On a cold spring morning, Nerine breaks open.
At first, there is little to behold. Slight tremors in the night are easily overlooked by those who are not bound to the rocks below, instead soaring on the winds. They could have only noticed the trembling of the pine needles when such a wave passed, but they would have been minor, degrading with each root and branch that was affected.
By the time the meagre ring of light that nowadays represents the sun peeks her rose-golden rays over the horizon, the trees are shaking with much more aggravation. A local earthquake upsets the rocky floor beneath and around the moorlands, causing ripples in little fens, shaking birds to rise up just after they land. The whole ordeal can be frightening to those who do not know what lies below, but Nerine had never birthed wimps and wussies alone, so technically that chance is very low. Nerine, now - she births daughters of amazons, whom are made up of rock and ocean spray, perhaps with a touch of wild wind among them and fire in their hearts; but not fear.
The earthquake comes in waves, just like contractions, as if the land is in indeed birthing such a daughter.
Yes, it's me. I'm awake.
I don't know how I became pregnant; some trick of magic I suppose. There is no way otherwise that I could have been reached in my rock cocooning, but right now there is nothing to do about it. I wake, I contract, and only when I'm done birthing, and my daughter and me lie in the middle of a huge mess do I realize what I've done: I've subconsciously pushed my birthing pain into the rocks, creating ripples and waves of an earthquake. The rock I once buried myself in is open, the sky is eerily dark and yet pretty, with the cold morning sun illuminating very little but just enough of our surroundings.
I've made a crater and I don't think I'm sorry about it - I'll clear it all up some day, I suppose. Right now, my attention is with the white girl next to me, and I somehow find the strength to stand up and wash her, to encourage her to do the same.
It is then that I realize it is not night: that it is not a crescent moon behind clouds that barely illuminates my foal and me, but a ring of fire in the sky - the sun, blocked out. The pink-ish yellow light finds the iridescent spots on my daughter, and catches the rainbow that hides in her mane - but only briefly so. She looks so much like me - I have no idea where she came from, other than from Nerine. Her name will be Muirín, born of the sea, for I have no other explanation than that in my time in the rocks, she was given to me by the very land I now stand upon.
As I take in my surroundings, I wonder what happened during the battle. As my daughter nurses amidst destruction and darkness, I am lost in time.
Why is the sun gone?
