Excruciating, mind numbing, unending…waiting.
I wanted to see my bond-mate; it had been too long for me since I had last beheld her beautiful features. My mother wouldn't allow me to enter the birthing room, though I could have eased her pain considerably with magic induced euphoria.
Jenny would have none of it, she believed strongly that the old ways were far richer in wisdom then anything from our time. If she'd listened to reason, I could have informed her that the old times were also far richer in magic and lore. My talents remained unused to aid my sweet Victoria and her cries of pain resounded in my ears in a manner that caused me agony, not because of the pitch or volume, but because she was so tortured to emit the wails.
She was calling for me, and I wanted desperately to go to her, again I was stopped. I didn't understand why I couldn't be of help or why I couldn't even be there to witness life's greatest miracle. Suppose I was killed in the wars? I would never see this moment again and they held me back! It took every remnant of my self-control to keep my strength in check to not run to her side!
Finally, there was silence. Nothing broke the somber shroud of night that fell over the few assembled company. I swallowed thickly as I stood just inside the low doorway to my home.
"Mama? May I…see her?" the gentle question was answered only by my mother's pushing past me into the night, tears streaming down her usually merry face. This did nothing to quell my nerves, if I had lost Victoria the world had lost me.
My paws trembling in anxiousness I crept silently into the innermost part of the house where it was warmest. The room was the sole one in the interior that was lit, candles were all around, barely more then wicks in pools of wax now. A lantern, normally the only light source for the room, hung from the ceiling blazing merrily.
"Vici? Sweet?" I murmured in question to the air as I walked in, she lay on the bed in a state of total exhaustion, weeping steadily. My heart skipped a beat and for a moment, all I could feel was an enormous rushing relief that she was alive. My glance passed over three still forms on a pile of rags and pelts.
My children. My children were dead before they had lived. There were two queens and a tom, the tom being a complete carbon copy of myself, it made me wonder if he would have likened to me in nature. My mother had boasted to the others that I was an absolute dream to raise the sweetest child a mother could hope for. One queen looked very much like her mother, save a splash of colour polluted her fur, but who knows how she would have looked grown? The second was much like Victoria's father; Munkustrap, though her face appeared to be less serious.
"It's all my fault Misto, something I did, I… I'm horrid, you should leave me to die here!" I passed a paw over my face to clear the tears that run down my cheeks silently and fell onto the peaceful faces of our kittens. I moved to the sleeping pad formed of pelts and rags that Victoria and I shared in our small home; we'd always had an 'affectionate' bondship. I reclined beside her, taking her paw in mine and trying to smile for her.
"I could no more leave you then leave my beating heart. There is nothing anyone can do for our kittens sweet, it is nothing that you could have done, Heaviside has just deterred that it isn't our time." She used her free paw to catch my tears and giggled through her own sobs.
"I don't deserve you." She half laughed, half cried before throwing her arms around my neck and sobbing heavily into my shoulder, "Why did they have to die Misto! I heard them! They lived and then…" my paw caressed her back soothingly and I whispered to her in comfort,
"You cannot fight the will of the Gods. I would give my life to bring them theirs, but it would do no good." I sucked in a deep breath in effort to control myself; "We simply have to let them go… Listen to me, we will see them in Heaviside and they'll never be lonely cold or hungry there." She pulled back to look into my eyes and saw the tears of grief glistening there no matter how I tried to be strong for her.
"They're with my mother there…she will take care of them." I nodded,
"Until we are ready to join them." She looked toward the tiny bodies and back at me,
"I still think it's my fault! Something I've done…Suppose I wasn't careful enough, how can you forgive me for taking them from you?" I cupped her face in my paws, forcing her to look at me,
"You gave them to me." I pressed my lips against hers briefly, "And I love you."
In the warmth of the Eleven hall, I felt the tears prick behind my eyes again, Victoria wanted to hold them…but no one would let her, not even me. I longed desperately for that quiet embrace, feeling the memory of the modest kiss still upon my lips. Bast in Heaviside I missed her! She was insistent on joining me for the journey, but she was far too weak from the birth and there was nothing to be done about it.
I stayed with her for several weeks, reluctant to leave her unwell and mourning for our kits, besides being selfish and not wanting to part from her. A month had passed, we'd spent every moment together, and the kittens were buried.
Their funeral is as clear in my vision now as it was as it unfolded. The moon was full and its unearthly glow illuminated the world strangely clearly. I laid the kits upon the stone slab used as an alter, the naming came first; the long ceremony ending with the pronouncing of each name to the heavens.
"Solstice." I said, laying a paw across the chest of the tiny tom that wore my face, "Athene," I dubbed the queen that was much like Vici and, "Glamouradea." The queen who resembled my father in law was blessed.
I stood back, taking Vici's paw as I began to sing in an ancient form of Jellicae usually reserved for magic spells,
'Credain, credain,
Blessed retoth dies ara.
Graymore frawn ra, dis.
Credian, credain,
Clemore weiess brea.
Shaltot reza drees, mat.
Vivat, Life to the Everlasting Cat.'
My voice broke with grief and I was swiftly pulled into a tight embrace by my bondmate, I let the tears fall, looking over her shoulder, I saw the spirits of the little kittens running and playing as they climbed the skies to Heaviside. Sometimes it really was wondrous to be magical.
A/N: Translation of the funerary song:
Farewell, farewell,
Blessed are the innocents.
The lost are with us, evermore.
Farewell, farewell,
Shed not tears.
Angels dwell in heaven, bliss.
Amen, Glory to God in the Highest.