Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 91: brought to you by no beta, we die like men

Our story has gotten too sad and sappy, we apologize for that. In the meantime, the world's gotten stupid, the current generation drunk on memes, and perhaps a sky dragon made of orphan meat has finally arrived. That's right, Carl. Not just any meat will do. ...I think I need a cookie. 

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Shay couldn't sleep.

It wasn't out of the ordinary for her. Even after a month, or perhaps because it was just only a month, and without the exhaustion of pregnancy to help, Vincent's arms about her didn't fit right. The fuzzy bodies nuzzled up against her chest did nothing. The night still stretched out like an empty, gaping maw, promising nothing for the future.

Despite her always tired limbs, she wiggled herself out from the rabbits. Only then did her lungs finally get enough oxygen.

"Shay?"

Damn bunnies and their hearing. Were they all light sleepers?

"Bathroom," she muttered."

"Do you..." he hesitated. "Never mind."

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. "Thanks."

Lastly, she unwound the dragon from her arm, who snorted in protest even in his sleep. He settled down well enough once he was surrounded by warm, fuzzy rabbit boys.

The night air held the last chill of Spring and the dusky scent of Summer. Crickets played a slow concert, and a lazy breeze, for there was always at least a breeze up in the mountains, tickled goosebumps from her skin.

She walked away from the hill until she could at least delude herself into thinking no one could hear her and looked up.

She didn't know how long she stood there, staring at constellations she didn't know and a streamy milky way tinted with pink. Only two moons lit up the sky, the third darkened.

"I want a picture of my moon," she whispered to herself.

The Big Dipper. Cassiopia. Orion the Hunter. Dolphinius. Why hadn't she learned more of the stars when she had them? Surely no one here would care for stars or wonders beyond sex and babies.

She knelt in the grass, not caring about the pebbles and dirt digging into her knees.

"It's never going to end," she told herself, as softly as she would to one of her children. "This is all life has for me in this world."

Kidnapping. Suffering. Nearly dying. Weakness. Hunger. Sickness.

Even as she thought the last, she coughed. It had been coming on very slowly, more in pain than in the sticky, constructed feeling. And so tired...

And ever the emptiness. She didn't even think she could love Curtis and Ryan anymore, and not in the way they should be. Why did anyone even bother surviving in this dying world?

The rabbits really weren't that unique in their situation.

"And me..." she looked down at her hands, more knobbly and thin than she had ever seen them before. Who knew gaining weight would be harder than losing it? Especially on a diet of bread, berries, and nuts?

After gazing into the stars a bit longer, verifying to herself that their beauty had no effect on her whatsoever, she continued on again, pulling out a stone knife she had hidden away beneath her tunic some days ago. 

She wanted to test a theory.

She only stopped once she reached the forest. She only paused a moment to remember Neara. Nervous, jumpy Neara, never just doing what she wanted. Shay couldn't think of a single thing she had done to save her friend, or even help her, really.