love is a temporary madness... {Birthing, any}

[Talulah]

In a blink, everything changes. Before, she was a wide-eyed child with great enthusiasm for the world, but little understanding of it.  Before, she was forced to learn on her own, a difficult task growing up both motherless and fatherless.  She discovered loyalty and loss, anger and angst.  She found passion and purpose; love was a new and rare blossom, even under layers of flesh and metal.  She had lived a full life, or at least she thought she had.   But that was before - before her swollen belly flattened again, and she met the cause of many uncomfortable months. Talulah gave birth as the sun rose in the east.  All night she had paced, weaving between the trees and through the meadows, trying to find a suitable place to conclude her pregnancy.  Finally, with the process imminent, she had nestled between two sturdy pines overlooking the river below.  The needles were a soft welcome to the earth as she laid down, an unnecessary boon in her current state, but one she’d be grateful for upon reflection.  When the foal slid from her seemingly hours later, she was exhausted and exhilarated all at once.   More and more of the foal was revealed with her cleaning and the rising sun.  It was a colt – black as a raven’s wing – with spindly legs and soft eyes.  She smiled when she saw that his mane and tail were streaked with Tiphon’s gold.  My son.  She glowed with the weight of the word.  His name came to her suddenly, effortlessly.  “Ramiel.”  It’s strong and yet soft at the same time – everything she hoped he would be. … Mother and son bond in the hours after the sunrise.  Hours spent learning to stand, to drink, to walk.  She fusses over every stray hair and he associates her cold, metal side with safety.  It’s not the familiar warmth he’d grown accustomed to, but it becomes home to Ramiel.  His gold-tinged eyes learn the shape of his immediate surroundings before they begin to commit the entire scene to memory.  When Talulah is confident (or as confident as a new mother could be) he has progressed enough to leave their pine tree shelter, the pair sets off down the hillside. They walk slowly at first with the colt trailing in the hoofprints of his dam.  She means to take him to the river and explain the inherent dangers of flowing water, but a sound in the nearby woods draws her attention instead.  Conversation from sources familiar and less so diverts her path.  When the grey locates Elysteria, she is surprised to find that – in more ways than one – she is not alone.  The last time she saw the bay mare, her sides had been just as stretched as Talulah’s.  Now, they both have reason to celebrate.  Now, with new life, their home will be even more of one.  “She is beautiful Elysteria, congratulations.”  Ramiel moves in for a closer look, his eyes shining with curiosity, but his mother holds him back gently.  She doesn’t know whether instinct will kick in for the other mare with her foal or not, and the pegasus is another matter entirely.  And while she doesn’t seem like she means any harm, Talulah takes a more defensive stance just in case.  Former Dalean or not, its current members have to stick together.  “I’m Talulah, and this is Ramiel.”  She gestures to the black colt happily peering around her and smiles.  “Welcome home.”   t a l u l a h lady of the Dale

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