Guro Challenge #9: Skeleton/Bones
#22 of 33 Day Guro Challenge
Her belly was softer than it should be, and she noticed the bitter iron smell before the surprisingly mild cramp. She put a paw to her thigh, found it wet, and screamed.
Buckler came running, and found Clarinna sitting on her bed, clutching something, a blood-streaked wet patch spreading on her skirt. He took one step closer, and stopped, shocked, as he saw what she held; fragile pieces of bone and cartilage, wrapped in shrivelled sticky membrane. Between her claws peeked two half-formed and tiny skulls, the spines behind them held together by the skin, and fleshy little stumps where limbs should be.
It was rare, but not unknown, for this to happen, more usually among female Long Patrollers on active duty. The body could sense danger before the mind could, it was said; the mother's instinct would react of its own accord, and all sources of energy for fight or flight would be pressed into service whether the body's owner wanted them to or not. Mostly it happened before the offspring was developed far and the soft boneless form would be completely gone or unrecognisable, but Clarinna had been unlucky. Should an infant be at too much risk of harm, the mother's body would ensure it never would be again.
Buckler reached out to her. Clarinna turned away; her grip on the little bones tightened, and there was a crack as her claw accidentally pierced a brittle skull. She froze. Buckler sat on the bed beside her, not sure whether to look at her tearstained face or the last remnants of his brother's bloodline.
"It's alright. They're with me still." Clarinna rubbed her belly. "May you never be unhappy, loves. My heart is your burrow, my blood is your river, my bones are your trees. Run free in them and never know suffering. You'll be safe forever here."
~
"And I will take your bones and with them build a home" - Nicole Dollanganger, "Cries of the Elephant Man Bones"