08-09-2016, 02:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-09-2016, 03:47 PM by Spear + Spark.)
Night finds the mare on the outskirts of the Tundra. Her belly is swollen with twins - a first, for her.
She stops the moment her hooves crunch the rind of permafrost, and she knows that she has come far enough to birth them. The mare raises her head to sniff the night air; no horses are nearby and no predators lurk - at least, not in this semi-cold land even as the earth thaws around them. She waits, and then dark gross fluid gushes down her back legs and splashes the ground. The constant pressure and pain of the impending birth causes her to pace; she cannot help the circle she wears into the earth - it will heal, like she will, in time, after this.
For the first time, she misses the hot comfort of the sands and sharp needle faces of the saguaro to look after her.
She grunts; the colt comes out first.
Minutes pass, then the filly slides out last.
The mare takes longer than usual to climb to her feet. Exhaustion is etched deep in her face but she is dutiful and sets about to the task of cleaning the foals up better. Both of the birth sacs were opened by her teeth within moments of each foal slipping free of her heaving loins, but they still lay in tangles of fluid and stillness. Her tongue scruffs up the colt’s fur and he makes tiny noises in response, eager to test his limits as he rocks back and forth in discovery of his legs. He’ll stand soon enough then move to nurse, as the mare tends to the filly, slower to stir and echo her brother.
In time, they have both sucked on their mother’s milk until their bellies are fat and full.
They curl into each other in trust and sleep beneath their mother’s nose.
The last thing they hear as they drift off in dreams, is each other’s name - “Spear and Spark.”
When they wake, they are alone and still curled in upon one another as if they still lay close in the womb.
They do not cry out for their mother, knowing that she will not be far if they need her. Her milk is their life but she will not wholly enter the Tundra either. From time to time, they will come to the edges of it and nurse at her pale side, and they will come to know her as Scalped, matriarch of a big line of brother and sisters and cousins that sprinkle the landscape with their bloodline. For now, they only know of themselves - Spear and Spark.
Curious, as children are, they have asked their sire’s name and know it to be the Tundra King.
Neither has to say his name - they bear his stamp more closely than his other get that has dropped this season, each has a red eye between them: the left side for him and the right side for her. There, the similarities end. He is a bay overo and she is a black tovero sporting the same medicine hat markings as their mother - both bonnet and shield. But they are close, as close as twins can be, and they almost move as one across the snowy ground until they find themselves beyond the great wall of ice.
He leads, and naturally she follows him, almost nose to tail.
Spear stops, Spark has her lips pressed against his flank as he sniffs the air and lets out a baby snort.
“We’re here.” he says, and rolls his red eye back to her as she just nods in acceptance of wherever ‘here’ is (she knows it is the Tundra, home of their father - the King, but he makes it sound like ‘here’ is some place of vast importance to them, and it is not. It is just different from ‘there.’)-- Spear & Spark -- |