09-12-2016, 01:25 PM
Worry is the thing that woke him; that clouds his eyes and his mind.
Worry for the coyote that he cannot call out of his skin.
Worry for the babies that she carries in her belly.
It is this last worry that pulls him to his feet from his bower of grass and dust; he sleeps now, more than ever. He sleeps just to dream of that other self that has paws and sharp ears, and a keener sense of smell then he does now as he puts his nose up into the air and starts to siphon her scent from it in noisy sniffs. It does not surprise him that her trail leads to the mountain…
He follows her, finds her, thanks Coyote that the birth had been a swift one for all that she looks exhausted for having just pushed out twins from between her sweating, heaving loins.
Woodrow hangs back; partly out of instinct whispering to be wary of a new mother but also partly out of the loveliness of all three of them, mother and her daughters. He watches as she licks their noses clean, kisses the whorls on their heads, and names them -- he begrudges her none of this. What he is though, is a little unsure as he approaches slowly with his nose low to the ground. He asks her with his eyes if he can come closer, telling her with his horse’s mouth - "They are lovely. You are lovely.” because she has never looked any more beautiful to him then she does now, as a mother rich and ripe even after their birth and the way it has left her tired, he can see it in the lines of her face. He has never loved her less, even as a coyote and her, a rabbit and he has never loved her more to stand there between their daughters, proud and nothing more than a horse.