Eshek hardly registered Bermondsey's touch beyond the sudden comfort of warmth, but she instinctively leaned into his protective embrace without thinking about it, his body blocking the worst of the icy winds and spray sweeping off the black sea and leaving her shivering wildly in the sudden shelter. "I- I was in NightClan and I found Aspenstar, and I was- I was stupid, Ber, I forgot, I thought I could win, and I did — I-I killed her," she was looking down at her paws as she spoke, her story disjointed and choppy, there was sand on her paws, it was dark and grainy, she was back in the clearing by the stream, there was victory, she was standing over her body, "but then Phantomfox appeared and I couldn't fight him."

She suddenly looked at Bermondsey, eyes wide and panicked. "Because he went for our kits, Ber, and I couldn't protect myself, I just had to protect them. And he knew that. He was going to kill me for what I did to Aspenstar, but he was going to kill them first. And I couldn't- I couldn't let him. You know? Was that wrong of me, Ber?" Her eyes were so huge, so earnest, like she truly didn't know, like she was a child again and everything she'd ever learned about how the world functioned had evaporated, had been ripped out of her. "I'm sorry if it was. I'm so sorry - I'm more sorry than I can say. But I didn't want to lose them again." She looked back down at her stomach, criss-crossed with bright red marks just beginning to scab around the edges, and touched a shaking, confused paw to it. Was this her first litter; was this her second; she couldn't remember - there was just fear, just such terrible, childish fear, fading everything else to black so that all that had ever existed in her life was her failed attempts at being a mother, her yearning for it, her anguish. "And now I haven't felt them." She frowned, still looking down, her voice suddenly so meek and quiet. "Why can't I feel them?" She rubbed her stomach like she was trying to wake them up.

“No, I- I don’t know. Yes. Um,” she couldn’t think; she shook her head to try and clear it, “I saw- I saw the NightClan medicine cat, and then Foxstar helped me. But neither of them could hear the kits. I haven’t- no, I haven’t bled. But I don’t know — maybe I still will. I don’t know how long it takes. I’ve never- I’ve never had a… a miscarriage. I don’t know what it feels like.” She looked at Ber; her shivering had grown fainter with him curled around her, the warmth of his body like a glowing bubble in the middle of the desolate beach. “I don’t want to see Charlotte - what could she do? All she’d do is tell me one way or the other and I-I don’t want to know, Ber. If it happens, I don’t want to be dreading it. Do you understand, Ber? I just want… I just want to wait. Will you wait with me? Either way?”

Truthfully, the way she was talking made it clear that she was expecting the worst. That she’d already resigned herself, like a child who just so readily accepted grief, to losing these kits, too. “Maybe I’m just not meant to be a mother,” she choked out, her voice too broken-hearted, too quiet, to even be called a sob. Her head was bowed to her paws, to the cold grains of sand upon them. She blamed herself; she would never stop blaming herself. She was already haunted by what her kits might have been, what they might have looked like and been like, what their laughs would have sounded like, what their—what their paws would have felt like - now she would be haunted by another litter. Another loss, because she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t know if she’d survive the pain of this one.

Briefly, Eshek turned her head to bury her forehead under Bermondsey’s chin; then, standing shakily, she took a step toward the meagre shelter of the dune grass and, looking back at him, asked softly, “lie with me?” On unsteady paws that occasionally almost gave out from under her and lurched her to the side, she made her way up the little hill and curled up on the sand amid the flattened grass. The sky was grey-black and stormy above them, despite the lack of any rain or thunder; it pressed down, heavy and electric and damp. The grass offered slight protection from the icy wind that washed over it; Eshek’s short fur was still buffeted, but it was the tips - or, well, tip now - just sticking out over the dunes that felt the coldest. She turned her head to look up at Ber, blue eyes so afraid and so earnest. “We’ll wait,” she breathed quietly, and her voice shook on the edge of a cry but it didn’t break; she was strong, she was at peace with this loss, she would let herself cry when it happened. Only then would she break down. 

