"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
The safest way to put it, would be to say that she had been in hiding.
When Clayton and she had spent a night together, she couldn’t have cared less about any so-called consequences. She had believed (or truthfully she hadn’t been thinking much besides finally wanting and actually getting, for though she had the body of a three-year-old at the time, she was twice that age), she had imagined they would still be friends and perhaps even, that she had done something good, lightening his mood. She knew there were others, that he was actually romantically involved with, but he had been easy to convince by shrugging off anything romantic between them. And truthfully it wasn’t romantic love between them, just a weird form of friendship.
Weird, because she had become pregnant, and she had felt too awkward to tell him, ever since.
Eventually, the greying pegasus mare had decided that perhaps, perhaps, she should go to the Cove. For all she knew her mother hung around that part of the world, and there was a chance Clayton, or Dawn, or Will, would be there too to help her through the process of birthing.
But she was late - late to move, anyway, and knew that she carried more than just one foal. Just my luck. But the young-in-body mare gritted her teeth like she always had, and carried on as normal. That meant roaming this world and that, and if perhaps she had skipped a season she was none the wiser… through the pain and fatigue of her hyper-swollen abdomen, she had no time to notice that the sickness was no more.
She made it almost, and then in one of the many crevices in Pangea (hopefully, one that would have lead her towards Hyaline or the Cove, but she didn’t really know where she was), she fell to the ground. For several yards, tens, a hundred, she dragged herself forwards on her belly, silently cursing under her breath. Once or twice she had stopped to let a wave of pain pass through her body, and finally, when she found a twist in the path that offered her shade, she gave up.
Panting and cringing, but never ever ever even outing a single yelp, she went through the birthing process of her firstborns alone. Time passed in a blur in which she focused only on breathing, and gritted her teeth through the pain, the discomfort of birthing on sharp rock ground, and the heaviness of her belly keeping her down on dry dust for so long.
She did not know how many contractions had passed when finally, a pale figure slid out of her body, relieving the grey, raven-winged woman of her discomfort for a moment.
Breathing heavily, she stood, and examined the pale, near-white figure. It was only hormones that kept her from toppling over, and she had just enough strength in her roughed-up body to clean the nose and examine the red eyes, pale body and green mane and tail, which actually gave the filly a slightly sickly look. ”Tauti,” her mother decided, murmuring against the (still damp) shivering filly’s body softly. She had wings - they would have to keep the little one warm for the moment.
Because Tähti wasn’t done by a long shot. No sooner had she named the child or she needed to abandon her, and her already tired body slumped down once more, sweat and blood mingling where she was. There was a vague worry that lions or wolves would find them, then the faint hope that one or more of her children would survive, then the crushing thought that that would mean they carried the same curse as she.
Pain overtook her a second time, and this time she knew how to get into the rhythm, breathing and pushing with the waves more quickly, more efficiently. Halfway through, something was off, the child almost stuck - but Tähti had only ever trained as a warrior, and biting through the pain, she kept pushing, and pushing - until at last the reddish-looking buckskin was freed.
This time Tähti didn’t get up. Instead she turned on her belly, smearing blood all over her birthing ground. Seeing that this one had wings and horns too, she at first didn’t notice the difference - but then the grey mare’s gaze sharpened a little more, finding blood on the girl’s horns, neck and back, and knew it to be her own.
Looking at both her fillies for a moment, she seemed happy, even though she now had noticed that she would be bleeding a while - perhaps too long. Nevertheless she was never a quitter, and stretched her neck towards the girls to clean them as best as she could. ”Tauti, Sota.” Sickness, and War. She knew them to be their rightful names, and only wondered how long it would be before she would die herself, or be able to stand up. At least, she figured, the girls were moving.
Resting her head against the rock that had granted them shadow, the raven-winged woman hardly moved. She cleaned her daughters as best as she could, and in her blacked-out world hardly noticed the signals of the third.
But he came, through blood and his mother’s ripped-open insides, and when she noticed she knew that today was one of those setback days once more. A third child, after having been scraped by the first two’s hooves and horns, she would not be able to handle. But he came anyway, eating away at her, his own mother, although he would not know it until it was too late. This one, she decided, was a taker - and so when the colt so easily left her body, and Tähti looked at his scrawny midnight body and silver blinking eyes, at the way he immediately searched a tit, she knew what to name him. ”Nälkä,” she called him, knowing he would be hungry for quite a while longer.
