The hybrid was once again at her home, like she usually was most days, making well upon her promise to Temo to stay closer to the house the further her pregnancy progressed. The air was beginning to turn colder now and the month the human's would have called October was underway and her children were halfway towards entering the world. She was almost seldom seen at the borders anymore not since her meeting with Drizzt and her explanation to him of Ichika's ideals and culture, several days ago. From then Jace felt as though she had gained several pounds and was sure her waist line had expanded several centimeters.
Ashen legs bowed slightly under her weight as she hauled herself off of her bed which she had been napping on in the afternoon warmth and she made her way outside in the almost chilly breeze. Jace took no notice of it for she could not feel the cold through her thick fur but she knew it was cold from the temperature of the air that entered her nose, tiny ice crystals, small enough to be almost invisible were present in the air; winter was almost here. Jace leaned herself against the fence and observed the new foal, only three days old and already the filly was larger then at her birth, the long spindly legs now usable as though she had been using them for years.
The unnamed filly, like her still nameless mother and uncle, charged about the corral with the exuberance of her youth, Jace drew in a breath as she watched her play and released it in a soft singing note that had three sets of ears turning to face her,
On the wind, 'cross the sea
Hear this song and remember
Soon you'll be home with me
Once upon a December
Dancing bears
Painted wings
Things I almost remember,
And a song someone sings
once upon a december
Eclipse was out for a ride on Buttercup, unfortunately the dun mare had other ideas and kept going the opposite way that Eclipse wanted to go. The girl was not very good on a horse still, and she doubted she would get better, but the horse did seem to like her, when she wasn't riding on her back. It took a half an hour before Eclipse finally gave up and got off. The horse stopped her antics at once, obviously telling Eclipse she was better of on her own two feet. Her ears perked up as she heard someone singing, and as she came closer it became clearer, it was a beautiful song and Eclipse continued forward as the woman sang, it wasn't until she came within smelling range, that she found out who it was. Jace, and she seemed alone, maybe this was a chance to get to know the older woman better. She hurried up and the dun horse followed in toe. She was grinning as she listened to the beautiful song, waiting for the woman to finish before she bowed at her as any respectable Ichika young adult would do.
“That was so beautiful Jace, where did you learn to sing like that?”
The girl asked, her eyes sparkled in wonderment as she thought of the tune to the song, it was such a pretty tune, and she didn't want it to go away, though Eclipse was pretty much unable to recreate music herself, she appreciated it to no end, and envied those that could produce it. She figured she would leave with just that question before bombarding the woman with more, because at that moment Eclipse saw the bulging belly the woman now wore, and it gave Eclipse great curiousity, and she was dancing inside to understand why, if Jace was gaining weight, was it only in her belly?
So consumed with her singing she was that she didn't notice the hoof beats of another horse now the padding of the youngster. In fact she was oblivious, staring off into her memories until she had finished her slow song and Eclipse spoke behind her. The woman turned, not expecting more of an audience and smiled at Eclipse, Jace was fond of the fast growing child who was quickly morphing from a girl to a mother, wherever her parents were they should be immensely proud of her. Jace pushed herself upright from the fence, stepping towards the girl and her horse, tan tipped floppy ears came forwards to focus on her and brown splashed tail waved gently from side to side,
"I learned to sing from my mother and from my birth pack. They taught me the songs and the notes, the songs are sacred to my culture, lessons can be learned from them if you listen hard enough." Behind her the filly galloped up to the fence and stuck her head through the highest gap in the wood that it could reach, she whinnied in her high pitched foal's voice, snorting several times before her mother called her back away from the strangers, to which the foal grudgingly followed.
Eclipse listened to Jace, who seemed happy enough to see the girl, but that never bothered Eclipse, she had never looked unhappy to see her before, and Eclipse had stayed out of trouble so there was nothing to be mad at.
“Oh where were you born? In Dahlia? I was born there, that would be really nice if you were too.”
But the girl had never seen Jace until she came to Ichika, so it was probably not Dahlia that the woman came from, though any other place was just as good because the woman could tell Eclipse about the place she lived in. At the pregnant woman's question Eclipse shook her head.
