Rhadra touches the swell of her barrel for the umpteenth time, a dreamy smile on her lips and her dark eyes distant.
There is no mistaking it.
Somehow, defying everything, life grows strong within her womb. She hadn’t believed it at first, dismissing the heaviness not quite in her gut, convincing herself she had both eaten too much to prepare for winter (when she felt full before even setting her teeth to the grass) and not enough (to explain her sudden bouts of appetite despite grazing the days away). One day she became aware of her barrel in her peripheral, but moreso. And then, blessed be, kicks. Intermittent but palpable. Rhadra is pregnant.
Her heart soars high as Keen, kept afloat by bliss-filled winds and tethered to the blazed bay stallion who has given her this gift when none other could. Rhadra descends the mountain that same day and returns to their hollow, nosing aside the evergreen boughs and slipping inside to share her euphoria. The hollow is empty, save for sunlight slanting down through the naked boughs above and his scent still pervading. She lingers for a time, leaning against a trunk and drowsing in the comfort of his imagined embrace, convinced she can see the proud flex of his neck as she tells him the news and the sharp light of joy surely igniting in his eyes.....
By midafternoon, however, she can wait no longer, and Rhadra slips away from the hollow with regret that she has not encountered her stallion at all. North she strides, turning her head frequently to nose her barrel, still unable to quite believe it is real, finally real. Her time in the hollow has re-anointed her coat with the rich, dark scent of her stallion, and even though it seems impossible she imagines each deep inhale is transferred from her lungs to her womb, so that their child might know its sire even before it draws its first breath.
Rhadra returns to the mountain on the tail end of a significant swell of testosterone in the air and pauses for a moment, snorting, to gauge her surroundings. She doesn’t quite understand the Peak, but she is still new to it. Doubtless someone can explain why it suddenly smells so strongly of stallion when before it had been dominated by mare. The black vanner works her way up the slopes, picking her way carefully over trampled snow slicked to ice where shadows stretch longest on the path and halt the snowmelt, and finally encounters another horse. She does not recognize him at all, either by scent or sight, but she hails him with forward-pricked ears and a high-pitched whinny.
“Hello there!” Rhadra is a little out of breath as she draws nearer to him, not from the exertion up the path but rather the sudden explosion of joy that sets her heart pounding and shivers her entire body with giddiness. This wave of emotion is as intermittent as the kicks of her swimming foal, and equally welcome. “Have you come to live on the mountain? It’s beautiful here. One can’t regret it. I know I don’t,” she says, vaguely aware she must be babbling but too elated to care. It’s finally happening. She’s going to have a baby! |