Dst – Tales of Ren: Under an Ill Moon (1/2)

A Chapter of the Tales of Ren.

He came to be on a night of omen.

A small cottage sits nestled atop a low hill, the panting and cries of a female in childbirth emanating from within. Around the sturdy home a storm raged and rumbled with high winds, reverberating rolls of thunder and sheets of drenching rain. Passing inward, we spy a figure. Daniel Datonch who felt what little remained of his usual cool and perhaps even a bit his sanity slowly slipping.

He wanted to go to his wife, but was certain her attendants would shoo him off once more. As he paced the main room of his home, done up with a homey, rustic appeal, he uttered near silent curses. The night felt wrong to him. Not just the storm, but this intangible feeling that permeated his being. A pained wail from his Ana, louder than those previous, broke his tenuous line of thought. He had turned and taken a pair of steps toward the stairs upward before pausing in his tracks. A deep frown creased his muzzle before he wheeled about and resumed his jittery pacing.

*****

“Breath steady now, Ana. Like we practiced.”

“Yes, it’s almost time. In.. and out..”

The homely twin sisters, Russa and Ranna, fretted over Ana, the two crème shaded felines doing their best to keep her focused on anything but the pain she was obviously experiencing. However, the pregnant vixen was largely oblivious to anything but what seared her senses mercilessly.

Doctor Asmos, getting on in his years, could hardly make heads or tails of just what was wrong with her. Ana showed all the signs of being ready for the birthing, but had held at that point for hours now. As if she or the child were waiting for something. The elder canine knew she shouldn’t be feeling this agony, but was careful to keep his expression neutral as he felt her distended belly carefully for signs.

Ana again cried out in agony, fresh tears slipping down her already moist cheeks as she panted in the aftermath. Asmos creased his brow, feeling no kick, shift or bump that could account for her pain.

“It should be any time now.”, he told Ana and the sisters. Ana heard him not, but the two sisters did, exchanging worried glances. He’d said the same several times this night with no change. But, putting forth their best faces, they continued to coo to and console Ana in tag team any way they could think of.

*****

Unbeknownst to all within the cottage, the time for his birthing was drawing near. As near as a celestial occurrence of rare timing. Overhead, just visible though the dark clouds and rain, a semicircle of gloom begin it’s languid slink over the bright, silvery moon. A lunar eclipse that slowly evolved from a small sliver of black to totally engulf the moon in foreboding darkness.

*****

Ana screamed as the last of the moon was made black, the keening wail catching the attention of all within the dwelling. The sisters covered their ears against the painfully loud sound and cringed. Asmos was shocked from his worries, for it heralded the sudden emergence of her child. He may have missed his duty to her, had the anguished cry not drawn his immediate attention. His eyes grew wide and his hands fumbled into place as the young one slipped free with unnatural ease into his hands. A moment after Daniel threw open the door, unable to stand another of his wife’s cries.

But as the last of her child was freed from her body Ana collapsed into unconsciousness, her cries finally silenced, pain ceased. Ranna and Russa recovered from Ana’s final cry, both craning their necks to see the child who had just come into the world. Russa gasped softly, covering her lips with a palm in the same moment that Ranna murmured an soft ‘Oh my..’

Daniel surged forward, tired of distance and uncertainty. “What is it? Has my child come?”, he demanded, in the same moment that he gave Ana a concerned look, her ragged breathing the only proof she lived still. Stifling his darkest fears.

“Yes..”, is all Asmos said as he lifted the small boy carefully cradled in his aged hands. Daniel arched a brow, baffled as he gazed upon his son. The child was very small. And his fur, streaked with amniotic fluids and blood was a deep, dark cerulean blue, marked with small points of silver. Strange, as his parents were both the crimson of normal foxes. Stranger as Daniel had never seen anything like it before. Perhaps even more disquieting was that his son gazed back at his astonished father silently, no baby’s squall breaking the sudden silence that pervaded the room.

Outside, hidden to many by clouds and rain, the moon was gradually returned to view as the lunar eclipse ended.

*****