“I'm not a very good singer, I think I make birds cry when I try.”
The girl said, she always scared everything away when she tried singing. It made her sad a lot and she hated not being able to make such wonderful sounds. Tilting her head a little, she was able to see the woman's rounded womb even more. She looked at Jace and then pointed at her belly.
“Are you allergic to something? You might want a doctor to look at that, I don't really think it's natural to have a bug bite that big.”
She really wasn't naïve enough to think that was a bug bite, but she was trying to be subtle about figuring out what it was exactly without offending the woman, so pretending to be pretty stupid would possibly make her less likely to get a swat with a hand.
She shook her tri colored head at the child's question, her braids swaying with the motion and the beads clicked together from the movement and the necklaces laced around her throat jerked from side to side, the crescent moon and the blue bird feather, side by side just as their owners had once been. A soft smile filled her face, the girl's enthusiasm was contagious and Jace was not immune,
"No child. I wasn't born in Souls or anywhere near it. I was born up in the true north, very far away from here, a land where it snows constantly and it is always very cold. It took me an entire year to get here from my birthplace, I came across Temo after travelling for about four months and we traveled together from then on." She clicked her tongue softly at her own words, putting it into the distance of time was the only way she could really think to explain it, she held no concept of the distances involved. It had taken them a day or so to get to Ichika, a fairly long walk, how much longer would it be to be going for a year, she could not answer.
"No worries, singing i a skill, a talent and like every other skill it can be improved upon if you keep trying and practicing." Her back was beginning to hurt her now from standing up so with a bit of difficulty she sat down on the floor, leaning back against the fence and gesturing for Eclipse to join her, finding the new position more comfortable, Eclipse's question brought a soft, laugh from the she dog,
"It is no bug bite dear, I am with child, in about thirty days I will give birth to a litter of pups, the children of my mate and I." She nodded her head sagely, a lot more calm than she was at this time in her pregnancy five months ago, by that time the children within had been ejected and had perished, the thought tugged down at the smile upon her face but only a little bit, she would not let this girl think she had done wrong by asking her questions, those who did not ask never recieved.
Word Count » 307 :: OOC: Yes she had the sex talk with Raz lmao
“Oh, what's it like to always be in snow? Did you never see any green stuff? Was it different than here? Like the way everyone acted. I lived with a few families and anotherpack, everyone was different for me.”
The young woman commented. She was quite curious of Jace's past, though she wouldn't dig too much, she just wanted to learn about the different cultures more than everything that happened in the woman's life, that was far too much meddling. As the woman spoke of singing, Eclipse wondered if she could be as good as Jace, but the answer to her next question came and she was far more interested in that.
“You mean... pups are in your belly, why? How did they get there. Are they ok, how can they breath?”
She asked, actually looking at Jace to see if she had like holes in her stomach for the puppies to breath. There wasn't so she was confused, how on earth could those poor puppies breath? Or were they even alive? Well Jace did say they would be coming out soon. Life just confused the young woman more and more, though she was starting to get a grasp on it. Then thinking about how mommies and daddies were what they were, and Razikiel's explanation of sex, she started to put two and two together..
“Hold on.... that doesn't happen when a man put his uh.... whammabamma in a woman's groovething is it?”
She asked, amost too afraid to know that she was right. He never told her about any of the actual outcomes of the “mounting” that his horse wanted to do to hers, but at that momen she didn't care, now she was interested only slightly, to know that the two things could be related somehow.
She smiled at the girl's enthusiasm, questions pouring from her mouth in a seemingly endless stream of words that Jace sat through sagely until Eclipse had finished speaking. She brushed her hair back from her face and watched as Eclipse's mare walked towards the fence and stuck her head over it looking at the foal with interest and calling softly to Jace's two adults. The stallion came over warily and the two sniffed each other cautiously, soft snorts and other such noises being produced. Jace refocused on Eclipse and answered her questions about her homeland,
"It's a lot different to running through grass or trees, it takes a lot more energy and you need a high endurance level to go very far. The only time it was ever not snowy was in the brief summer that only lasts about one or two months. I've never seen any of the other packs act in the way my birth one used to do, we had a very specific set of traditions and celebrations and other such things. My knives for example.." She gestured down to the blades strapped to her thighs, "..are ceremonial and have been passed down my line from mother to daughter for generations. They are extremely valuable to those who practice my ways and I will pass them onto my first born daughter when she reaches a year old after spending the majority of her life teaching her how to use them effectively." She sniffed, trying to explain their ways to an outsider often resulted in a clash of opinions.
