you lack the courage and the guts of a hero
Well, fuck.
Channary is not one to wallow in self-pity (she never has been the type), but god damn, her luck lately has been worse than just shitty. Knocked up? By the very same stallion who had burnt out her eyes? He may not have recognized her now that she’s full grown, but Channary has not forgotten the bastard’s scent, of ashes and the Valley. It will always be something she has a hard time forgetting. She hates him, hates him more than it should be possible to hate someone. She did not have violent tendencies as a child, but perhaps she has just grown into them.
If given the chance, she would strip the flesh from his bones. The hatred truly runs deep.
Especially right now. She has no family or kingdom to turn to, so she is all alone when the pains start. She has never done this before, but she knows what the pains mean: labor. It is time for her kid to make its appearance. About damn time, too. She feels as though she has been pregnant for an eternity and she feels disgusting. The creature inside of her is going to be huge… how is she supposed to push the blasted thing out? Surely it is going to kill her on the way out. She just knows. There is no other explanation for it. Flamevein took her eyes and raped her and now his child is going to kill her. Fuck him. Fuck what he has put her through.
She has had the sense to separate herself from the main part of the meadow, but she is not totally off the beaten path. Easily found in case the child does kill her but manages to survive. Someone would be able to come rescue it if she is to die. She doesn’t blame the kid; she knows that it is innocent in this. It cannot change the circumstances of its conception and she will do her very best to love it like a mother should. It’s not like she will see its father in it. Ha. Dying from the pain—probably from blood loss, too, but not that she can tell—and cracking terrible jokes. What else is to be expected of the snarky sandstorm girl?
It is several more miserable hours before the child is born, but Channary is not dead when it finally appears. Exhausted but acting on total instinct, she leans blindly towards it and begins to lick it dry, mindlessly working to stimulate the foal. A colt? No, a filly, definitely a filly. As strength returns to her limbs, she nudges the foal and climbs to her hooves, moving slowly as to not step on the filly—her daughter. “Come on, little angel,” she encourages it, hearing the rustling of little hooves and long legs as she tries to stand for the first time. She doesn’t whisper a name until the girl is standing and nursing. “Kleio,” she murmurs, sighing contentedly. “My Kleio.”
Then a stick cracks nearby, and the serenity is broken. “Who’s there?” Channary snaps, pushing her foal behind her as she turns to face a potential threat.
channary