¿Qué estaba pensando?What was I thinking? Letting that pendejoidiot cover me without even having a proper hogarhome for our bebe to grow up in. Switch grumbled to herself as she waddled further into the Lagoon, her dark coat glimmering with a light sheen of sweat. She had come here at the request of her beloved, sensing in the deep pools of his eyes how much it would mean to him that their bebé be born on Lagoon soil rather than as a Peak member.

But that didn't mean she had to like it.

Soon after arriving in the swamp-like territory, Switch had shooed away her handsome man, having exactly zero desire for him to see her in such an inelegant state. It was perhaps not fair of her, but she couldn't help but fear that if he were to see groaning in pain and covered with the efforts of her laboring that he would somehow love her less. That he would leave her alone.

Switch chose to give birth beneath a tree so laden with spanish moss that it obscured most of her vision of the rest of the territory, affording her the illusion of privacy as she struggled. The air, unusually warm for so early in the spring, hung heavy and oppressive in her small bower and she panted as the sweat gathered steadily on her coat, unable to evaporate away. It pooled in the crease of her back, and dripped slowly over the ticklish mounds of her teats, already uncomfortably swollen with milk for the babe. Pacing made it worse, but somehow standing still was harder, and so she made a steady, slow circuit around the inner ring of her chosen place.

The Paso mare was not one to suffer in quiet silence, and any number of spanish curses and slurs emitted from her chosen spot each time a contraction squeezed her body. Some of them were clear and audible, others mere amalgamations of her favorite cursewords that ground together beneath the force of her contractions.

Her dancer's body was not built for childbearing as some of the other, wider-hipped women were, and it was all she could handle as her body shifted and adjust to account for the child that needed to pass through it. Each step was painful, and yet she couldn't bring herself to submit to the damp ground. Each time that she had, a feeling that she could not explain rushed her upward and back into motion again.

Switch lost track of time, and could not have told you whether it was minutes or hours that passed before she lay gasping for air at the base of the tree, her body wracked in agony. The child felt stuck within her body, quickly draining what strength that she had left and she felt panicky. Panting, she glared upward at the sky that she could barely see above, and gathered one last well of strength. Pinning her fluted ears, she glared at her rear end, wishing her precious bebé was not so stubborn as his father.

"¡Vete! ¡Vete! Fuera, pequeño bastardo.""Get out! Get out! Out, you little bastard." She growled the words as she pushed, their pitch rising to a scream as the foal finally slipped past her narrow hips and rushed out onto the damp Lagoon soil.

For a long moment she lay winded on the dirt, her ribs heaving with relief. A strange sort of loss piqued deep within her as she realized that she could no longer feel her bebé as a part of her. He was separate somehow, no longer just hers and she turned worriedly to check on him. The damp bundle at her hooves resembled nothing so much as a damp pile of sticks until she got closer, and her whole body shuddered with joy as she took in the perfection that was their son.

Softly she whickered to the small colt, bumping her dark nose against his before clumsily raising onto her tired feet so that she could turn and clean him, echoing his tiny nickers with those of her own. "Mi bebé,""My baby," she crooned to him, entirely absorbed in the small foal.

MARE | PASO FINO | BLACK | 14.3 HANDS | HOMELESS | LOVEINSPIRED