When you unfold me
and tell me you love me

It felt like years since last she had seen Revan. Like a hundred thousand things had changed, and yet a million more had stood still. There was a part of her that feared the sting of negligence, and her heart had ached with the passing days as her gravid belly grew heavier, as the sun set each night upon the blooming realization that Rabi had, indeed, told her the truth. That whatever fanciful daydream she had been spun in the meadow had come to fruition, and she was left to wonder about the unknown all alone, the father of those twin stars just out of reach.

It would have been so easy to tell him; to breathe it across the bond and to beg him to come home to her. But Kira hadn’t, torn between her fear of his reaction and the terrible reality where he might never return at all. She rarely let that terror seize her, and it only found the strength to creep up when she lay unsuspecting.

Guilt became her frequent companion, accompanied by the nagging realization that, as desperately as she wanted Revan to know, she lacked the words to put paint to the truth.

It was no easier as she stood upon the shore of Atollon, the blooms of the island in full spring despite the wintry climate that lay beyond the islands’ waters. The kingdom flourished, booming with a glittering resplendence that rivaled the sun itself. And Kira never quiet learned to associate its health, its prosperity, with the two little lives that grew within her.

She knew only keeping her mind busy; keeping her hands full with the tasks that she could balance. And she knew only the silhouette that now pushed through the water, the size of him parting the sea as he mapped his way back into her life—as how much she had ached for him returned in full force. His smile, a rare thing, was so bright that she was sure the glimmer of it reflected upon the water’s surface. Brighter still was the crushing loss of it as it dimmed and a frown claimed its place.

And yet, still, Kira stood silent as a sentinel, her expression softening as she warred with a hundred emotions; as her hazel eyes traced the familiar shape of him and reveled in the certainty that he was home, he was here, he was safe. She didn’t care for the elk pelt that sat folded and strapped to his back, and for a heartbeat, she could pretend that nothing had changed.

Nothing—and she would curl up in his embrace and reclaim the lost time.

But things had changed. And she could see the realization plain upon his dark features, she could map the confusion that shifted over ever constellated freckle upon his brow, and a shallow breath expanded her narrow chest as she looked at him pleadingly.

There was no concealing the obvious curve to her abdomen, how the months had turned her into a blundering little thing that, so accustomed to her own smallness, she didn’t really know how to function. How to sleep at night, how to breathe without being conscious of every movement—

How to not burst into tears when she felt the pressure of a gentle kick within; the affectionate nudge of one of those errant stars as they asked for her attention at midnight, as she beamed at her stomach and nudged them back with a gentle press of her muzzle.

But how, exactly, did she tell Revan any of that?

“Hi,” she greeted timidly, lamely. Inching forward apprehensively, her eyes flitted nervously over the chasm of space between them, and when she tilted her chin up toward him, her lips were parted with the noiseless expression of everything she wanted to say but couldn’t quite find the words to form aloud.

“Revan…” she started, near-pleading, still. “I missed you.”

When you unfold me
and tell me you love me

Kira never missed the way his eyes ventured, daring to drink in the sight of her even as her brow drew tighter together in worry. The light within his eye shuttered into uncertainty, and her heart clenched painfully within the hollow of her chest as she regarded him, her hooves shifting uncertainly beneath her body. Impossibly, she hadn’t anticipated the suddenness with which he would speak the words aloud; as though the revelation was something to be gleaned within an instant.

It was, of course; she had made no attempt to hide anything. She wouldn’t have known how to, anyways. But that didn’t change the swiftness with which her ears flicked back, her teeth worrying the inside of one cheek as she gazed at him, her hazel eyes still imploring and wide, begging him not to turn around and go. Kira’s heart had descended into a chasm: a gorge through which it plummeted, in desperate search of purchase as the uncertainties in Revan’s voice chinked more holes in her armor.

Why didn’t you tell me?

She drew in a breath, one so fiercely tense that she feared her lungs might burst from her chest, and Kira swallowed down the bitter iron of naivety as she fought back the pressing sting of tears. Guilt assembled like a league of warriors, their javelins spearing through the walls of her heart, and she parted her dry lips as she regarded him with youthful uncertainty—

Because, despite everything, she was still so very young. So new to notions of oneness, of belonging, of family.

Family. A rare gift that felt someone stolen; a treasure that she feared she had unintentionally robbed from Revan, if not through her silence alone.

“Revan…” she repeated, her voice breaking upon the craggy stone of her own insecurities. She had loved those twin, beating hearts since the moment Rabi had guided her into their temple, offering her the gift of basking in their shine for but a moment.

And Revan had had no idea.

“I’m sorry,” she tried, her words whisper soft. “I wanted to. The moment I found out, I wanted to, Revan, but I…”

Her chest broadened with the effort of a deep, uncertain breath. She inched forward, begging him to close the last span of distance that lay between them, too, even if she couldn’t bring herself to ask it of him.

