[PRP] Run, Run, As Fast As You Can (Hie & Zaph)

[Kyribird]

The pain of losing her foals had affected Hienna badly. She barely talked, unless it was to herself or a very few choice words to her mate asking him about Hannah and Zaire. She seemed to be sure that they were still alive and often asked him to bring the baskets to her. Oh, Hienna knew in the back of her mind that the foals were, indeed, gone. Zaphiro would never tell her something so cruel if it wasn't the truth.

But somehow she didn't think she could quite accept it. And there was a growing...something inside of her. A fear, perhaps? It was hard to describe and even harder for her to feel.

You should have listened to me, Hienna. What did I tell you?

"You're wrong," she whispered fiercely to herself, tail twitching, "You're wrong and I know you're wrong."

You're grieving and I know you are, Hienna. Your heart has died.

"My heart is broken, there is a difference."

It's his fault. That stallion's fault. I told you we should never trust males! Rely on only ourselves!

"You're WRONG!" The last was screamed and Hienna jumped to her feet, running as far away and as fast as she possibly could. Maybe her mother's voice would disappear...  

[Cajmera]

Ever since the miscarriage, Hienna had been quiet, withdrawn. Zaphiro had done his best to try and cheer her up, but nothing he'd tried had seemed to have any effect. Indeed, sometimes he wondered if she even KNEW what had happened, or if she was merely going through the motions.

Then again, he hadn't really been himself, either. That horrible day kept flashing through hs mind, seeing Hienna's suffering and learning of their terrible loss as though that day was repeating over and over and over...

Now he knew how his parents must have felt. But unlike THEM, they'd had one child survive. Would things have been so hard for he and Hie if one of THEIRS had survived?

Probably.

Sighing, Zaphiro walked out of the cave, another long bit of mulling done with. He should see how Hie was doing...

At least, that was the idea.

"Hie?"  

[Kyribird]

Hienna had already taken off, far away from the cave and off across the clearing. Skirting around the lake and heading toward the circle of trees that surrounded. She was running as if her life depended on it, hooves beating into the ground and throwing up clumps of sod and grass.

Good girl, leave him. Run away. If you had listened to me you wouldn't feel this pain!

Was her mother's voice right? Was this her punishment for not listening? For breaking those promises? She was about to make a dive for the trees, for cover, when one of her feet snagged on a rock and she skidded off across the grass, bouncing from the speed she'd been running at.

Ow.  

[Cajmera]

Glancing around the glade, Zaphiro's frown deepened as not so much of a trace of purple greeted his eyes. That was strange...it wasn't like Hienna to go wandering, not without telling him first.

One thing was certain; he wasn't going to just assume that she'd come back on her own, not with the mental condition she was in. What if she'd just wandered off in a daze? What if she got lost??

Anxiety starting to mount, Zaphiro took one more look around the area, then spread his wings and leapt up into the air. Best place to look for something was from the air, right?  

[Kyribird]

It wasn't going to be difficult to find the mare, what with the sun bright and reflecting off the gold and gems that were on her body. Nope, the purple mare was like a beacon in that kind of light - a beacon that was currently laid out on the ground and sobbing brokenly. Head was pressed to the ground as if trying to hide it, cover her ears in some way. Maybe that would drive out her mother's voice.

To be fair, Hie had warned Zaphiro about this. She'd told him it would be hard. She'd managed to keep it at bay while she was happy but this new feeling of absolute...heartache was new to her and it seemed as if the 'ghost' had decided it was the perfect moment to break her resolve. Seemed to be working, as well.  

[Cajmera]

Zaphiro hadn't even completely a full circuit of their home clearing before he saw the familiar gleam of purple; pulling in his wings, he dove downwards, angling towards Hienna like a sapphire-colored blur. As he approached the ground, though, he could begin to see that not all was well; she was splayed out on the ground like a fallen animal, and he could hear her sobs even with the wind in his ears. What on earth had happened??

