He did not know how he felt about the mare leaving his company in order to have their child, but he knew that mares were strange when it came to pregnancy, prefering the solitude for the occasion. He thought he understood it though, since he had enjoyed his privacy for so long as it was; he didn't like it, but he understood.
"Okay," he finally said, after a few quiet moments of deliberation. Yet he felt unable to let her go at first, hugging his body tightly (as tightly as he could, with the swell of her belly) to her own. He had never felt such need before - that need to hang onto something was so foreign to the man who so callously wished to throw away his own life once. It was a bizarre turn of events, but not unpleasant. It gave him a reason to live, instead of a reason to want to die.
"Don't thank me," he whispered back, not really knowing why she was offering him such gratitude to begin with. Perhaps it didn't click in his mind that his own happiness would provoke joy in her, and so misinterpreted. Either way, his words were sweet, almost loving in their quality, "I'll do anything for you." Some of the most cherished words of mates, and he spoke them matter-of-factly, not meaning them in any cliche, fantastical way of young cocky stallions, but in the honest-hearted way that only he could manage.
Reluctantly, he pulled away from her then, his nose trailing up her neck, across her cheek, down to her lips where he breathed hotly into her nostrils before slowly walking away. "I will take a trip to the Field in the meantime. Call when you return, and I will be there in an instant," he said, and with one powerful flap of his wings, he was up in the air. When he returned, he would be a father to the most adorable foal he could ever have imagined.
I want to locate a bit of you, cradle it,
say: this, there is no word for this.
MORBID ANGEL
But they will. They who name everything
will define our actions
as we auction our bodies off to sleep.
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