“I was afraid,” Kira swallowed, her head lowering as she peered up at him through coppery lashes. “Too afraid to tell you through the bond. I never knew what to say. I still don’t, Revan—”

And then, because she feared where his treacherous thoughts might lie—

“They’re yours,” she promised, her words tattered with emotion, the silvery shine of a tear rending her resolve apart. “Both—both of them, there’s two.”

When you unfold me
and tell me you love me

The glimpse of wonder she could see in his eyes was neither enough to eclipse his worry or hers, and Kira could only look on in silence, with only the sound of his words and the hammering of her heart ringing in her ears as she waited expectantly. For what, precisely, the young queen could not say for sure. But perhaps only the desperate hope that Revan wouldn’t turn away; that he wouldn’t shy from the truth that she had wrongfully held from him.

It was guilt, in the end, that was strong enough to replace the flicker of awe, and a tide of Kira’s own came sweeping through to seize her limbs as she dragged herself forward again, her eyes imploring.

“But you didn’t know,” she started. “And that was my fault, Revan. It wasn’t yours.” Her breath came shakily as she looked up at him, hardly registering the motion that dragged the elk’s pelt and antlers from his back, the cargo deposited upon the sand like a peace treaty. Kira didn’t need an olive branch, though—she only needed him.

But she could think of two tiny bodies swaddled in the warmth of that pelt, tucked together for warmth as their too-long legs intertwined; as they kicked and whinnied in their sleep. It was nearly enough to make her sob, watching him, as just a sliver of terror ebbed with the shy step Revan dared forward.

She managed a smile of gratitude, one wet with emotion, before Revan’s expression furrowed with a worry she wanted nothing more than to dissuade. Kira shushed him gently, her lips parting with the unending plea.

“I’m fine, Revan,” she promised. “And they are, too. They’re strong, and wonderful," she remembered that much; two, strong, healthy heartbeats. Two thundering drums that, somehow, she swore she could hear with each passing day.

Swallowing thickly as she dared to bridge the gap between them, her attention bypassed the gift he had placed upon the sandy ground as she moved in, as her chest tightened with her need to brush her muzzle against his.

When it did, a current of electricity shivered over her spine, and Kira desperately sought to amend months apart by melding her skin with his, pushing her head into the crook of his neck as she hid away in the sheer size of him, the tawny color of her desert-skin shadowed by the abyss of his.

“They’re perfect,” she whispered, the words a levee that split apart until tears trickled down her cheek; until she could only bow her forehead into his chest as she expelled a ragged breath. “I should have told you. I’m so, so sorry.”

When you unfold me
and tell me you love me

It was an unspeakable relief when Revan didn’t shy from her touch. A shuddering breath left her lips as she sank against her, months of apprehension and fear dissolving in presence of tidal wonder and longing. Kira melded with him without a second thought, her mind nestling near to the perfect countermelody to her own song, until her lyrics meshed with the hymn of him. Squeezing her eyes shut, the young queen tucked near, impossibly so, as she hid in the shelter of his draping neck.

“I don’t blame you, either,” Kira promised him. The guilt would weigh on him regardless, she knew; just as her own would press down for the days to come. She could only hope that their twin lights would be enough to abolish that darkness, when at last they were here.

When they were here— and my, what a terribly exciting, terrifying, thought that was.

An inconsolable whimper left her as she wept quietly against his neck, because in place of it all, she had dearly missed Revan, too. Neither of them were suited for the likes of codependency, undoubtedly, but that didn’t change the truth that their souls certainly knew how to dance, and that every obstacle in life was better conquered with a hand to help the other climb over what demons lay ahead.

They had let go one too many times before, and Kira never wanted to do that again.

“We are,” she repeated, filling the gap of his scrambling footing with what certainty she could offer. “We’re alright. All three of us, Revan.”

And then Kira was laughing, almost impossibly, as she equal parts chuckled and cried into the dark skin of his neck from where he had tucked her away. Their home was some distance from where they stood now, Atollon’s water still sluicing over his skin, and though Kira wanted nothing more than to offer him a moment’s rest, she knew neither of them would manage to shut an eye now.

“I—I’m not sure,” she confessed. “Another month or so, maybe,” Kira swallowed, her ill-preparation, her naivity, the most treacherous factor of all. The healers of Atollon had done well to help her, but there where things that could only be entrusted to the instinct of her heart—and perhaps, admittedly, to fate.

And she prayed, for once in her life, that she could trust the whims of the world.

“I haven’t,” she had already been prepared for this question. “I need to see them, first,” Kira explained softly, brushing her muzzle against the skin at the base of his neck. “I need to look at them in order to know. But I know they’re perfect; I know they’re beautiful.”

She smiled, her mouth curving against him as she sniffled.

“It’s scary,” she said, perhaps only seeking to affirm his confidence with the certainty that she was still just as rattled, still just as unsure. “But I know that I’m ready to love them, and to see them—and to have a family, Revan—”

She paused, she forced herself not to sob, as she wetly whispered, “We have a family, Revan.”