Before Jace had a chance to answer Eclipse's seconds set of questions the brown girl came out with something that was so ridiculous sounding that it could only have come from Razekiel. The fool of a pot smoking hippie was always saying stuff in that manner and she could only feel pity for the confused state the poor young lass must be in. Still Jace couldn't help laughing at the words he had used, groovething? whammabamma? Just how much pot was he smoking? Ahh time to educate the young about the mysteries of life,
"Tell me Eclipse apart from that gem of a sentence is their anything else that you know about sex or pregnancy?"
“I remember the snow, it snowed really bad once and it was higher than I was, it was really hard to run through. I think that is a really neat idea. I wish there was a tradition my mommy or daddy had...”
She looked down at her feet, her mother and father were caring, when they were around, but it had been short lived and now Eclipse had been told her father was dead by a total stranger she didn't know to be her own brother.Looking back up she was smiling. She hoped that Jace would have a girl so that she could teach her to use the knives. Maybe Eclipse could start a tradition of her own. Maybe cooking or something. She shrugged it off when Jace asked eclipse what she knew of sex. The girl blushed a little and shrugged.
“Um I thnk that's all I really know.... um Razekiel told me his horse wanted to mount mine, and uh stik his thing in hers... uh....”
She was fiddling with her own hands and looked sown a bit embarrassed about the whole conversation. It was something she knew enough about that it was meant to stay private, but she had no parents to really explain to her what it all meant and she was only getting bits and pieces, like she now knew it helped concieve a child, though she wondered how children could grow and live inside their mother without dying because they couldn't eat or breath.
Her embarrassment stained the air and amused Jace, that one so young should take embarrassment from something she knew virtually nothing about, the intricates of the youthful never ceased to amuse her, even her own childhood antics were a constant source of amusement to the hybrid. She rolled her eyes at Razekiel's obviously confusing wording and crude manner of explaining things, and smiled kindly at Eclipse, she was glad she had found those reproduction and genetic books, it made everything so much easier to explain,
"Okay first off, forget what Razekiel told you, hes a crazy hippie which we all know. Now before we get onto the topic of sex. We'll start with pregnancy. Basically inside each man and woman there are organs like your stomach or your heart that have the job of making things called sperm and eggs. Men produce sperm and women produce eggs. Now these sperm and eggs are very very tiny, so tiny in fact that you cant see them with your eyes but they're there all the same. And each sperm or egg carries a little part of what makes you you. So for example maybe in one of your eggs there is a little part of what makes you have blue eyes and if that egg ends up becoming a baby in the future it would have blue eyes like you or it could have the eyes of the man, do you understand that so far?" They would take it slowly so that if the young girl had any questions then she could ask them.
Eclipse listened raptly at every word that the woman was saying, though she was not making so much sense to the young girl. She got the concept of the sperm and egg, but she was a bit confused on this “genetics part. Though she was trying to piece it together.... putting her finger to her lips she started chewing on a claw.
“So... if my mom and dad never …. got together like that, any other of theirs would be someone else?”
She asked finally thinking she got what Jace meant, though she didn't know why jace was telling her this, but if it was true she was quite thanful for her parents just for the reason of that. The thought of genetics was complex for the girl and she didn't think she'd get it, but she wasn't going to argue with Jace... yet. She then started to wonder if her mother would go into the same conversation with her if she were here, or her father.... well no she couldn't see him doing that, though she could see him challenging any other male that came in her path like that, but that was it. She figured she probably should just listen to Jace and learn what she could from the woman. So far it had taken two people to explain to her this subject and she was still far more confused than she would have been without knowing.
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5th october
