Desert

Had Kara been born in the night? Cerosi seemed to remember her silver daughter bathed in moonlight the first time she laid eyes upon her, but those memories were hazy and dark. She had been terrified that time, and her mind had seemed to flee her body in order to escape the inevitable. She vaguely remembered Cain’s presence, and the help it brought her as she struggled through her labor. It had been the first time she had felt truly close to him, in more than just a friendly sense.

She had not been ready that time, and she was not sure she was even ready this time. Pale dawn light bathed her slate grey body, paling her fur to silver, as the first of her contractions came. Cerosi had known for a while. She had known all night, and had purposefully sought out Cain, rather than spend the night and the labor in isolation again. It wasn’t that she was afraid of being alone, or of enduring another birth with no one by her side; she wasn’t really sure why she had done it. It had just felt right, and as the sun had set beyond the flat horizon the night before, she had tucked herself beneath Cain’s heavy neck, and rested.

She tried, for while, to resist the urge to pull away from the Desert stallion as her labor intensified. Eventually, though, the force that kept her at his side was outmatched by the force of her body, and she separated from him. She did not go far - just enough to lie down comfortably in the shelter of a rough, prickly desert plant. If he followed her, she would not send him away - and she would be present this time, even if she was still scared.

It was not so paralyzing this time. Though her heart raced, and she groaned with every strengthening contraction, Cerosi did not cling to her second child the way she had to Kara. She knew now that it was better to let it happen - better once everything was over, when she could look her foal in the face and grow to know it, rather than carry it around as a burden. When she did not fight it, it seemed to hurt less, and go by quicker. She felt she had hardly laid down before she was picking herself back up again, a far easier task now that she had shed the second life from her body, despite her tired limbs and shaking knees.

In the sand at her feet squirmed a jet black foal, dusted with grey-white at its hip and tail. Cerosi looked across the sand to where she had left Cain. If he was still there, she would nicker for him to join her, but she would not have been surprised to find him at her side. “Come meet your daughter,” she said, exhaustion and wonder in equal measures in her voice.