The sight of the emotion in Ber’s eyes almost broke her. All she could do was smile up at him in response, tearful and loving, like it was her turn to comfort him. The smile stayed on her face, almost worse than tears, as he bundled her close and hid her face under his chin. The biting wind couldn’t touch her there, nor the whips of drizzle upon it or the lashing of sand it sometimes stirred up; she was warm, alone with his heartbeat thrumming calmingly against his collarbone. As unsteady and erratic as it was, it was soothing; because it was him, and because it meant that someone in the world was as afraid as she was. As much as they squabbled and fought and disagreed, as little as they saw eye to eye and as often as they butted heads, she knew that when it came down to it, he would never judge her. And he wouldn’t leave her.

Her stomach was so still. “Talk to me,” she implored, and her voice was so quiet, so high and strangled. Eshek shifted her head down slightly, brushing her forehead down Ber’s throat as she turned her head a little. Her eyes were still closed; she didn’t want to open them, didn’t want to leave this warm darkness where nothing could touch them. “Tell me something nice from your childhood. There has to be something happy.”

Eshek laughed, a little sound that hurt her chest because there wasn't enough air in her lungs to let it happen. The visual image of little Ber's idea of a big act of rebellion and dissent being throwing a rock at someone and thinking himself off the rails for it made her smile, and for just a second she imagined it and forgot where they were at that moment. "Was prob'ly you who got hit in the head and that's why you're so stupid," she laughed, soft and weak and shaky, her head rocking slightly as he lapped his tongue between her ears. Without warning, as was Eshek's habit, and in that same quiet voice, she brushed from insult to affection. "Your parents were idiots not to see how wonderful you are."

She fell quiet as he asked her his question, her eyes slipping shut as his grooming soothed her into a peaceful state; she'd never been so simultaneously numb and utterly present. His warmth, the feeling of him grooming her fur; her mind didn't wander from it to all the places it usually went, just stayed there against him as the rest of the world, the icy wind and the black sea and the whipping grass, faded into a muffled background. "Fun?" she purred softly, and her voice was no more than a gentle, husky murmur. Teasing Ber was second nature, like breathing. "You know about that?" She fell silent for a moment longer, just purring quietly through her grief and her hollowed out ribs as Ber warmed the very blood beneath her fur. She thought, through the fog and haze and dissociative, comforting warmth, for a story. Finally, she found one. "When I was little, a trainee or-or an old youngling, I don't remember, I got in in my head that I was gonna run away. I didn't like my dad and he didn't like me, so I was gonna go and start my own League out beyond the woods. I didn't know about the Clans, obviously, so I thought that out there it was just free real estate, just miles and miles of land up for grabs, and I was gonna go get it. But I didn't understand the concept of... y'know, voluntary participation, so I basically kidnapped all the younglings to go and start my new colony. I snuck in one night and woke them all up and told them we were going somewhere fun but they couldn't tell their parents, so I set out with all these kittens following me in a single-file line. And obviously they were piss-scared, of the dark and of owls, and they were cold and hungry, but I wasn't giving up so I started getting more and more frustrated, because I didn't know how to feed them or make them shut up, and said if they didn't suck it up and keep goin' I was gonna skin 'em. So that got them moving.

And we actually made it to the edge of the woods - but then I was standing there, looking out at-at this landscape that to me looked so desolate, because it was just empty, brown fields and huge, grey skies. And so I tried to look like I was sure of myself so I wouldn't lose my new settlers - but then a fox screamed in the grass and we all ran. And I didn't stop to help 'em, no way, I was running past all of them back to the Mansion. Miraculously, though, everyone made it back without being eaten by a fox or dying of cold and all that happened was I got a talking to from the Nemesis about my behaviour - and it was the first time I'd been in the Nemesis' quarters, so I was actually super happy and excited to be there and had to try and look repentant while actually tryna look around the room and see everything - and then had to say sorry to the kitties and their families. And my dad didn't even notice I'd been gone." She smiled, leaning against Ber's throat at such an angle that his chest and his foreleg wrapped around her were the only things propping her up, and flexed the claws on one forepaw as she looked down at it, but the smile was traced with sadness. She wished her dad had noticed.

