Today has started like any other day, the sun went up, surely later the sun would go down. If I can expect anything from the Gates it is routine, every day the same, always. I'm with my Mother on the far side of the Kingdom, standing around as she eats. Was she always pregnant? Could she just not keep herself to..herself? She wanted love in all the wrong places, anything to maybe find someone that would return those feelings. I feel sorry for her, to be so concerned with loving someone else that you don't really love yourself first. My siblings play, jumping across the drying autumn grasses, for them I can smile. A little.
It is luck maybe, that they roll around so much, causing me to shift my stance and direct my attentions farther east. My hearing is all but gone, only faintly do I catch a word here or there. My eyes though, they make up for what my ears miss, today that is a blessing. I pause, my ears becoming rigid and moving forward out of habit. My nostrils grow wide, I see someone I do not wish to see here. A glimpse of white before it dives to the earth, Wings now?! I yell to myself trying to move quickly.
"Mother, mother!" I shout, I am always shouting, I can not judge the volume with which I speak. I brush her side, shoving my muzzle in her face before I turn my eyes skyward. Smoke is rolling just over the treeline now, we need to hurry. I hate that look in her eyes, that defeated, frightened scream. Her head whips to the children, little Bly, Romilly, and Guthrie. I know what she's thinking, she is starting to show, and the burden of life weighs down her small body. Why hadn't we made allies? With someone? Anyone?!
I snort, turning quickly from her and rounding up my kin. I have an idea, and not much time to think. Bly is small, like Mother, but she is older than the twins. I have no other choice. I look at them, a frightening light in my copper gaze. "Do you remember the way I showed you to the Deserts?" I am all business, a harsh commanding tone, I need an answer. I do, Romilly is the first to speak, an oddly intelligent girl. I watch her lips move, the nod of her dial, I can only assume she is telling me yes. This foal my Dam carries now, it belongs to a man from the Deserts she says, and I can only hope he is nothing like my own Sire.
I nod, I stamp my hoof into the ground. "Go, Run and do not stop. Do what you must, just get there." I scream at them, demanding they move immediately. "I will help her, she is my burden." Rearing and clawing at the air with my dull limbs I make a point, and watch them turn tail. She was my burden in most ways, my Mother, and I could not hate her for it. Not when the possibility of an end drew so near. I go to her then watching her trot up the hill, fast as she can. Within moments I am at her side, my long legs make quick work of any journey. I press her on, pushing from the side when she stumbles.
The others, she cries to me. I watch her start to turn, to rush back the way we came. I was the adult here, how had it become so? Without thinking I shove her, knocking her aside, but not enough for her to lose her footing. I was bigger, much bigger than she would ever be, but I know my strength. "There is nothing we can do for them Mother, we can't go back!" Why doesn't she listen for once, why can't she hear reason. "What? What do you think you can do? What can I do? We have nothing Mother, just use your head and run!" I divert my eyes as she submits, did she not understand? I would die here for them if I had to. To protect them, to protect her. There was no one else to do it, and they needed protecting.
