LAUREL
female; welsh pony; bay; 13.2hh; 7 years
Gone. The only thing that made her life bearable had gone; he’d left to find his brothers. The colt had never met them and knew nothing of their character, knew nothing of their trustworthiness, but he had turned to the sea to seek them. To say it had broken her would be an understatement. Numb, empty, meaningless. All these words described her life now, and though she knew he was alive, it felt as though he had died, and would feel so until her son returned. If he returned.
In her desperation, she had turned to the other surrounding islands. The first was a tropical one, and though the heat was less than in the dunes, the humidity threatened to drown her. After returning from there to the crossing, she did not dare venture again while the seas were so cold, lest she harm the new child within her. So she listlessly wandered the crossing, undisturbed. It was no wonder, as she had neglected to care for herself and looked far different from the stocky, robust mare she had been the previous winter. Her winter coat was thicker, but beneath it her ribs protruded while her belly swelled grotesquely. It did not seem so, but she did care for the well being of her bastard child; she simply did not care what happened to her after its birth.
During those winter months, the ghostly apparition of her firstborn appeared to her again. Laurel had yet to discover that the specter was inside her imagination, though she knew it appeared to her alone. This time, she welcomed it as an old friend and rather than seeing it as accusing, she saw it as a comfort. Together they sheltered the cold but rather snow-less winter.
Shortly after spring had arrived, the little bay had made the decision to begin caring for herself again. Still, the malnourishment of winter had taken its toll, and when she had ventured into the sea to search the next landmass for her son, her winter coat clung to her in clumps, adding to her miserable appearance.
The place she landed was chilly, cooler than spring would be on any island she had thus far encountered. There were even a few lingering snow piles. It did not bother her in the least, for she preferred cooler weather due to her usually stocky frame and thicker coat. For several days she had hidden herself in a copse of trees on the outskirts of the territory, where she had given birth to her second son. When she saw that he was also bay, she breathed a sigh of relief that he did not take after his father. However, there was a silvery look to his hind end that could one day turn into a full roan coat. Still, he would always look more like her, and that was all she could ask for given the circumstances of his conception. To further his tie with her and her heritage, his name was Cedar.
Perhaps just hours after his birth, when he had already stood and nursed, she prepared to take her son cautiously into the territory nearby; it was her intention to approach the one with a rather curious formation. However, once they exited the trees they stumbled upon another mare and what appeared to be her foal.
Cedar was too young to be curious and go poking around, and Laurel – being nearly as antisocial as they come – was equally ready to avoid the two until she noticed that the other mare was restless in her slumber. If that weren’t enough, the scent of childbirth was absent, though the child looked far too young for it to have faded from them both. Though she did not care for conversation, and even more so did not trust anyone, she would not leave an innocent child with one who did not seem to be its mother. Stepping forward, she roughly nudged at the neck of the black mare, sharply addressing her as she did so. “Excuse me. Wake up.” Laurel then took a few more steps back, though she was more than ready to resort to nips should the mare not stir with verbal stimulation.
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