This girl is a gun, before you know it, it's done
And you'll be wishing that you crossed your fingers

piercing scream shatters the still mountain air, startling Marceline from where she stands lost in thought near the top of the peak. With spring heavily upon the islands it is only to be expected that the sounds and screams of labor will be ringing through the air as new life is brought into the world, yet this is... different, an uneasy chill crawling across Marceline's skin.

The sharp smell of blood and the guttural screams serve as her guide as she winds her way down towards the sparse meadows that surround the Peak's base. It takes her little time to find Versace prone upon the ground in labor throes. The sight of her, sweating and shaking, sends an unusual pang of pity through Marceline's heart, pale lips pressed into a thin line as she situates herself at the sabino mare's head. Marceline can only offer comforting words as at last, with a final great heave, Versace expels the child from her body.

Silence settles and in the aftermath Marceline finds herself unsure of what to say as she takes in the exhausted mare's form and that of the child that lay at her hindquarters. In all honesty, the spotted queen is still uncertain whether versace truly understands what she has been going through, nor does she believe the young mare prepared for the trials of motherhood that have been so suddenly and terribly shoved upon her. Her ginger explanation of what she had experienced, of what grew within her womb, seemed to have fallen upon deaf ears.

But Versace's unwillingness to accept the truth would only harm the child that now lay in a wet pile behind her. The time for denial was gone, but Marceline could not bring herself to force the cold reality of her situation upon Versace as she might have done in the past. In the short months they had known one another Versace had become something of an adopted daughter, or a little sister, and perhaps Marceline had grown soft in her time in the Peak, but she could not bear to be so cruel to the young politician. Yet if she could not make Versace see that this child needed her, it would surely perish, a thought that weighed equally as heavy on her mind.

Shuffling forward, Marceline lowered her head to brush her lips comfortingly across the girl's sweat-slicked brow, trying not to shy from the stench of blood and afterbirth that filled her nose. "Versace, chère," she murmurs softly against the heated skin of her face, "you did well - the pain should begin to fade soon. I know you are tired but you must try to get up as soon as it does. Will you do that for me? Can you stand?"