"So maybe it's for the best if we lose them," she murmured after a moment, and her voice was guilty and quiet, little more than a breath, carved out by grief that had already given up. All the fun at the memory was gone, replaced by the knowledge that once again she'd killed the only thing she'd ever really wanted. That almost more than that, she'd lose Bermondsey because this frail connection he didn't even want beyond a sense of duty was the only thing keeping them together and he'd hate her after this. "I'd never make a good mother if that's the kind of crap I do. And you'll want nothing to do with me." Her voice broke at that and she sagged against him, crying wretchedly. "I'm going to lose you, too." She was going to lose everything. No one would stay with a failed mother too stupid to keep her children alive, not when he was royal, not when he'd warned her against this and she'd been too reckless, too immature, too headstrong to listen. Everything a mother wasn't supposed to be. She was supposed to be gentle and wise. And instead she'd gotten his kits killed. He'd blame her; he'd hate her; even if they weren't in love, he'd leave her.

The grief that had been wrapping itself to tightly around Eshek's heart loosened at only those few words: it's not your fault. I'm still here. In a way, it was all she'd ever wanted anyone to say: it's not your fault he didn't love you; it's not your fault you became like this; it's not your fault the things you love always die. But right now, it was none of those things, none of it mattered - it was just Ber forgiving her, telling her he would stay. In that moment, with Ber's quiet voice in her ear and his too-frail, too-mortal bones pressed against her and his eyes that had that vulnerable, frightened look so similar to the way he'd stared up at her when he fell from the roof, she would have done anything to keep him safe for the rest of their lives. As much as she dragged him back down from his high horse, to her he always had this strange, mystical air of invincibility - the world would crumble and end and die, and he would still be there. The world could try and try and try, but it couldn't kill him. She couldn't fathom a time where Ber wouldn't be in it - he would always survive, but always be there, would always shake off the rubble and the dust and go back to work. He was scrawny, but his pelt would deflect the sharpest knives.

She didn't know when he had become a strange hero to her, but he had.

Seeing how fragile he looked and felt now, all she wanted to do was protect him, to keep that hero-worship true; and in the back of her mind, in some quiet place, that became her greatest charge, to keep this tom murmuring against her cheek safe, no matter where it got her or what it meant. She let out a shaky breath that mingled with Ber's in a brief fog of warmth amid all the cold, brittle air, their heads bowed against each other. Her heart soothed, the grief still trapped within her body but the terribleness of it a little easier to bear, to face, to confront, now she knew Ber wouldn't leave her side. A faint smile spread across her face, eyes closed. She didn't reply, just nuzzled her muzzle against his, not wincing when the scratches left by Aspenstar and Phantomfox twinged at the contact, and turned her head towards the dark, storming sea.

The coldness that filled her at having to wait was matched by the bleak ice of the wilderness around them, by the black cliffs and the wet sand and the daggers of drizzle. Chunks of early autumn ice floated near the shore, savaged by the waves and so startlingly white against the obsidian water. She didn't know how, lying there in the cold dunes with the promise that her kits were either dead or alive and a tom who was something almost more unknowably intimate than a mate, she felt more at peace, more home, than she had with Funk. Felt, even through the misery of not knowing, happier. Ber made her brave, and as much as he indulged her worst traits, he also pushed her to be better. Or maybe it was just that lying there, whatever grief and loss and suffering may greet them at the end, whatever the impossibility of waiting, she felt comforted. Safe.

Turning slowly and lowering her head to rest her cheek against Ber's forepaws and gaze with a haunted, grieving sort of calm out at the black ocean, Eshek asked quietly, "would you have wanted a daughter or a son?" She felt she already knew the answer - he seemed the type to favour a son, an heir. She'd always wanted a daughter. A fresh ache tore her heart apart at the thought of who might have been growing within her, now grown cold. All her dreams. All she'd ever wanted the chance to love. A shiver ran through her, numb and so exhausted by, so weary, from her own grief. Ber had warmed her, but now the icy wind swept over her anew. So tired, her body could hardly keep itself functioning. She just wanted it to end, to know one way or another. Being able to cradle and bow over their cold little bodies would be so much easier than this silent, benumbed terror of waiting - at least then she would know. Now, her grief was so painfully between worlds.

A surprised smile spread across Eshek's face at the same time an odd, high sort of whimper left her mouth; an exclamation of joy, or a failed, happy laugh. The smile stayed as Ber licked her tears away, her body pliant and unresisting and her head tilting naturally to the side at the contact. She didn't reply; she just lay there, her body melted with his, his warmth her own, and let their shared, silent grief wash over them. It was the most sacred form of comfort she'd ever known, this fellowship that didn't need to be spoken.