Energy was something she used to have when she was young. But the mouse-grey mare slipped into darkness, between her three wet children and a slowly oozing, growing pool of scarlet.
She’d wake, she knew, but how, when and where, she could never influence.
the light you are searching has always been within
Fyi she is three birthing seasons late because of break/closeting, so I don’t really care if it’s summer xD
@[Clayton] @[City] so, if either of you wants to thread, I figured now would be as good a time as any, but later is fine with me as well.
His whole world had been flipped upside down, and it had left bim rightfully upset with the world. He has avoided contact with everyone, and slipped to the shadows of the Cove.
For whatever reason he decided to travel outside the Cove, perhaps seek out Kensa or even Adria and that is absolutely the only reason he was traveling through Pangea. As he moved it was silent, should anyone spot him his face full of anger should deter them from approaching.
Though he travels quickly, a familiar scent forces him to come to a halt. His anger seems to melt instantly as curiosity has taken over his body, could it be? he wonders to himself. The scent doesn't come by itself, it is clouded with fear or maybe it was stress. fuck he thinks to himself.
He wanted no part of Pangea or it's inhabitants, but he had to make sure Tahti was alright....the last time he had seen her they shared a night of...fun? It wasn't passion and honestly after it all was said and done it was something he figured they would bury and never discuss again.
His body was now in a full gallop, pulling him from the protection of the shadows until he saw his ebony friend on the floor, clearly distressed. Tahti! , her name urgently leaves his maw and he slides to a halt as he reaches her.
The anxiety that flowed through his body had instantly relaxed as he saw she was pregnant....but they weren't his were they? It was so long ago that they....his head scans the horizon and with no other stallion approaching to claim his children Clayton decided to stay and support his friend, after all he missed his own children's birth.
As he approaches the mare she doesn't move, the ground is covered in blood, more than he imagines normal for birth. As he peers over further his eyes spot THREE foals, and his eyes burst open in a heartbeat. All three of the foals had horns and hooves to match Clayton's and two of them shared the same green as he. Fuck, he says to himself.
His eyes glance back to Tahti, the ebony body lay motionless. His muzzle reached down to her cheek, gently nuzzling her, I'll see you soon. He whispers, he knows all too well that his friend can respawn, but he may be left responsible for four children rather than three when she does appear.
With one last inhale of the mare's scent he moves to the children that are all certainly scared and confused. Hello children, you needn't be afraid. His maw reaches out gently touching the forelock of each child. I know you're all confused but we need to get back to our home . His voice is gentle and he nudges all three to encourage them to find there footing.
Again his eyes scan the horizon, the last thing he needed was to run into Dawn or Lie, but thankfully there scents are stale. Have you names? He asks, as he moves closer towards the Cove.
Whenever the gray mare is close she can hear Pangea’s hums and moans; her song. It calls to her, reaches out with bony black fingers, like smoke curling around her to drag her in. She always smiles deviously to herself and ignores it, appreciating the call but always too lazy to pursue the eerie land’s cold chant to bring her in.
City is getting old, older than she cares to count. If she had not sought the Mountain’s fertile rocks and fairies, had she not given birth at its base, she would have succumbed to her geriatric pregnancy and died somewhere. She would have been curled up on the wet ground like robin who has smacked a clean window and soon turned into a pile of brittle bones. City can’t have that. She has daughters to birth, rear, and stalk.
Every so often she will catch a shadowy glimpse of her own mother and it reminds her that she will soon be the vanishing shadow in the corner of her daughters’ sharp eyes. Always present - lingering - but in a good way, mostly.
Pangea’s song echoes in a particular way she does not ignore today. She listens as her daughter, a long legged little pinto born just a week before, nurses greedily under her freckled belly. She swishes her long blond tail and casts her sulfur-yellow eyes to the skeletal trees on the horizon that mark the eastern border of Pangea. Time to go, she bumps her gray nose to the filly’s shoulder and commences a calm walk toward her destination. The tiny filly doesn’t hesitate, in her short little life she has done almost nothing but walk at her mother’s hip. She’s covered much ground in just a week of being alive, by the time she is six months old she will most assuredly know these lands by heart.