Alighting beside Hienna, Zaphiro took barely a moment to regard the situation before he was dropping down beside her, trying to coax her into looking up at him. "Hienna, what happened? Are you alright, love?" His voice anxious, Zaphiro gently stroked her braided mane with a wing. "What are you doing all the way over here?"  

[Kyribird]

The mare wrenched away from him, "Don't touch me," she hissed out, trying to rub her head further into the dirt. The method of digging a hole that way was not going well, however, and Hie only succeeded in making her coat covered with a rather thick layer of dust that was starting to turn to mud with her tears as they ran down her cheeks.

"She was right," she sobbed a moment later, head once more hitting toward the ground as the voice hissed at her to leave him, "I shouldn't have broken my promises..."  

[Cajmera]

For a moment, Zaphiro only stared as if stunned. Don't touch her? That hadn't been a pleaded phrase, it had been a barked order, the like of which he hadn't heard from his mate since before they were mates...

But the recollection of WHY she had once before been snappy was enough to keep his morale in check. That, combined with her strange and somewhat erratic behavior, was all he needed to know.

So he didn't touch her, not directly. Instead, he dabbed at the grime that marred her lovely features, his touch tender. "Hienna, your mother was most certainly NOT right, not about us, not about this, not about anything relevant."

To some it might be a stretch to automatically assume the mother after such a short phrase; but then, most probably hadn't had to deal with a motherly ghost as much as Zaphiro had, either. "How could you even think that, love?"  

[Kyribird]

"She said bad things would happen," Hienna gasped out, remembering she had a horn. Said horn would come quite in handy when digging a hole, wouldn't it? She shifted until that perfect golden point stabbed into the ground and she began to try and move the dirt off. The voice of her past continuing to tell her how wrong she was.


The unicorn simply seemed...desperate. There was no doubt that she was grieving and, had her mother not affected her so greatly, she would have likely seen that her mate was as well. But for now, she was consumed with the need to gain forgiveness.

"Please forgive me," she whispered - though it was to her mother, it could easily be assumed it was to Zaphiro as well.  

[Cajmera]

Words really couldnt' describe how hard this whole experience was for Zaphiro. Brief as it was so far, Hienna had managed to bring sharply back to the stallion's mind details of the past; his, hers, and theirs, that he'd rather have left behind IN the past.

And cheif among those was the ghost of her mother, that foe he'd had to fight off once already. He WANTED to get rid of her for good, to permanently rid Hienna of her presence, but obviously she'd return as soon as he'd gotten complacent. And these days...he wasn't even sure he had the spirit. Losing their daughters had been painful beyond all belief, not only ffor Hienna but also Zaphiro. And what she probably didn't know was how terrified he'd been of losing her as well...

And he still didnt' think he was out of the woods yet, not with Hienna in the grip of such powerful despair. If he were to lose her too, he didn't know if he'd be ABLE to go on.

So he was willing to take a chance, defying her edict not to touch her as he gently stroked her mane. "And what kind of comment is that? We should know that not every aspect of life can be good, Hie, just as not every aspect can be bad. We've had the good...we've had the bad...we need to move past that, and get back to the good!"

Lowering his head so that he could see into Hienna's eyes at the angle she was at, Zaphiro tried to see past the deadness he was seeing into something more, something live, something whole. But it was hard....

"If I were to lose you too...I don't think I could go on living." Barely a whisper, it was...but with more feeling that anything else.  

[Kyribird]

The mare completely froze when he stroked at her mane and her eyes squeezing shut. But at least she'd stilled and stopped trying to dig a hole to some far off place that neither had ever heard of. "But this is the worst thing in the world," she whispered softly, "What did we do to deserve losing our babies?"

Hie seemed a little more sane, now. It appeared that his touch did have some kind of effect against the 'ghost' now, didn't it? "I want our babies, Zaphiro..." Oh, gods, did she want their babies. She hadn't even got to see them! Gold met gold and she made a soft whimper.

"You won't lose me..." Even as she said it she heard her mother's voice telling her she was making a mistake. She fought to silence her, and that showed on her face.  

