Vala had been a menace during her pregnancy. She was furious constantly; with Drogon, with the humidity, with her absent father, with the heat, with any little sound or smell that was unexpected. Mostly, it was Drogon, but it wasn’t even the Ridge stallion’s fault. It’s not like he trapped her here, or forced her into this; no, he was just infuriatingly handsome and he wasn’t even trying to be charming, but yet, here she was, VERY round and VERY cranky with pregnancy hormones.

The relief when her time came was immediate and euphoric. Vala’s labor hit her with such speed and intensity that she had hardly woken up by the time the whole thing was over with. Sure, it had hurt like hell; she had been aware enough to absorb that much. The thoughts of it’s finally over had just drowned it out to the point where Vala’s heaving sigh of relief came before the filly had even touched the ground. She wondered, briefly, if that sigh had been the final push to evict the golden filly once and for all.

The child at her feet, Vala notes as she cleans the bleating thing, is… saturated. Not in the way foals are damp with amniotic fluid when they’re born, but in the color of her coat. She looks like Vala, but with a million times more of the same color crammed into half the space. Vala’s coat is like a… like a watered down, paler version. Fascinated, she dries the girl with a brisk tongue, urging her to stand before facing the tall, suspiciously Drogon-shaped patch of darkness in the jungle a short distance away.

She isn’t sure if it’s actually Drogon. She can’t blame him for staying away; she’s been bursting at the seems with vitriol and venom for the better part of the last year. She’s honestly shocked he hasn’t shipped her off somewhere yet. In any case, she addresses the Drogon-shaped shadow with substantially less attitude than she has allowed him in ages. “You can come out,” she says, her voice tired and a little husky. “I won’t bite this time, I promise. And you know I’m not lying because I love to tell you when I’m going to bite.”