here the world is quiet open Posted on June 8, 2013 at 08:22:38 PM by f l e e t e
fleete
She is little more than a ghost among the shadows, neither apart from, nor a part of the herd whose periphery she determinedly haunts. Fleete goes through the motions, following their movements for absence of a purpose or sense of direction, but is as unacknowledged and ignored as a spirit. After she had firmly rebuffed their first tentatively friendly advances, the other Forest women have learned to leave the fawn-colored mare well enough alone. At first, Fleete had welcomed the serenity of solitude and silence. But as time marches inexorably forward, loneliness has begun to erode the stony surface of her indifference, and the woman can often be seen watching the cluster of the herd wistfully, her gravid form edging warily closer day by day. As the ashen snow softened and was slowly absorbed into the earth to bring forth new life, it seemed inevitable that she would be seeking their company and their comfort soon.
Despite the lingering warmth of the sun's gentle caress, there is a dark edge to Fleete's thoughts as she rouses to another day, her hazel eyes following the main body of the herd as they prepare for the trek to a nearby stream. It has been a few days since she had felt the increased movement of the life within her that announced its imminent arrival; the foal had turned, but labor had not begun. Restless and uneasy, Fleete lurches upright as the group falls in behind the familiar ashen grey woman and her young, but the apricot mare does not follow. Following some inner prompting, she retreats instead into the cover of the forest, seeking its shadows for a cosy thicket in which to conceal herself and pausing only to rake her teeth along her belly, as if to literally nip the growing discomfort there in the bud.
It is sundown by the time she forces her body through a patch of briar, not feeling the shallow scrapes their grasping fingers open throughout her fawn-colored hide. Shortly after, the foal makes its first appearance, and as Fleete sinks to the ground she reflects briefly on the relief that this birth is proving to be much easier than her first. In fact, the entire process is almost absurdly quick; by the time twilight yields to the deep black of night, she is cleaning the pale coat of her newborn with a warm, rough tongue that also serves to stimulate circulation in the girl's extremities. It is a sleepless night; Fleete stands vigilant as her child first struggles to her feet and then noses underneath her belly, bumping her muzzle against the baby's flanks to nudge her closer to her goal. As the filly nurses, Fleete's thoughts inevitably turn to Tristan and Lyonesse - to the fear that had turned to joy as she'd cleaned the black filly's coat, and then her short-lived happiness that had yielded to terror again as her labor pains had begun anew. They might have been conceived in pain and humiliation, and their birth had almost resulted in her death, but the twins had been the greatest gift this life had given her. Through them, she had learned to love.
Brushing her muzzle lightly over the filly's spine in a comforting gesture, Fleete struggles to separate her past from the present. The Forest that surrounds her is Bondurant's, but this child is not. With tremendous effort, Fleete drags herself back from the brink of despair by focusing on the foal who has curled up to snatch precious moments of sleep, her hazel eyes softening and the ghost of a smile haunting her lips as the dim light of a new dawn reveals the ghostly-fawn coat that is a paler reflection of her own. For a long moment, she allows the child to rest, matching the rhythmic rise and fall of her smaller breast with her own breaths. By the time the sun has pierced the sheltering canopy of the trees, however, she is urging the filly upright again, and then guiding her through the forest on her wobbly new legs to meet the herd.
| akhal-teke x andalusian | mare | six | 16hh | chestnut pearl |
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