[Cajmera]

Much as he wanted to say something soothing, Zaphiro couldn't; not when he was in total agreement with Hienna about their loss. In the second before he glanced away, there was undisguised pain in his eyes, pain at their loss, at his inability to prevent it, at HER pain as a result. But after a moment, he'd managed to collect himself. Dwelling in the past meant ignoring the present and the future, and THAT he wasn't about to do.

"We didn't do anything to deserve it, love, and more importantly THEY didn't do anything to deserve it. Sometimes the worst things happen to the innocent or the undeserving, and all they can do is try to move forward."

Emboldened by her shift towards sanity, Zaphiro arranged himself so that he was lying alongside Hienna and she could nestle back against him if she so desired; contact had always been a major thing for them, and right now, he simply wanted to hold her. But leaving that for her to decide, he otherwise only continued to stroke her mane. "I want them too, Hie; they were too young to go, and they will be sorely missed. But if we remain in mourning for them forever, then we're denying our future offspring THEIR chance to live, their chance to be loved. We'll always love and miss our first two little ones, but they themselves wouldn't want this silence, this depression. Not forever."

He couldn't even comment on the concept of losing her; his one utterance had been hard enough, coming so soon after his scare. Now... "Hienna, I love you. Please come back to me, please STAY with me." It wasn't only a physical return he was talking about, but a mental one; stay with him, not her mother...  

[Kyribird]

But oh, Hienna wanted Zaphiro to be able to make everything better. She wanted him to wave his wings and make all the hurt and heartache go away - but she knew that wouldn't happen. It was a sudden realization that he was hurting just as much as her and when he arranged himself beside her she fought her ghost again and shifted toward him, gently resting her horn on his shoulder in a sign of affection.

"What if...it happens again?" she asked hoarsely, "How can we try again and go through this again? What if I'm...." she trailed off. "What if I didn't do something right, or I'm damaged?"

She couldn't even bring her own offspring into the world, damn it, how could she be expected to do anything right if she couldn't do the most natural thing in the world?

That's right! You're useless!

"I am not useless," she muttered, obviously not directed at Zaphiro, "I don't want you here anymore. Go away." As she said it, she sidled closer to the blue stallion. She wouldn't allow him to think the words were directed at him.  

[Cajmera]

As Hienna snuggled back against him, Zaphiro wrapped his wings about her, holding her snuggly against him. This was the way it should be; together, they could overcome the depression that individually they could not. Just having that closeness gave him a measure of calmness, a measure of control.

Resting cheek against her horn, he spoke softly. "Hienna, remember when I told you about my youth? About how my parents...lost my brother when we were born? They had me, but they still wanted to have more children. In spite of the pain they'd felt, they wanted to have more children, expand on their love. Had my father not died, I don't doubt that they would have kept trying, and they would have succeded, I know it. You did everything you could have, and we even had help! You can beat yourself up, but ultimately, it was the work of a higher power. We can't know that it won't happen...but we can hope."

So saying, he closed his eyes, maintaining the touch of cheek and horn. "I want you to bear my foals, Hie, and I want to see them run around. I want to see them trip and hurt themselves so that we can soothe their tears, I want to hear them call us Mama and Papa, to see them grow, to see them learn, to see them fall in love and have families of their own. And I want to experience all of that with YOU, Hie...if you want that same thing."  

[Kyribird]

Hie listened to him quietly, slowly calming down more. It seemed like, for the moment, Zaphiro had beat her ghost again. "I want children with you more than anything in the world, Zaphiro," she murmured tiredly, exhausted from her inner battle, "I'm just afraid. Aren't you afraid?"

She could deal with her fear if she wasn't alone on it. Hienna had gone so long being alone and she'd thought she'd been happy that way. Zaphiro, though. Oh he had to go in and ruin that happy little bubble she'd put herself away in and bring her so much happiness and love that she didn't think she could go on without it now.

He'd made everything...perfect. Or as close to perfection as could possibly exist.