When the first contractions find her, she seeks out the den were unwanted children go. But she wants this baby. Virgo wants her more than anything else in her miserable life, but she has to say goodbye before her life has even begun. The tears come running down her cheeks as she settles amongst the children who cry and whimper out of fear. Her chest aches as she listens to their soft pleas for help and food. She closes her eyes tight and tries not to listen as she labors. Her sides heave with the effort and she gasps for breath around the pain.
Hours pass like this, her sobbing and pushing while the winter air bites at her wet cheeks. When her newborn baby finally slips onto the den floor, she’s quick to stand and look at her precious daughter. Her silver marbling glimmers beneath the full moon and her eyes reflect its light like a cat caught mid-hunt. Virgo’s breath catches in her throat and her sobs quake through her anew. She’s beautiful in a way that she had never imagined.
She kisses her face as the baby whimpers in the cold, crawling closer to soak up her mother’s warmth. Virgo quietly grooms her and whispers soft affections in her ear before finally rising onto her hooves. The newborn stumbles up with her and nurses greedily for a while, eyes closed and content.
“I love you. More than anything, I love you. But I cannot keep you,” she explains in a voice so soft it almost doesn’t survive to be heard. It feels like someone else is speaking and she cannot stop. “It would be selfish and you might not make it. I will not take that risk.”
The girl finally lifts her head, mouth framed by the milk on her lips as she listens.
“Risk?” she repeats curiously. Virgo kisses her face and begins to walk away. The girl shivers as the cold wraps around her in her mother’s absence. She assumes that she will return for her soon, so she lowers herself carefully to the ground and tries her best to nap.