AS winter draws to a close, and the first warm winds arrive upon Atlantis, marking with it the coming of spring, Nyimara grows anxious. Though she was not the one to ever voice such concerns because lets face it, that was just now how she was raised, the young mare felt ill at ease. This would be her first foal. A new mother. No longer was she the untouched daughter of Rougaru, no longer was she free to run carefree from one place to another with no concern or second thought aside from what father might say. Now she was to be a mother. With that came a whole new round of questions and concerns. If only she had paid attention to mother and the other mares of the herds when they had birthed their young. No, she was forced to play it by instinct alone now.

Somehow she thinks that her body knows when time to give birth draws to a close. By instinct she draws away from the other mares though that itself is not a hard feit. The other mares did not necessarily like her, the daughter of the wolf or her cunning ways, not that any of it ever bothered her in the least. She saw how Ysabel glared at her in passing and how the little buckskin mare that for some reason Bjorn had taken a sign too seemed to shrink away when Nyi came close. It stroked her ego to say the least. However even the glares from the other mares of this herd did not bother her today. Her own teeth bare menacingly in passing as the chocolate colored mare passes them by with a flick of her own silver white tail.

Somehow she knows it’s coming soon, her belly so round with foal and her steps small and weighted. She bets she waddles, and she laughs inwardly at her reflection in the calm parts of the river. This foal is a large one. She hopes that means he will be healthy. Of course she does not know whether it will be a colt or a filly but somehow she still keeps referring to it as a him. Perhaps that was natures way of advising her right? She coaxes the child sometimes, murmuring softly at her barrel please come out are babies always this heavy? or singing the ethereal lullabies with which she vaguely remembers mother humming to her.

Talking is supposed to help with bonding. And she so desperately wants to be able to love this child. She has something to prove. She will not be the flighty spirit her mother was. In all honesty she isn’t fully certain of her reason behind this, the impulse of spring finally finding her. Just two willing souls and bodies needed, and for once, she had been willing. There was something about Bjorn that drew her and well, the experience had not been an unpleasant one. A coy smirk plays upon her lips, yes she could see herself beneath the muscular stallion again... her heart thrummed excitedly.

The afternoon wears on. It is in the early evening hours, when the first rays of red and orange light the sky that she feels the first pangs of labor and by the gods is it memorable. She’s seen births before, though it’s quite different being in that position yourself. She tries to breathe deeply as the contractions come and the sunset streaks reds and golds across the drifting clouds.

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As the sky begins to darken into night, Nyimara rises from the cool grasses and gives her weary body a shake, riding her chocolate flesh of the torn and tattered grasses victim to her thrashing body. By instinct she cleans away the film before his nose, away from his white-streaked body. He is perfect.