NYMERIA
The first day, she thought she had dreamt him, or that her eyes were playing tricks.
She was tense enough these days as is, what with the sable filly to care for, Brynja and her twin daughters to keep an eye on, the memory of the grovelling stallion that had come to steal her, and her impending birth whipping her body into a vessel of bloated, stirred-up frustration. So when the spotted stallion had arrived and become integrated into the herd, Nymeria had panicked and retreated into the trees, becoming distant from everyone but little Muerdago, chasing away even Asha or Aevin when they came too close. The child within her was ready to come, pressing heavily on the bottom of her pelvis, but she held tight to him, unwilling to give him up just yet.
That stallion... those spots of his reminded her so vividly of days gone by, of cold and dark and teeth and stress and bruises and fear and hunger and anger. It was enough that she did not understand why Vercingetorix had allowed another male into their ranks, and it did not matter that he seemed to prove no threat to any of the mares or their young. Whenever she glimpsed the stranger through the trees, her skin twitched and trembled with instinctive distrust. She spent the last few hours before Vitalij's birth doing nothing but pacing restlessly, back and forth through the trees, too riled to even let the sable filly nurse for more than a few seconds at a time.
Eventually, though, her child came, and she could do nothing about it. She had been clinging onto him for over a week past his time, and he would wait no more, it seemed. As dandelion seeds floated in the air and tickled her nostrils, she felt contractions rip through her. His head was out before she could even lay down. Being overdue, he was large, too large, and the pain was overwhelming, like nothing she had felt before, not even with the twins. She was soaked, shaking, and bleeding when finally he slid onto the earth in a massive, slimy dark bundle. She cleaned him, nickered for Muerdago to come near, and did her best to suppress the light-headedness that swept over her like a sickly tidal wave.
When finally she led the two foals to the edge of the herd, she was still trembling, half out of unease, half out of exhaustion. Leaves and debris clung to her pelt, and dried blood crusted beneath her tail. She peered across the clearing and shuddered when her colt's teeth found her udder. The spotted stallion was not in sight, but she was still uneasy for reasons she could not put her hoof on. Her nerves were frayed, her body and mind bedraggled and weary.
So she remained at the edge of the clearing to let her two young ones nurse.
8; MEDIUM DRAFT MIX; DAPPLE GREY; 16HH; SHIVA |