L Y O N E S S E
Though the bay stallion is nowhere to be found, he is everywhere as Lyonesse clambers purposefully down the rocky slope of the beach. He is in every shadow; lurking in the selfsame darkness that had lurked beneath his cold, detached eyes. The piebald mare can still feel his gaze as if it were a physical touch, traveling over the curves of her gravid body in a speculative manner that sends her flesh crawling. Drawing the tattered remains of her courage snugly around her like a cloak, Lyonesse's dark eyes cease probing the shadows and turn determinedly toward the sea instead. It yearns toward her with each breath, icy fingers grasping for the sparse feathering of hair around her hooves, beckoning her forward. The young woman yields willingly to the force of the tide, plunging into the surf with a graceful - and reckless - leap. She can hear her captor's cry of anger, and anguish, in the bitter keening of the wind as Tinuvel fades into the distance.
Ponderous as she is with the burden of a full-term foal, Lyonesse is in ill enough condition to be journeying any distance. Her body, exerted beyond its means, rebels against the young woman. As the frigid sea gradually warms, the first pains of her labor begin.
Though she continues to swim with determination, her progress is punctuated by increasingly powerful contractions. Each moment of pain robs her of her senses; it is all the painted mare can do to keep from sinking into the sea's consuming maw. Impelled by the fear of the yawning void that lies beneath her. Lyonesse is certain that if her body was lost to such darkness, then her soul would be condemned to the same abyss - she even imagines that he is waiting for her in death. The thought enables her to find the strength to keep fighting, so that by the time the sun begins its inevitable descent toward the horizon, the looming mass of Luthien comes into view.
Weary, bedraggled, and well into the process of childbirth, Lyonesse washes up on the shore like a castaway. Once, twice, the mare attempts to rise despite her exhaustion, and invariably fails, her limbs too weak to support her. From some unknown reserve, however, the mare finds the strength to drag herself from the waves' grasp, still writhing with each contraction that grips her as she settles at least on a bed of crumbling leaves at the forest's edge. It is there, in a rush of warm fluid, that her daughter makes her first appearance into the world; tiny hooves followed quickly by a pair of thin, dark legs, then a protruding muzzle. At this point, time seems to stop; though the sides of the mare continue to rise and fall with barely-perceptible breaths, her struggles have ceased, her strength expired. In a haze, she becomes aware of the scent of her dam among the scattering of loam in which she lies, and thrusts her muzzle into it, inhaling deeply. With a tremendous effort, Lyonesse finally manages to expel the rest of her child. A rush of crimson follows and the filly, stained with blood, comes to life in the same manner that her mother leaves it.
With a whimper.
female // andalusian mix // fifteen.three // three // black tobiano // reba
bondurant x fleete |
