"You shouldn't stay with him! He's bad news!" screeched my hawk as he came down for a nose dive. "Scathashoun doesn't care that you're pregnant! He'd kill the baby if it ever came! Why do you think he's still pounding you in the stomach?!" I didn't flinch, I didn't cower. I didn't move. The talons scratched against the flesh of my face, wings smashing into my poll as if to knock some sense into me. It was true, I could suppose, that Scathashoun didn't care about the fact that I was with child, but I was, and it deserved a father. It was the same old situation. Abusive relationship, telling myself he loved me. Not accepting the fact that the stag of massive height only had a lust for my frame, and to use me as his toy. I hadn't been able to accept that I was worth more than that. No one had ever given me a chance to be more than that. And so I screamed back, my jaw trying to clamp onto my hawk's wings to get back at him for smashing me in the face and making my forehead sting. "He loves me! He has too!"

And I was crying. The hawk didn't stop swirling around my face, taking every chance it was given to smack me, to try and get me to realize what was going on. "For living thousands of years, you are so dumb. You know that Rasta. Do I have to be your conscience the entire time?!" He hissed, hovering over my face as I felt the world around me. I was trying to feel the vibrations. I was trying to feel Scathashoun's return. But, before he could my body was seizing. So much pain, and with a nearly broken back I couldn't stand it. I couldn't keep my frame upright as the contractions that were coming far too early for a live child came in waves. I screamed, pain filling my chords as I pleaded with the heavens. Not my baby! Please. Not the baby!

And Scathashoun came. He attempted to comfort me. His maw resting on the fractured portion of my spine - the portion that was to be healed later by someone who cared, but I couldn't accept did - and with each contraction he would pull on my flesh, agitating my spine even more than what the contractions were doing. I was sobbing. I was begging for the pain to stop, and my hawk was trying to attack Scathashoun's face, but each time he came close the stag would pin his ears, as if he were going to murder him.

When the pain finally stopped, the mangled form of a foal, not fully grown, was laying bloody on the ground behind me. I was staggering to my feet, needing to rest against the tree, and unable to look at the fifth miscarriage I had lived through in my years - the product of what had been, at the least, my twelfth rape. I couldn't see the tiny form. I couldn't bare to look at what had been a piece of hope for my mind. I was trying to feel the vibrations of everything around me except the dead, not grown foal at my feet. But all I felt, instead, was the crushing of bone as he stomped all over what would have been his child. "I told you he would do it" the hawk told me and I turned my head toward the built stallion. "STOP! That's your child, Scathashoun! That could have been your son!" But he doesn't listen, and he continues to stamp on the child until it is only blood and shattered bones, too weak and unformed to last through it. I'm crying. Crying and sobbing, my back screaming in pain with each heave of my chest. And Scathashoun leaves. He gallops away. He doesn't say goodbye.

I slide down the tree, keeping my back pressed up against the bark to try and support it against the pain, and my hawk curls up on my withers. He's trying to comfort me, but nothing can. I am radiating pain and grief. I am alone. But my hawk understands...

I hadn't realized it, but I truly was crying in real life. I was so enveloped in the memory of my hawk chastising me, trying to get me to understand that the life I had been living wasn't a good one - that I deserved better. It wasn't until I felt his muzzle against my forehead, moving the tears away from my face as they fell that I slowly came back into reality. Explanation. He needs an explanation as to why I'm mute. I decided then and there that even through the tears I would give him that much. And so, with a gentle brush of my maw against his cheek I headed back over toward the tree, to try and explain why, and how long, I was mute.

It took him a while, and I repeated the motion multiple times. But, slowly he began to piece it together. My legs trembling as the cold water seemed to ripple around my limbs. He says Tallsun and I'm instantly nodding my head through the tears. And, hesitantly, he connected the two pieces together. No voice until Tallsun. I nodded my head, wading my way out of the water and instantly shivering as the air seems to get colder and colder. Carefully, I pull up beside him knowing that he has to be as cold as I and wanting to offer him some semblance of warmth as the sun falls away. He sidesteps in closer to me, pressing his side up against mine before he starts to look around, stating that it was getting late. A frown falls upon his face as well. And, he then says we should find a place to rest before he took me back to the Throat. I shook my head. No. No Throat. Too much of an outsider. No one understands. I thought to myself, before realizing I would have to clarify this no that I was giving him. Pressing my maw against his throat, and letting out a few warm puffs of air I shook my head again. I repeated the process one more time before giving a few seconds pause to try and signify that I was changing clues. Another shake of my head, and then one stamp of my hoof. I'm reaching for his cranium, trying to signify understands, and then I'm pressing my maw back against his Throat. No one understands me at the Throat... I'm too different... I think to myself, the tears flooding my eyes again.

Again, I'm burying my face in the crook behind his shoulder, allowing the tears to rack my frame until I can bring myself to stop. It takes a few minutes, but I'm able to slowly collect myself. The heaving of my chest has stopped, though the shivering has not. So, as I pull my face away I close my eyes and give a light swish of my tail. A vibration ripples out around me, and I can clearly see the forest layout now. A grove of trees, to the North, and not too far. I memorize the distance in my mind before opening my eyes and giving a tug on his mane. One toss of my maw to the North and I start to trot off in that direction, hoping that he'll follow. Safety, for the night. But I can't say that. Don't know how... A snort, a glance back to ensure he's following me, and I can feel bark scrape against my shoulder. My audits pin backwards in pain, as I glance down to my right side, noticing the light speckling of blood against my pale pelt. Perhaps I should keep my attention on the world around me... until I get used to feeling vibrations and seeing at the same time...

One wince, and I'm off again, letting out a small whinny to be sure he knows where I am. After all, I have no urge to run into an other tree simply because I wasn't looking that direction. And, a few minutes later I have run across the grove of trees. I stop, waiting for him for a second before sliding between two trees and looking in. It was a circle, maybe twenty feet across. But, the trees would make it slightly difficult to get into, and most would probably walk past it without a second thought. So I wiggled the rest of the way in before collapsing in a ball at the center of this grove. My body shivering as I tried to find a way to keep as much body heat as possible. It was difficult, though, when my pelt was so thin from living in the Throat during these past seasons.

Alleo will need warmth too... I thought, before snorting and pressing my maw to the ground in front of me, my eyes peering up at him as if I was asking for him to join me. We need to stay warm tonight. No one is going to die...