Chapter Text
I was falling.
(deep. dark. so dark.)
There was a feeling of being airborne, first. Like when you lift your feet into a ghost step, just that tug on your heart and stomach, then came the fall.
(why is it so quiet?)
So so dark and silent but loud like the wind too. And I was still falling. Grasping at nothing. Where was my body?
My hair wasn’t rushing, not like the wind and crash and loud and quiet in my ears (how is it silent and loud?) where was I? What are the lights?
Orbs of lights dancing in front of my face. (so pretty)
Pretty, very pretty.
I was already starting to get resigned to the eternal falling, to the mix of oversensitivity and numbness when everything fell into place.
Like I was a rubber band being pulled and finally releasing the stress and falling back into place.
When I blinked, it was a blurry sight. (nothing new, I did need my glasses in the morning, after all.)
Still trying to regain my breath, I resisted the urge to rub my chest to rid myself of the feeling you have when you wake up from a dream of falling. It was once I reached for my glasses that realized something was wrong.
First of all, my arm felt… numb. (?) As if I had fallen asleep on it, but if that wasn’t weird enough, I finally realized that there wasn’t a fucking side table.
In fact, there wasn’t a fucking bed either.
Now, I didn’t want to admit it, but between you and me, I only really realized that I was a goddamn baby because when I yelped, I actually didn't… yelp. I wanted to! It’s what I was going for! But my infant body responded to my distress by wailing the breath out of me.
No, really.
I couldn’t breathe with how hard I was crying.
There were… sigh. There were hiccups.
Full-blown infant hiccups between wailing. I even gave myself a headache, which only made me cry more. Because, you know… baby brain.
It was mid baby-meltdown that I had the first glimpse of my frazzled mother. I say glimpse but I mean more like blur.
“Shh. Shh. You’re ok, Lils, you’re ok. shh, shh.”
She was warm when she picked me up and tucked me against her neck, swaying gently and humming something that instantly had me quieting down. Even as I was still freaking out, because holy shit I was getting picked up and I was a baby, but like magic, I was lulled into calmness.
The woman felt safe and warm and she gave the best back rubs and pats, and her humming seemed to have some goddamn effect too because the vibrations of her chest had me nearly melting, but seeing as that was impossible, I settled on sagging completely against her.
“There’s a good girl, Lils.” If I cooed in wonder at her raspy voice, that was my business and my fucking business alone, alright?
When she (unfortunately) pulled away, I got a glimpse of light brown hair pinned up, and dark eyes. My vision hadn’t sharpened yet, but I knew she was beautiful. The woman stared at me, and we both took a moment to be in awe of each other after she gently settled me back, running a warm finger on my chubby cheek and smiling when I instinctively tried to grab it.
Then, she was gone and I was left to contemplate my new position.
So… A baby.
Um… A baby in… Scotland? Honestly, English had not been my first language and accents were not my thing. I knew it wasn’t American, but I could not for the life of me figure out if the accent was Irish or Scottish.
Either way, it was far from home.