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I had tried very hard to make my new momma proud of me, to convince her hour by hour that I was somehow worth all this trouble. All I wanted was to keep her close, to be perfect even when she called me beautiful and perfect as I was. So I bit my cheek and choked on whimpers as I purposefully placed each hoof upon the ground, agony making my knees shake. But if momma knew about how weak I was, how slow and burdensome I could be, I feared she would abandon me. So I plastered any other conceivable emotion on my face to hide away the pain, acted my way through the hours as my pain tolerance whittled and chipped away at a quickening rate. When I could take it no longer the fear consumed me, crumpling into submission as fire climbed along my limbs, terrified that this would be the moment momma realized why Mother never loved me. Instead, she held me close and told me it was okay, that we would go slow instead so the pain wouldn't be too much for me.
I'd never felt such intense relief and love before that moment, knowing deep in my heart that she would take an entire season traveling to the sea of sand she told me stories of, so long as I would not hurt. And when I could stand at last, I did so as close to her warmth as I could manage, imagining that I could hear her heartbeat as I pressed to her side. And in the nights when miss luna was high in the sky, she would lift her wing and press me to her until I really could hear her heartbeat, and I would drift into sleep with the comforting staccato the only thing I wished to hear. When I slept with momma, I did not feel cold, not like the nights when Fae and I would huddle beneath a random tree, sharing heat that neither of us had and desperately hoping for the return of our Mother. Instead when I woke up in her embrace I would breathe her in, hoping that with each day my scent would change to echo hers, to make everyone think I was truly hers. And she would gaze down at me with sleep-glazed ruby eyes and I would smile, still shy and tentative but happier than I could ever remember feeling. She had been my angel, and she had broken me free of my chains, ended my suffering to allow me the chance to walk by her side in endless happiness. Finally loved. She had raised me up out of the despair I had fallen into, lonely and broken, a toy cast aside after the appeal wore off. Still I could not fathom why she stayed with me, why she whispered soft good mornings into my ear with a smile surely as perfect as heaven itself, easing me to stand before we continued on.
I loved her so deeply I felt as if I was drowning, so much emotion I had never been able to give and instead had kept inside now flooding out so intensely it overwhelmed me. But time had let love build, and build, and build. And now, free at last, it consumed me.
So when she paused, clearly nervous, I looked up at her with eyes full of trust that would take me to the ends of the earth if she so much as asked. I wanted to comfort her, but I knew not how, obeying her soft command as I slid beneath her wing and pressed against her side. Life had not been kind to me, had made me small and frail, but as I leaned against her I could not be upset for it let me hide beneath her beautiful frame whenever I wanted to be invisible. But she still seemed so nervous, so scared, and it made me ache with a nameless agony I could not place. Looking up at her I pressed my cheek firmly to the soft spot behind her shoulder, staring up at her beneath a cloud of ebony feathers. "It be okay, momma." And with a tentative smile I hid beneath her wing once more, listening as a foreign name was called from her tongue. I wasn't afraid. I knew momma would keep me safe, that pressed beside her and beneath the canopy of her wing I was untouchable. So long as she loved me, nobody would ever hurt me again.
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