it's not too late - birthing (yronwood, ephrelle, any)

[Dorne]

Forget stardust - you are iron.

Your blood is nothing but ferrous liquid.

It’s early, but there are two of them, and so Dorne is not surprised.

She spends most of the night in motion, pacing beside the riverbank.

As the dawn breaks so does her water, and a few hours into the morning she is lying beside two small foals. Neither has the golden coloring of their father, but they do both have her spots. Dorne smiles proudly as she gets to her feet. “Your name is Yronwood,” she tells the boy, running her dark muzzle along the red spots on his white blanket. “And you’re Ephrelle.” She tugs the mane of the black filly gently, pleased when the girl responds with a nibble of her own at Dorne’s long mane.

Dorne has spent a long time thinking of these names (since she had realized she was pregnant, really). They are longer than her own, a mouthful of syllables, and she’s decided that she will give them nicknames. Nicknames are adorable – nearly as adorable as her children – and they will appreciate them when they are older. “I’ll call you Ellie,” she says to the varnish roan filly as the girl struggles to stand for the first time,before turning to the chestnut colt. “And you’ll be Roe.”

Dorne

You are iron. And you are strong

[Silverbell]

How had he gotten here? The newborn colt is not quite sure. One minute, he'd been tucked away in the warm darkness dozing away the days in ignorance of the world. And now, well.....Now he was a spindly, folded-up bundle of legs, being caressed by a huge equine whose voice was somehow very familiar to him. Looking up at her, he realizes that this giant was his mother, his caregiver, and the little spotted chestnut lets out a sort of chirring sound in response to her touch. She speaks to him, telling him a word that was his and his alone. Yronwood. He tries it out, babyish voice stumbling over the syllables on the first attempt, but soon managing to repeat it just as she had originally done. But quickly after this success, the newly dubbed boy is confused by what she is telling him. Wasn't his name Yronwood? Or had she changed her mind and wanted to call him Roe instead? Maybe both were to be considered his name, with one just being a shortened form? It sounds like a good enough guess to him, and so he silently declares the mystery solved.

Nearby movement catches his eyes, and Yronwood turns his head to look, his slight form rocking with recognition. Her. Sister. The words tumble quickly through his mind. He knows this dark filly that is absorbed in pushing herself up onto her feet, and is driven by the urge to reach her to pull off yet another imitation. Stretching out his legs and unsteadily getting to his feet, he tumbles after a moment back down to the ground, thick with grass and other vegetation that cushions his short drop. He is stubbornly back up to try again, until at last he is taking the few stumbling steps away from where he had been laying to touch his fire-bright muzzle against his twin's shadowy one. Having listened to the rest of his, their, mother's earlier words, he realizes that Sister was apparently now to be thought of as Ephrelle, or Ellie. This new place he found himself in was full of surprises. What now, though? The blanketed boy looks back towards Dorne, a curious whicker escaping his lips as he wonders what else there is to discover now. The sound of the river whose bank Dorne had given birth upon answers his question, and he takes a couple of steps down towards it before halting in astonishment. How fast the current was moving! Rooted to the spot, he wonders just how deep the water actually is.

[Ephrelle]

Everything is suddenly very bright and very cold, and Ephrelle spends several long moments with her eyes pressed tightly shut. The world is moving around her and she grows curious, and she opens her eyes to see a large dark figure reaching toward her. Her heart races but the contact is gentle, and Ephrelle reaches out her own small muzzle in return. The earth around her is brown but she sees green in the distance, and most exciting – something orange! Immediately she wants to touch it, to see if it is different. A few seconds of waiting reveal that she is unable to move the world to suit her, and she realizes that she must move herself.

She falls several times but eventually has some semblance of steadiness on her feet. Before she can go see the green, Yronwood finds her. Ephrelle nibbles gently at his jaw and neck, repeating his name quietly, and mostly to herself: “Roe. Roe.”

When he pulls away to go towards the river, Ephrelle remembers her own quest. The orange thing! It’s beside the river so she stumbles after her twin, passing him in her excitement to see. She pokes it with her muzzle, expecting warmth like from her brother and mother, but it is cool and supple. Her nose fits neatly into the center of the orange (what Dorne would have told her was a tiger lily) and when she pulls back there is yellow pollen on her black nose. It makes her sneeze and shake her head, which leads to losing her balance and falling over on the forest floor. There she sits, rump on the ground and front legs extended, as she waits to see what will happen next.