"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
It was always going to be this way. Ever since the first moment Fiorina knew she was pregnant, she knew the birth would not be easy. She had seen what happened when her grandmother birthed a creature that was not alien, not strange enough, to survive in an egg. It was a nightmare of an experience for a body not built to carry life within it - and often the foals turned out twisted and frail from the lack of nourishment and hostile womb.
Since the only other one of her kind was a stallion, Fiorina had no one else to draw on for experience. The puppeteer of her family could help, she was sure, but Anaxarete’s favours were hard to predict and, besides, Fiorina was not one to ask anyone for help.
So she would suffer. But she did not think she would die. Her flesh was softer than that of her mother and grandmother. There had been room within her for the little parasite to grow the way a normal foal would. Sure she looked ridiculous, bulging out of her armour the way she did, but at least that would be over now.
And she wondered, just as the pains began, whether her milk would be acid like her blood.
The sun slips beneath the horizon, unwilling to be witness to what is occurring as the dark mare paces near the cliffs. There are instincts in her that tell her to find somewhere hidden, but Fiorina would rather be in the open. She does not care who sees, does not care who hears, and she would rather have the cliffs to her back and wide open spaces around her to see if anyone would dare approach.
Not that she expects them to.
The noises she has been making are otherworldly, low sounds that are more growls and thunder rumblings than they are moans of pain. Roars escape her when things progress, when her body begins to shred and tear itself apart to make room for this new life. The sounds echo down the cliffs, startling some of the birds that have roosted there, and as Fiorina lies on the ground her knife tail twitches around her like it is living. It is tempting to use it to cut into herself like she had threatened to do when the little gremlin moved but she’s not sure she would survive the incision. Whatever else may be going on in her life, she is far to fond of living to risk it just yet.
Deep grooves tear into the earth from her armour and her tail as she attempts to will the creature she is carrying out of her as she screams again and again with the pain. Long into the night she labours, and it’s when the light becomes blue-grey in the hazy half light before dawn that it ends.
She is exhausted but Fiorina is never idle and she is quick to move, quick to stand. There is a moment, only a heartbeat in length, when she considers leaving without even so much as glancing at whatever she just brought into this world.
But as tempting as it would be, she is not one to run from a fight or back down from a challenge. So the moment passes, and she is already turning to him when she hears his first gurgling cry. The familiar domed head brings a smile to her face, and her muzzle traces along the strange scaled skin to the tail at the base of the spine. No knife there - but she cannot remember if it forms later. Foalhood was not a luxury often affording to those in her family and she has no recollection of her own. His eyes seal the deal for her, not black - but a rich, burning red. The same colour that will streak the morning sky in a moment once the sun returns, crawling from its hiding place beneath the horizon to bring dawn to Fiorina and her little monster.
She already loved him for not chewing through her on his way out but looking into his eyes for the first time stirs a fondness within her she did not know she was capable of. “Fierte.” She names him in her rough voice, cleaning and caring for him as gently as she knows how (which is not very) and her tail flicks behind her in a way almost reminiscent of how a dog might wag its tail.
