The winter bite had begun to recede from the Taigan woods, the fog still creeped silently against the soggy ground. The pain had began to break loose through Lethy's body, to great to be covered by her heavy blanket of peace, to ferocious to be kept still, to potent to be diluted by her magic. She had been stuck in denial, unable to accept that she had broken - had given into her loneliness to find solace in a man she did not even know. 

Yes, he was a man that called her home his own, but she had avoided him. She had not seen him since that night. She had prayed that it would not result in a babe, born of no love. She had known before she felt the rolling pressure of the child, but she had refused to acknowledge it until now. She had turned away from the words of her son, who could sense the child's mind, she had ignored the glances of her closest friends and her other children. She could ignore it no longer.

This child was coming and I will love them no matter what. Right?

She had walked slowly, gritting her teeth through the pains of labor, to a deeply covered spot.  She had layed down folding herself into the earth beneath her looking for comfort in the only things that had not abandoned her. Her mind filled with images of sweet Owin and his curiosity, fiesty Poppy and her never ending courage, of her strong hold of a friend Lilli, and her home.. the sweet smell of pine and moss, the salty spray on her face when pushed against the sea, the call of the canopy above. She regulated her breathing, slowly pushing peace into her aching muscles. Her eyes crunched together and this is how she would remain until it was over. 

The first babe came easily enough, covered in birth and waiting patiently - though Lethy felt that she would be anything but patient. It was a girl, golden with black tips, a mirror of her mother, but laced in white glowing stripes along her haunches and her breast (a haunting reminder of her father). Amethyst eyes peer up at her mother's strained face.

Lethy knew it was not over after she felt the first slip free from her body. She could feel the cramps press tightly, could feel the pressure of another - but something was wrong. Something familiar. A single tear slipped down her cheek leaving in its wake a weeping dark tan streak.  She pushed the last of what she had into the tiny being, her last grasp at peace, and with that the motionless form slipped from her as well. She was also a girl, black as midnight, as silent as dawn. Lethy pushed her nose into the cheek of the ghostly child, no breath to be had. 

She looked absently for a long while at the stillborn, until the buckskin girl pushed her own nose into the black filly's cheek and then peered solemly at her mother with her own amethyst eyes. Lethy left the dead girl where she lay, encouraging the other girl to stand and quickly left the deeply covered spot. She touched her lips to the girls head, "Clarie." she breathed almost absently and then once again the familiar presence of a child was beneath her, and she sighed in exhaustion, in heartache, and in joy.