As the mare pushed, seconds became eternal, stretching on infinitely in order to prolong her punishment. Punishment, she supposed, for only the briefest of touches in the grand scheme of things. One night, one blissful evening, for this. She cursed him in a muttered stream of breathless foul language, punctuated with ragged gasps. Not that it was any consolation; she didn’t even know his name, after all, yet here she was, giving life to his creation. How very godlike, how very cruel, that men should wield such terrible power.
Her eyes rolled back, tongue finally stilled as the mare groaned. The final heave wrung her organs like a wet rag, and she laid still a moment after, panting and blinking stars from her eyes. Was this death? Certainly, Traton could think of several better ways to go, but none of those stopped her from dying in this moment. It was only as she heard bleating little grunts, an infant’s impression of a whinny, that the spotted mare knew this was not her end. Her head shot up and she rolled onto her stomach, ignoring the protests of a profoundly sore body.
Traton was always somewhat easy to impress, when it came to others. Perhaps it was a function of low self-esteem that she found beauty in most others, whether that meant places or people or anything else. But when the mare laid eyes upon her fresh child, she saw the most beautiful thing she had truly ever put her eyes upon. She was in complete awe as she answered the foal with a whinny of her own, completely transfixed as the child adjusted to the cold world outside her body.
It is with a slight start that the spotted mare realizes they are not alone, but the youthful feminine voice soothes her as the other appears. “I- yes, yes I think so,” her voice sounds decidedly wearier than she’d expected, and the weight of exhaustion presses onto the mare’s body. Ignoring it, she gingerly pushes herself from the sandy floor, turning back to face the stranger and being cleaning her foal.
It had been months now, essentially from the moment she’d realized she was pregnant, that the mare had searched for the perfect name. She’d think this, or that, something or another, stick with one a few weeks until a better one came along. Funnily enough though, she couldn’t remember a damn one of them. It didn’t matter; she’d known the foal’s name from the moment she laid eyes upon her. “Gallia, I think,” she said softly. She paused her mothering for a moment to look gratefully at the stranger, suddenly aware of a thousand troubles she couldn’t have weathered alone. “Thank you."
@[Wishbone]