Sol's Purpose

He did not love me. I did not love him. That worked for us.

He was different from the usual fare I come across, handsome in a way that seemed almost manufactured. His mane, while not maintained, was groomed well enough to tell me he did not spend nights sleeping on leaf litter under the stars. His claws and horns were sleek, black, and without a stain or chip. His body was not lacking in scars, but they didn't detract from the muscles that moved smoothly beneath his sleek summer honey-brown coat. Most alluring to me, though, were his eyes.

They were the burnt orange of leaves that cling to trees in the latest of fall, stubbornly refusing to surrender to bitter winds. I saw warmth in those eyes, but a deceptive warmth. Looking into his eyes felt like leaping head-first into a lake in mid-summer, the surface is warm enough you don't want to jump out right away, but as you dive deeper, you realize you've made a horrible mistake.

Marcus lured me in without words or promises, he had only to look at me. We met in a clearing in a forest northeast of the ruins of that factory that imploded not too long ago, I had just visited the coast and gotten my fill of ocean breezes and choppy waves. I longed to hear leaves rustling in their canopies, to smell the musty scents of the forest and watch the little creatures scuttle about busily in their lives. But instead, I found a drakiri near my own size, enormous for his breeds, I could tell.

He approached me without aggression, slipping silently among the undergrowth, his orange gaze studying me as he stopped just within the shadows that ringed the clearing where I lay sunning myself.

"What is your name, stranger?" I had asked, hoping for an introduction. He returned silence to me, and began to circle me slowly. I admit, I worried briefly that he could wish me harm, but I held no fear in my heart. I usually have a sense for these things, knowing when I'm in danger...usually.

"A drakiri of few words," I said, twitching my tail and shifting my wings as the stranger came to stand to my right side, within arm's reach. I looked over at him, unbothered and curious what this drakiri could want with me.

Something in his expression changed, a warmth entered his eyes as he swept me with his gaze again, and I realized where his mind must be. I wasn't opposed, but I also wasn't generally interested in such flings.

I led him on a chase, letting him get close enough to place a paw on my side before I stood and fluttered away a short distance, until I saw the hunger grow in him, felt it in the heat of his body and the prick of his claws on my skin as he drew ever closer.

When finally I allowed him to mount me, he was not gentle, but he was not rough either. Strangely business-like, though when he finished, he did not leave. We coupled until well into the next day, and though I admit I was unsatisfied, I did not find myself wanting to leave. He said few words, but told me his name was Marcus. He wandered like me, never sure where he would end up and without much to drive him forward, but he enjoyed his time wherever he stayed. Something about that resonated with me, but we parted without affection.

I expected that encounter to be the last time I thought of Marcus, thought certainly I would never see him again as our travels brought us all over the continent. Somehow, I was wrong.

The first thing I noticed was undeserved tiredness, I felt it like a crack in a water basin, draining my energy from the moment I woke to the moment I closed my eyes for the night. I confirmed with a healer I met on the road, and found myself astonished. I'd heard of it happening, but couldn't have thought it may happen to me. Then again, I'd never visited a healer for such a confirmation...

I was with child. Two, in fact. I had no idea what to do with that information. It is not in my nature to fear or to worry, so I took things a day at a time, eating twice what I normally would to sate my hunger, resting more frequently and watching my belly grow with the children, signaling their impending arrival.

I delivered in a cave off the eastern coast, where the waters are warmer and the air less stiff. It was painful of course, but I trusted my body to know what to do. My first born had sun-yellow fur just like mine and wings that mirrored my own. He had the stature of his father, though, and I could tell he would be a handsome fellow once he was grown. His brother's coat was mottled, a tan with darker patches and features distinctly like my own. I named them Auryn and Aslan respectively.

They were beautiful children, they nursed well and grew quickly. Aslan began trying to fly before his wings were big enough, and watching him flap around while his brother tottered after him is one of my fondest memories of them.

I traveled with them once they were big enough to fly with me. We rested frequently, as they were still small ones, but they learned so much and I learned from them as well. We made a handsome family, I think.

When he was around a year old, Auryn fell ill. I brought him to the healer that I had visited when I learned of their conception, Eirwyn. In the time we spent with her, I told her of my encounter with their father, and her face grew grim.

"You've been blighted by a curse." I'll never forget the words she told me as she fed my deathly ill child a poultice that he struggled to swallow.

I asked her to clarify, but she refused until the children were asleep. Aslan would not leave Auryn's side, even with the risk he could catch the same illness, they slept side-by-side in the same cot and were inseparable.