It’s not long before the fleabitten old mare and her bouncy child find the pair, three wet children, a bleeding mother and a stallion standing over them. Because she is a creep, she listens before she breaks passed the curve of bright sandstone to reveal herself. She hears him declare he will see her soon, cooing to the children like a father and saying odd things in a soothing tone. City was suspicious.
Was this some murder suicide? What in the fuck…?
“Hey.” Her chilly voice cuts the quiet, the only other sound being the clop of her hooves to the stony ground. “Normally I would mind my own business…” She sort of mumbles this, regretting already that she was wandering by. “But what exactly am I looking at?” She looks to the very dead mother and her three newborns, who the stallion seems to address like they’re full blown adults…. City has raised two, almost three, daughters and not one spoke before they were a month old…but perhaps that is because City does not often communicate with her voice to them that young, but nudges and purrs, grooming and gentle nose bumps. She was almost curious to see if the children addressed him in return.
She clearly died in childbirth, surely three foals can rip through a vessel like an iceburg… But what was this about seeing her soon? Her first guess was naturally that murder was about to be afoot. Her child, at her hip, simply watches blinking and quiet.
CITY & PADME the high black water, the devil's daughter
Her world is totally upside down. She and her siblings had been together for ages, knowns only each other, the feel of their mother’s heartbeat and the faint sounds of her curses and sassy remarks every now or then, when she turned down whomever approached.
Today all that had changed - pressure forced the three of them together, and then the white and green girl (she didn’t know the colours yet, nor what they all looked like) made her way out first - the fearless conquerer or the new world.
Once out, she found the voice and scent that belonged to her mother, and enjoyed her caresses. Still cold, the filly only knew the one word that was outed belonged to her. Tauti - something so meaningfully placed on her that she would remember. But her mother couldn’t spare all her time on Tauti alone, and the girl lay shivering in wait, for her sister to join her.
When Sota came, the nearly-white girl could confirm that Tauti was her name, since she was addressed with it and then Sota was the name of the other one. The girl nodded a bit, accepting the responsibility of watching over her littler sister, and didn’t flinch when mother pulled away a second time. That was all natural. The pool of blood did nothing to her, as it came with her accepting the world around her for what it currently was. So it was all natural that the third existence from her former world joined them, and that mother passed away shortly after that. Sad, but it was the way it should apparently go.
She watched the movement of her little brother with blinking interest, then nudged her sister and they both did the same thing; nurse while they could.
They were interrupted (Tauti at least was), by a shadow: a male, with horns like hers and her siblings, and green similar to Sota’s points (she hadn’t noticed her own mane and tail yet). Tauti’s red eyes examined him thoroughly. Afraid? She tilted her head and shook it when he mentioned it. Fear wasn’t an emotion she currently felt - all this happened just when she arrived on the world, and so it was the normal way of things.
He stressed the word home and she looked at her dead mother, but perhaps he meant something else because it seemed like he didn’t mean her mother.
Another appeared, asking a question. Shocked, the eldest triplet looked at the mare and the foal. That mother was alive, and the sibling was only one. Tauti looked from her (City) to her own mother, and figured that perhaps if one had three babies then it made sense for her to die, because she was supposed to only have one. Yes, that must be right. An eye for an eye of sorts, for having so many babies.
But the other adult family member, with his horns and greens, asked Tauti something important. Names. Now, that was a word she didn’t know, but it felt like something fundamental, so she outed hers. ”Tauti.” Then, she moved to sort-of kick her sister from their position on the earth, and said, ”Sota.” It seemed important that he knew them, after all. ”Nälkä,” she added, after her brother made a whimper (possibly a protest of not being named, though he hadn’t seemed interested in the others. But perhaps she had been wrong about that.
@[Clayton] @[City]
I’ll do one foal-post each round containing the actions of all three, for the sake of the timeline and keeping the amount of post I’m writing, down
Of course life couldn't go his way. It sure as hell hadn't been tbis past year. If this meeting had been pre divorce with Dawn he would have approached this stranger much more diplomatically, but instead he huffs in annoyance.
Just great, he thinks to himself. The pale mare forces her way into a rather unfitting situation, one that would have been better if she stayed away. His head glances from the pale mare, to Tauhti's cold bloody body, to his three children.
