay here any longer.
With each day that her stomach swelled, her pain grew more intense. There were times when she would feel the foal within her moving and she could not help but scream. And Azami was keenly aware that whenever she screamed within hearing distance of Boaz, she was only worsening his own pain. Well, perhaps pain was overbold, as that would assume he cared about her - a debatable assumption since her rape. He'd been distant. And who could blame him? Her failure to believe in and respect the gods had brought this pain down not only upon her, but upon him as well. And for that, she could not forgive herself.
But she had thought long and hard, Azami had. She knew that Acheron would not have wasted his time breeding her if he didn't want a foal out of the bargain. And so, she had to have at least some sort of protection, or some favor in his eyes. She had to at least live long enough to birth and nurse his child. So though it was not a feat she would otherwise have attempted, she was now going to attempt the unthinkable.
Crossing the channel while pregnant.
It was foolish. Stupid, really. But she had to do it. Not only for Boaz, who she only hurt with her continue presence, but for herself. Now was the time to go to the mainland. She needed to seek out her sire and return herself to his good graces. Her best bet of that happening was now, when she was pregnant with the spawn of his patron god. He would not dare to harm her if she carried Acheron's child. And that sort of protection she could not be guaranteed otherwise, as he was likely to still view her as the enemy. So now was the time. Now while her body would be akin to a sacred thing to him, a vessel of his deity. And though her body seared with the invisible flames that had plagued her since Acheron had attacked her, the mare pressed on. Azami would earn her name today; she would be every bit of a thistle, rough and enduring, impossible to be rid of. The flames seared more intensely as her hooves touched the water, as if aware that she might seek the water's cool reprieve and punishing her all the more for it. All she could do was grit her teeth and press on as the water encompassed her frame, making the flames worse and worse. She was clumsy and less coordinated than usual with her movements on account of her blossoming frame, but all she could do was pray (still a very foreign action to her) that Acheron's will would be done and she would be spared death if for no other reason than so she could bear his child and witness that pain before death took her. And it was that hope and that hope alone that kept her swimming with the water, desperately praying and focusing on her end point. The mainland's shore.
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