"Marcus will visit you again," Eirwyn told me, "Though you'll fare better than others who have crossed his path, I imagine."

"You speak in riddles," I accused. "Speak plainly."

Eirwyn turned cold yellow eyes on me and said in a voice full of frigid disgust, "You were his broodmare. This is what he does. He travels the continent finding drakiri he fancies and breeds with them. When it's time for the mothers to give birth, he finds them and cuts the infants from their mothers."

I almost didn't believe her, but also didn't think this healer had reason to tell me lies. "Why does he do this?" I asked, looking across the healer's house at my sleeping children. "Why not wait for the mothers to give birth and take the children if he wants to raise them so badly?"

"I'm a healer, not a seer, you'll have to ask him yourself once you see him," Eirwyn snapped back at me. "But I suggest when you do meet him, you don't have these children with you. Understood?"

My heart fell and for the first time in my life, I felt an emotion strong enough to make me feel faint. I couldn't just leave them somewhere...I wouldn't. They were everything to me.

"How can I stop him from finding me?" I asked.

"You can't. Not to my knowledge, anyway," Eirwyn answered with a shrug. "He curses those he mounts, I can feel the curse on you now." She raised a foreleg as I opened my mouth to ask the question she had predicted I would ask. "It is not a curse I know how to break, nor would I. Curses are unpredictable, they can break as easily as a spider's web or explode as violently as a bomb. I will not accept the risk to myself or my home to remove it. You shouldn't be in any danger from him now that you've had the children."

My heart beat too quickly as I imagined the curse surrounding me like an orange haze, the same color of those eyes of his that lured me in.

"How do you know this?" I asked the healer.

She took so long to answer I thought she hadn't heard me, and when she spoke, her voice was quieter and more distant. "I saw him do it. A primal I was too late to save. I heard her screams, and I saw him pull the babe from her belly. I took the sack from the primal's womb and used it to look into the father's past."

"I thought you said you were no seer," I accused, raising a brow.

"That is blood magic," she retorted, her voice curt. "Don't speak of what you don't know, boy."

I walked to my children then, fearing that they were in danger by travelling with me. I made a heart-breaking decision then, but Eirwyn assured me she knew a safe place for them. I could only hope she was right...

I kissed my children and departed that night, flying to the place where I had met their father. He found me within a week.

"Where is it?" he asked as soon as he had seen me.

I did not look at him as he approached me, I laid there in the clearing with the sun on my back and darkness in my heart.

"Where are what?" I asked, letting the pain of my separation from my children color my words with pain.

"The children, you had two didn't you?" Marcus demanded, his voice holding none of the charm it once had.

I turned away from him, pulling my wings tight to my body as I told him, "I did...they died."

"Both?" Marcus asked, his voice tense.

"Two sons, I didn't have time to even name them," I breathed, my head drooping until my nose touched the leaf-strewn forest floor. "They died in my arms."

I heard a snarl so deep it made the fur in my ears vibrate, and pain exploded across the left side of my head. Marcus's heavy paw had struck me so hard across the face that I was sent tumbling to the side, my wings flaring to arrest my fall.

"A year I have spent tracking you!" Marcus snarled. "You incompetent, useless fucking worm!"

I rolled onto my belly to try to take off, but Marcus launched himself on top of me. His claws were daggers in my skin, ripping and slicing, digging in to pull me back as I tried to drag myself forward and away from him.

He pinned my head to the ground and leaned forward until his mouth was inches from my eye and hissed, "I had hoped my search would end with you, but it appears I was mistaken. A worthy successor could not come from someone with a womb as weak as yours."

My hatred for the father of my children grew in that moment, and I twisted on him, sinking my teeth into his forearm so hard and fast I felt bone crack between my teeth. He howled in pain and rage, leaping back and away from me. I had an instant, no longer, to throw myself into the air. I felt his claws rake the skin of my tail as I gained height and speed, but I left him far below me.

I returned to Eirwyn to have my wounds treated, and I found the bed empty where my children had rested.

"They're safe with someone who can look after them," Eirwyn promised me as she bandaged my wounds. "I'm surprised you lived..."

"I want to see them," I croaked, the knowledge that I might be greeted by my childrens' sweet voices the only thing keeping me awake in that moment. "Tell me where they are, I'll find them."

Eirwyn shook her head solemnly. "The curse is still upon you...he can still find you, Sol. I'm sorry. It's not safe."

My heart broke that night, and it was the first time I felt such loss. My children live, but I will not see them again, not until this curse is lifted from me. I wandered the continent without purpose, without a clue of what I might do with myself. Now...now I have purpose.