Falls

Pain; it had been Mae’s constant companion since arriving in the Peak. The pale mare didn’t dare let her daughter know. Not wanting her to think that the mountain was somehow cursed for their desertion of Tinuvel. It had been a terrible time to try and make an escape; her belly swollen with nearly a full term foal. The dark beast, with his ever watchful gaze, had briefly looked away; a chance that Mae couldn’t pass up. A moment she had been seeking for longer than a season that she was finally given. A risk she had taken, and only partly won.


“I’m sorry little one.” she cooed softly to the damp, clean body of her newly born son. His inky colored frame curled as if he were sleeping peacefully among the leaf litter of an overhanging tree. Mae wondered what he would have been like; a sweet and caring soul, much like his older sister? Or the sire he so closely resembled with his dark coat and slightly tipped in ears. Would his eyes have been gold and piercing like the predator that no doubt looked for her now? The more Mae thought, the more she wondered, the greater her heartache grew. “One day I will see you again, when your sister no longer needs me.” she promised him, giving a few more gentle caresses against his tiny cheek before turning away.


The cramp of birth still crawled along her sides, and Mae wasn’t quite ready to face Kaeja yet. She needed time to face this emotional pain as well as physical. But her time alone was cut short as a familiar voice cut through the fog that had settled over her mind. Instinct instantly made her look back, making sure her foal was safe from the stallion who was not the sire. Reality quickly followed, knowing she had left him behind and Rafe would have to follow her trail to find the still, cold child.


“I have not.” she answered, her voice quiet with a faint quiver she couldn’t quite mask. Her eyes, typically soft and caring, were glassy with the emotion clawing with agony inside her chest. The evidence, if not obvious by her scent, was smeared along her pink nose and along her hind legs. Mae was too numb with her own turmoil to wonder if Rafe had hoped she was dead, or if he only assumed when he had not seen her. It was only the pathetic sounds of the filly that broke through the haze wrapped around her clouded mind. “I can care for the child while you search for the mother, if you’d like….” Either way, Mae knew she didn’t have the strength to leave this spot, whether the filly was grounding her here or not.