Like that, hours passed. The dark, stormy sky turned to cold, clear black and Bermondsey and Eshek became one with the icy sand, the sea grass, the wind. She stared out at the bleak ocean with weary, soft eyes, blinking slowly, looking almost happy, almost at peace; such was the magnitude of her hollow grief. Eventually, she didn't know whether she had drifted asleep or had always been awake; it began to blur as the night ticked away. Every hour or so she'd change her position, fumbling over awkwardly onto her other side, half-asleep, to tuck her face into Ber's chest between his forelegs and curl her tail protectively over her stomach, forgetting the instinct was no longer needed in her half-dreaming state, or clinging to it all the more stubbornly, refusing to accept defeat, in that space between sleep and waking. She didn't know if Ber was drifting in and out of consciousness the same way she was, waking every so often in a sudden rush of fear to check her stomach only to settle back into uneasy waiting, or if he stayed awake the entire time. All she knew was that he never left her. Even on that lonely, desolate beach, she was never cold. She always had his warmth under her fur, in her veins, lending her soul strength. Her forepaws tucked into the space between them, warm and useless, her whole being sheltered by Ber's back against the icy gale and stinging sand.

At one point, between sleep and life, she began hallucinating. Just simple things, things she didn't know whether they were happening in reality or if she was dreaming them: her crying while she slept, a paw softly brushing the tears away, a kiss to her temple, humming, a quiet song.

And then, with the sky still black and cold above them, in the early hours of the morning, Eshek dreamed of tapping. Just a faint little tapping, and in her dreaming mind it was a little shrew living in a cozy little house within a tree, with a little carpet and chair and table and paintings on the wall. Then it began to grow more insistent, and she became vaguely aware of water rushing and crashing nearby. Eshek blinked her eyes opened and raised her head. She lay there like that for a moment, just blinking quietly in the night, as her kits kicked and squirmed in her stomach. Until finally, she realised. Her head snapped to her belly and, after a moment of staring, she burst into tears and, with the most exhausted, radiant grin on her face, she shook Bermondsey's shoulder. "Ber," she sobbed, even as she laughed, "Ber, wake up - they're okay. They're alive. Ber, they're okay." She collapsed her head against his neck, shaking with the force of her joyful sobs against him. "Feel," she laughed, so exhausted and ruined and happy, and drew his paw to rest against her stomach. She leaned back and beamed at him tearfully, eyes searching his. Like it was the most natural thing in the world to share this moment with him, this tom who meant everything to her, to their children. She let out another burst of gasping relief, grinning wider than anything, warm and joyful and young - no sharpness, no mania. Just joy.

Eshek was still laughing, nodding along as light with joy as she was heavy with bone-deep exhaustion as Ber repeated himself over and over. She felt delirious with it, with this ecstasy of relief. With the most innocent, joyful grin on her face, the she-cat toppled Ber over, her forepaws wrapped around his neck and her gasps of laughter spilling out against his short fur.

She buried her face against his jaw, her eyes closed and hot with tears she could hardly feel. "We're still gonna be parents!" she laughed, sounding younger than she ever had in her life. "They're as hard to kill as their mother, like little cockroaches. Our horrible, awful little cockroaches." Grinning widely, she pulled back to look at Ber. "We're gonna be good parents, Ber. You're gonna be the most amazing father and they'll be so in love with you and there's no one I'd rather do this with than you." She was babbling with joy, with love - gushing with it. Her head fell forward, eyes closing as she rested her nose bridge against his. "Thank you for staying with me. Thank you for wanting to be in our lives. Thank you for not giving up on them, or killing them. Thank you for being my friend." It was the most mismatched, insane-sounding list - but that was them. Without saying it, without needing to, it was I love you, I love you, I love you.

"I promise I won't do anything else dangerous and crazy and life-threatening until they're born. You can put me on bed rest, I don't care. I'm just so excited to meet them." She pulled back and, blinking open her eyes bleary with sleep and tears and euphoria, raised her head to look at the sky. Dawn was just filtering through the clouds, light and otherworldly and blinding. The smile on her face was like she'd seen magic itself. She closed her eyes and breathed in the cold, salty air. "Thank you," she breathed, that same smile on her face, and it was meant for the ocean, the sand, the universe and every god in it. For them. For their family. She was in love with it all. With every soul and every blade of grass in the sorry little world.