What does it look like to you? he snorts, if he was in a better mood he might have shared the fact that Tauhti wasn't really dead. Give it a week or so and the ebony mare would appear once more....as a child....but at least alive!
The large bay stag moves closer to his children, his eyes flicking to the pale filly. Before his interruption he asked there names, and the young girl introduces herseld as Tauti! He nearly shudders at the identical name, though he remains silent as she mentions the names of the other two. Nalka and Sota, he thinks to himself. His heart fills with joy, but he couldn't be fatherly in front of this girl who lingers.
They are obviously my children, he glances between the triplets, showered in green and matching horns. Flicking back to @[City], triplets was obviously too much for her body, if you have nothing else I'd like to take my children home. His tone was filled with annoyance, but grows gentler as he notices the child in tow with the mare.
09-12-2019, 11:39 AM (This post was last modified: 09-12-2019, 11:55 AM by City.)
What does it look like? his voice snapped her attention from the children, their wide eyed stares seemed different than many other children she’s seen. Still wet with after birth, the stink of blood and fresh death fresh on the air around them, the children are an eerie piece of the unfolding puzzle. City flits her yellow eyes onto him, cold and narrow, her lips tightening with the urge to spit venom down his throat. She flicks her tail violently instead, her daughter unwittingly doing the same, eyeing the children still.
She is about to speak, to answer him with some cunning string of words – she is cut off. Her head draws upright, his children? Suspicion is the only thought slithering around in her brain. Well, he did not murder her, he seems to not want harm to come to the children – but something did not seem right, or sane, about how well he was accepting having three newborn orphans. Many reproduce with the absence of love or affection, as the pale mare surely understands, but there was something love-like in his voice when he bid the dead mother goodbye…or rather, a temporary farewell.
“And what will you do with your children, then?” her voice is sharp and cold, like broken ice sliding across paper skin. She steps forward as he seems he is trying to exit the situation. The mother in her cannot let those children walk off to die. Would they not starve without at least a wet nurse? “My child is almost weaned – they need more than just you.” Her voice is low and softer this time. She realizes that she cannot hold him down and make him explain to her, she cannot even make him be truthful, but she could at least offer something an actual parent could not deny their children. Sustenance.
CITY & PADME the high black water, the devil's daughter
Up until this point, the red-coated filly hadn’t cared much about anything happening around her. Her siblings were here, her brother having executed the most excellent idea ever - taking whatever milk their mother’s still-somewhat-warm body offered, and ignoring all the rest.
Her sister kicked her and named her, Sota - just like their mother had, she remembers now. The green-pointed, otherwise red-looking buckskin snarls a bit at her sister, but finally catches the tone of the other conversation. To the angry words, the girl lifts her poll, licking away milk and blood from her lips as she looks from the mare to the green-pointed male that is probably their family.
Of all three, Sota is the first to stand. Still dirty, blood caking mostly on her legs, she wobbles towards the two adults. Looking from one to another, she is quite content with what is happening, and when the mare talks about weaning, she listens in - then comes to stand with her.
Picking her side easily, as the mother figure offers what the father figure cannot, she glares at the other child at the mare’s side as if daring her to intervene.
Meanwhile, the green-maned Tauti rolls her eyes at her sister, but Sota only snarls at her a bit.
09-15-2019, 11:21 AM (This post was last modified: 09-15-2019, 11:21 AM by Nalka.)
Honestly, Nälkä doesn’t give a shit. He has food, he’s rested, and so he doesn’t bother with anything.
That is until his sisters both leave his side and he notices that his mother is no longer very warm. Disappointed, the black male moves his gaze from one horse to another, and when his sister chooses a side by being pleasantly neutral in conversing with their father, he only grins a bit when his other sister seems to choose the mare. But perhaps she only did that to make a point. To make the adults fight over them.
The black colt finally decides to stand as well, but only because it makes moving much more convenient. Still, he doesn’t really choose either side - he’ll await the effect of Sota’s picking a side, he thinks, to see which one is more beneficial to follow.
![[Image: clayton_by_cowgirlconrad-dcmmo18.png]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/8f0d/f/2018/254/c/4/clayton_by_cowgirlconrad-dcmmo18.png)
