Getting pregnant again hadn’t really been in the plan.
The plan was simple: serve out her two years in Pangea, try to keep away from her ghosty spirit guides now that Harmonia had restored her powers, and then get the heck out of dodge. As nice as it was to live in a place with no behavioral expectations (honestly, Pollock had practically begged them to be naughty) the place just wasn’t growing on her. Apparently grandpa wasn’t any better at making a place for people to live than safely returning a granddaughter home from a quest non-pregnant, and Pangea is simply ugly and unwelcoming.
It’s worse than the Tundra, which is saying something.
But pregnant she is, and the strawberry pony is grumpy with it, nearly as big around as she is tall and waddling around the Kingdom with a perpetual scowl and her ears pinned to her head. At least, she is relieved to say, this baby isn’t wreaking havoc with her powers. That pregnancy with Cassady had been physically a piece of cake but the lack of control over her time-travel and ghost-seeing had been terrible. And Carwyn had been an accident pregnancy, but remarkably pleasant and easy.
Kellyn can’t honestly say this one is an accident – it’s not like she was in the past this time or anything – but it was careless. Meant to be physically fun, not actually produce a baby. And boy is this baby a pain in the…well, everything.
She is almost glad for the first pangs of labor, if only because it means that she will finally be not pregnant. And if she still doesn’t want to be a mommy (though she does wonder if the third time’s the charm?) the return of her powers gave her back her mild precognition and she had seen her other children and her grandfather many times on the sandy shores of Nerine, and she can always go drop this baby in his lap as well. It’s a girl, after all, and what better place for a girl to grow up than the new home of the Amazons?
Kellyn thinks about that while she struggles through the birth; she had seen a few futures where the pink-and-purple creature she is expelling from her body remained in Pangea, but many more where she ended up in Brennen’s more capable hooves. It seems almost destiny at this point; those futures had outnumbered the ones in which she remained almost three to one.
Right now though, this is the easy part. The strawberry mare rolls upright, blowing her forelock out of her eyes, and smiles at the little girl curled up at her feet. Right now, it is easy to admire the tiny ears and hooves, the blinking hazel eyes, the pretty purple mane and tail, the wings; and it is easy to imagine that she will keep this filly at her side and raise it right, rather than dumping the responsibility on her family. “Hello,” she croons, starting to clean the filly. “Hello, Cleary. My Cleary.”
It will be later, when it is harder, that the decision will have to be made.
daughter of cagney and elite