The last nights had been difficult. Reece had been more restless than usual, more prone to getting up and leaving me just to walk. I was getting less and less sleep each night having to follow her and make sure that she didn't try to give birth somewhere in the trees or something and frankly I couldn't wait for her labor to finally start. The child... that would be another matter. Ree had spoken of a house, but I had my doubts to whether or not my fairy would ever be able to live in a house. And a baby couldn't live in the woods, I knew that even if my fairy didn't. She couldn’t live with people, the baby couldn't live alone... I might find someone that could build a house for her, but that would take too long.

My fairy was getting up again. I grumbled to myself as she got up, but otherwise kept silent – moving would only alert her to me being awake and provoke an outburst. She didn't want to be followed, I reminded myself. She liked to walk alone for whatever reason. Despite this I got up and followed her. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but hooves weren't exactly made for silence. She heard me and snapped at me to go back to bed, that she just wanted to walk. I ignored this, as I have every night, and she stomped through the forest angrier than ever. Had the magic still been there... but it wasn't and without any sort of bond with her I wasn't about to let her wander off alone. That being said I made sure to keep out of the throwing distance of a distracted fairy. As long as she kept moving. As long as she didn't stop, not here, in the middle of the woods. I'd tried to get her toward the grove but even with her riding it was difficult to get anywhere I wanted to go. She was more apt to jump off my back, big belly and all, than to go in a direction that she didn't want to go.

“Reece?,” I was hesitant to disturb her but the softness in her voice encouraged me to move closer. The rock that sailed past my noise as I did so convinced me to move back in a hurry. “Reece! I just want to walk with you! Let me walk with you!” Another rock sailed out of the forest to hit me in the chest. “Stop throwing rocks!,” my voice was a bit too sharp because I heard her gasp before breaking into tears. I was alarmed to find myself not feeling sorry, not feeling distraught, not feeling anything but annoyed. I was tired of her pregnancy, to tell the truth, and she would be going to the midwife whether she wanted to or not. She had fire, so did I. Where magic was a part of her for me it was more of a stretch normally. My creation was hesitant and clumsy but it would do I think. Distracted, she hadn't heard me sneaking closer and now I formed around my fairy a cage of fire. The flames were cool, but condensed to be able to carry her and keep her safe.

She started shouting almost instantly. She could have destroyed the cage with a thought but the baby didn't like magic, the baby kicked and squirmed even at my magic near my fairy, and her time was too near for her to fight me that way. She shrieked and yelled and threatened until I wished he'd been made deaf. Some of the screams were not threats, to my surprise. Both hands were over her stomach as she shouted at me and to him and sometimes i swore he could see her stomach moving. We had to move fast, then. I picked up my pace until I was galloping and she was flying through the forest. She continued to scream, beating her feet against the bottom of the cage in an attempt to break it.

“Hey! Baby-person! Uhh.. midwife person!” If my voice, which even I could admit was tempered with panic more than anything, did not find her Ree's wails no doubt would. “We need a baby person here!” All the while I kept the flame-cage up, afraid that she would take off into the woods the second I released it. I hated the fact that I was caging her, knowing the panic it would bring, but at the same time I couldn't help but wonder why, exactly, I hadn't done this much earlier. She was much easier to manage when running wasn't an option.