XIII :: Tooth and Nail ( Make-Up )
C’ohna did not have much in this life.
She did not have much in her youth; for what was hers belonged to the family and the family belonged to the tribe. She did not have fanciful clothing or jewelry, she did not belong to a special rank within the tribe. She did not tame beasts, she did not make weapons or have a particular way with weaving. She did not possess skills that would have made her stand out in a crowd. She was an average woman with average talents living an average life. She could not have predicted catching the Nunh’s eye. She could not have predicted having fallen in dazzling, beautiful, perfect love. She could not have imagined having children of her very own, watching the glow in her mother’s face at seeing her so radiant in her joy. She could not have fathomed having a big family full of sons. She could not have anticipated having her sister come to her, pleading and in tears to take her infant daughter and raise her as her own. She could not have been prepared to raise all of these children--as well as adopt a wayward little madhouse of a girl with needs she couldn’t even begin to meet.
She could not have imagined finding her home, her life, her world turned upside down and having it all ripped away from her over night. She could not have readied herself to bury her husband’s headless body, nor 2 of her sons as well. She could not have been ready to lose her daughter in the dead of night to a human trafficking ring she can no power nor insight to stop. She could not have imagined losing her other 2 son’s when said daughter’s lover tore the rest of her precious children from her hands. She could not have been ready for this pain, no one was ever truly ready for this pain.
She could not have imagined learning both her remaining son and daughter were destined for greatness, lives eons beyond their gait leaning on them to shoulder a burden decades long. She could not have been ready to learn one was destined to die.
She could not have imagined gathering children who were both found family and close lovers of her sun and moon, to gather them in her arms and to call them her own. It did not matter how they looked, what they’d done, who they found their comforts in. All that mattered was that her children chose them and, in turn, C’ohna would choose them too.
And in choosing them, they were her’s.
For everything in this world that was not her’s--for all of the things in this world that she could not choose, this--this she would.
Whatever she chose to love. Whatever she chose to rename, reclaim, redefine. Her heart? It was her’s.
And she would fight tooth and nail to protect what was rightfully her’s.