That night, I had slept. It felt blissful and at all, a dream. Had my sleep-deprived brain concocted the whole foray? I was sure it had been a ruse, my own mind playing shameless tricks. But indeed, it had happened, as I had awoke and the earthen beast was by my side. I felt comfortably numb, a fire licking over my skin. Now, now I walked through the chamber with a positively new glow. Even beneath the dirt and the grime of the chamber's ash and dirt, I was aglow. My hormones were all over the place, peaking and dropping. I was finding myself far more tired than usual, and even that was something. I was capturing a few dozes in the day, underneath the copse of trees; their boughs as protective as any. I often lay my nose against my barrel, even if it were just a dream, I could feel something shift within, life, life born from a night of sorrow turned bliss. He had held me when I needed it, and had taken my mask from my face, kept his eyes on me, even when mine leaked tears. Killdare was something else, and still, the butterflies quivered inside of me at the very thought of spring. Shards of doubt had begun to penetrate me, momentarily soon changed to want, desire and a sense of pride. There would be a new addition to grace the chamber's scarred earth, and one that would be as promising as the growing sapling in the treeline.
My nightly wanderings (I was still finding it a feat to sleep when the sun went down. I truly was nocturnal in my habits now.) brought me across the clearing; Where normally I stalk the shadows with ever observant eyes, I now wandered the clearing, the hard ground knocking a crescendo into the silent night. My tired eyes looked out, as a guardian, as a protector but as something else. I was protecting the home, my home, my kingdom and my companions. But now, now I was protecting something equally as precious to me, as the sapling is to the chamber. A new life.
I spot her, the inky girl. Without child this time. I pull to a halt and watch her, eyes picking out the way she danced across the hard ground, with an elegance as I lithely wove around the trees, she danced with a whole new seduction. I had not seen much of BrokenStar, she had found her way here, and I had left her to settle for some time before finally deciding it was best to approach her. Her little black colt, he was off somewhere, there were many crevasses for young boys to hide, many logs for adventures to be taken. The thought made me smile, a smile that curled at the very heart of my beating organ in my chest. I was still a young mare, and would not make the same mistakes as my own mother, with my own child. And I'm certain, Killdare would not be like my father either. There was promise for the seed within me, that I knew.
'BrokenStar, it's good to see you. How are you settling in?' my tone is black magic, as always, dripping with lace and dark velvet.
'No Chaos tonight?'
engelsfors
professor of the chamber
