[B] A Small Deviation [Diligence & As the Sun Burns]

[Araucana]

Prim and proper, Diligence was out on a stroll- not too far from her family of course! She's a very responsible young doe. A very pregnant, responsible young doe, whom's suitor was a perfectly sweet and respectable young lady that may have been magically disguised as a young buck when they met with the head of the family, Diligence's grandmother Watch the Skies.

Her family's the traditional sort but truly, the differences between zikwa does and bucks are so slight that it was hardly a deception! Besides, the transformation flower did happen to make Wary's voice delightfully deeper, a side effect that may have had more to doe with Diligence's current condition than she would ever freely admit to but she digresses.

The very responsible reason for her stroll is that she knows that all of her other family members, including her mother, had been graced by one of the Motherfather's chosen and blessed during their respective pregnancies and yet... it was now getting rather late in her own pregnancy. Diligence would never admit it, but she... was worried that her one, truly rare deviation from her grandmother's teachings might have actually been more serious than she'd realised.

But! She reminded herself as she kept her head up and her expression politely neutral. There's still time, there is.

[Blinded By Silence]

For once, He Who Watches As The Sun Burns was not watching. He slept. Untouched by time save for the thin grabbing vines that snaked through his feathers and the moss that grew up his long, thin legs. Asleep, the pages of the world's great story unfolded without him. Lost. Deaf to the World-Song.

Until, quite suddenly, he awoke. He gasped, the first breath truly taken in gods knew how long. It rattled around in his chest, clattering about like dry stones. Anger and confusion flooded his mind. Leaves littered the water's surface as he shook nature's reclamation from his body. He kicked away the muck that his feet had sunken deep into. Watch needed to move, why had he been so still? He needed to move!

And with a flurry of wings, he abandoned his resting place and dove, letting the water cool his itching body and aching mind. He rested on the bottom until his lungs screamed, pleading for breath. Fine. To the air, then.

The one thing he disliked about this chapter of his life was the absolute absence of time. He felt... outside of it. Watch had always been an observer, a narrator in the world's story. Lately, however, with these strange uncontrollable sleeps that spanned seasons, it was like he wasn't a part of the story at all. There must be a reason for it, he thought as he broke the surface above the clouds. Endless blue. It reminded him of the ocean, of everything that had come before. There was a reason. And he would find it, of this he was sure.

Then, he felt it. A tug on his heart -- Someone was Calling. A rush of relief washed over him as he dipped his wing and spiraled back down to the earth below. He was not forgotten. Someone still needed him. There was something recognizable in this calling. Not blue, like family. But perhaps someone he once knew, long, long ago.

It didn't take him long to find the doe, what with her polite-yet-panicked wanting. The crane opted to settle in a clearing just a few steps forward on her path. Tall and calm, he stood in a pool of dappled sunlight until she stepped through the treeline. And with a warm and gentle voice that reminded one of sun-touched waters chuckling over stones, he spoke to her mind, 'Patience, Young One. Steady now. We make our own time, I promise you, there is enough.'

[Araucana]

Oh. And there he was, she knew immediately that she'd found who she'd needed to see, indistinct as he might've been in her mind until this very moment. His warm voice trickled through her mind like a new river finding it's way and she felt the frantic edge of her anxiety wash away with it. An easy smile grew on her face, only subtly different from her usual ever pleasantly polite countenance, but warmer and brighter all the same.

"I should not have wavered and held faith you would come," Diligence approached and gracefully bowed to the crane. "Thank you for doing so, Chosen One."

She bows deeply and for a long held moment despite her bulging belly, before returning to her comfortable stance. "This one's name is Diligence. I greet you in the name of my family, headed by grandmother Watch the Skies and on behalf of myself and my clutch's sire, Wary. She will also be relieved that you have come."

In the presence of the stag before her, in glowing eyed crane form no less, Diligence dared not be anything but completely transparent, worries about her perhaps-transgression aside. She should have had faith in the first place. Surely the Motherfather would not grace their swamp with the increasingly common transformation flowers, if it wasn't their own will? Diligence held desperately to that thought, as she waited for the stag's reply.

[Blinded By Silence]

His sun-fire eyes softened as he felt her relief. The crane lifted his head, if a beak could smile, his would had followed hers easily.

'You did not give up, that is the more important part, I feel.' The warm-water voice replied, chuckling as he opened his wings wide and welcoming before following her in a mock bow of his own.

And in that flurry of feathered movement, his bubbling laughter becomes more than just a mental reverberation. In a flash of sea spray and the sound of a crashing wave, there stood a stag where the crane had once been. He stood tall, his reaching horns gnarled like driftwood, his fur and salt-stained mane rippling as if underwater. But his eyes remained the same, catching the fire of a distant sunset far beyond them both.

"And I am As The Sun Burns, though your grandmother...?" He lets out another bark of laughter though there is a flicker of worry in his eyes, "Gracious, it can't have been that long ago, can it? She had been a spry young thing back when I knew her. Proud and firm. She knew me as Watch, and so too shall you, young one." He shakes his head, where had the time gone? "Lady Watcher, a grandmother. And you, a mother." Those eyes move back to hers, piercing and knowing. But the head cants to the side in curiosity at her last statement. She? He knew of kin who loved regardless of gender, of surrogacy and other such things. Non-traditional, but what story ever was? But this Dilligence had used the word sire. Something was different, yes.

"Hmm, there is mother-magic here." He says with a sniff, "Something new. Share with me, young Diligence, there is a story here, I can tell."