Pain
Eyes rolling as she struggled to gain her feet. She couldn't be seen like this. She had been resting in the hills, near porous rocks that broke through the grasses. Random formations scattered freely, pushing through where they would with no rhyme or reason. Killgore had endured pain, torment, training. Training, her father liked to call it. Attempting to break you, to weed you out from the weak. She had never been bent. This, this was a new form of torture, her insides felt like they were ripping apart. Trying to crawl their way out her orafaces, and any would do. She gained her feet after many attempts, her dark gaze wildly flung about. Had anyone seen? I'll kill them if they say so, I'll make them hurt if they ever let wind of this pass their lips.
She made a silent vow to herself, as she did her best to slide down the hillside. She wanted to get back to her cave, she wanted some privacy. She wanted him. Where was he? Her vision blurred more frequently now, she could do all but move. Shuddering as each contraction clawed at her belly, liquid emerged from her hind quarters. The beast is coming, she thought to herself, clenching her teeth so hard she thought they may break. It would surely kill her on the way out, she decided, laboring across the sand. The wet pebbles causing more hindrance than they usually seemed to, tripping her as she drug her legs. She was close to the water, the tide out for the time being, and finally she collapsed again. There on the beach.
She fell to her side, heaving, trying so very hard to breathe. To breathe, and not to scream. It helped that she had locked her jaw so tightly, biting even into her own flesh. The lesions in her mouth causing no pain compared to this. She flung her dial up and down, her forelegs digging at the sodden earth. Each time they came sooner, they lasted longer. Death, death would feel like this, she thought. It seemed like forever, her body doing its work without seeming to need her assistance. And when she had thought she could take no more, it was done.
She heaved her head up, still laying on her side. Eager to get a good look at her new babe. The one she had such high hopes for, hopefully a son. Turning to see though, the moonlight illuminated a blue glow off a wet black form. It was covered in some substance, it lay in the sand unmoving. She thought to quickly lick at its face, the spot where the nose was, chewing away the bag that encased it. She did until it was gone, all of it. Still the foal lay unmoving at her end. She didn't know how, but she found her legs. Standing, bending, to lick and nudge the babes face. Fiercely this time, prodding, licking, even a nip at one point. Her breathing had become labored, her heart racing in her breast, she couldn't move. Cemented to the earth for some time, there at the waters edge. She paced him, and circled him, nudging his tiny body. His. Her son. They had had a son. He didn't move, he didn't even breathe. Still as death.
There she stayed, through the night, she had watched him. Staring at him through unseeing eyes as though she had never been mobile at all. She chased away the birds, the scavengers that had mind to feast from his flesh. A bestial roar emitting from her chest each time, a force to be reckoned with for sure.
She did though, succumb to sleep. Drifting off into a weary, slumber. There on the beach, a frail unmoving body beside her.
After a time she awoke, the water lapping at her nose. Sprays of salt threatening to seep into her nostrils. She was awake and he was gone. Carried away by the tide. She stayed, stayed for hours that way, crouched in the sand, slowly surrounded by the water.
