DESOLATION COMES UPON THE SKY - birthing, Ea/Hestoni/other kids/any

[Scorch]

WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT

She's been putting it off. With all the recent commotion, you can't blame her. Although I suppose that you actually can blame her considering the fact that she, being the Khaleesi, began the recent commotions. So it is with a great self-hatred that Scorch trundles through her Jungle, wobbling horribly due to fatness. Well, pregnancy, to be exact, though Scorch loathes to admit it. Not because she is vain - have you seen the hairless rat? - but because parenting has always been her downfall and a cause for extreme anxiety and stress, despite the fact that over the years, she truly has improved.

Coming upon a rather large thicket surrounded by sequoias and thorny vines, Scorch squeezes in through an opening, cutting herself slightly on some ill placed rocks. Snarling at them, the woman sizes up the formidable boulder, preparing to attack - pregnant women, sweartogod - when the first contraction hits.

Ugh. Fuck.

Plopping herself ungracefully to the earth right there and then, the fire-sister closes her eyes and counts to ten. In reality it takes longer than that, but in comparison to other mares who have less children than she - less than six that is - it could undoubtedly have been ten seconds.

Heaving herself back on to all fours, Scorch pauses a moment, frightened to discover if this child will be Tiphon's queen or not. She's frightened to see if the child is male or female, for with Kaida and Noori (the inseparable twins who split down the middle like a tree hit like lightening) everything had gone wrong. She had done everything wrong. With Rain... Well, Rain hadn't made it past the first ten seconds of life. Scorch can still remember the way her lungs collapsed after one shallow inhale - she feels the collapse too, for the Jungle magiked her stillborn daughter's rib bones just beneath her spiky red flower as tattoos. But with her boys (with her bold Simeon and her darling Shahrizai) all has seemed to go so much smoother. They needed less encouragement, or perhaps it is simply that she gives more of it... And neither of them had died yet.

Realizing with a start that her child - be it male or female - could in fact be suffocating while she fretted over its unimportant gender, Scorch whirls about and begins cleaning the little sac. A small figure begins appearing, bay roan as Scorch had once been, with a silver mane and tail unlike any of her children prior. Scorch whuffs appreciatively before continuing to cleanse the girl.

The girl.

When she feels the knot in her stomach return, it is not because of a contraction. However fearless a leader Scorch may seem, she's the largest worrier when it comes to certain things. Things she cannot predict or be ready for, for example. This is why she is unafraid to go to war, but horrified of giving birth. This is why when something challenging and scary is given to her, she numbs herself to it.

She numbs herself to her daughter, or at least she tries.
When the girl opens her eyes, all hope is lost.

"Eee... uuuh..." The noises escape her charred lips before actual words manage to form beneath that thick skull of hers. As she gazes into the silver girl's fluttering eyes, this colour and that colour and all the colours all at once, Scorch falls in love. Noori and Kaida had shared her vision, but in the end that had only driven them apart. With her fourth daughter - may Rain rest in peace - she could be her whole self, an individual in her own rights. Scorch nuzzles the girl. "Ea." A suiting name. "You will be magnificent"

Encouraging Ea to her feet with a nicker and a step away, Scorch raises her head, expecting to find Hestoni by her side, and perhaps even one or two of her sons. Of Noori and Kaida and Rain she expects nothing. Of her sisters... Well, lest they wish to have nightmares about how Scorch is actually a real horse with real love and real feelings - nice ones, at that - they'd better stay away.

Scorch

Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle