It was time. Yet, somehow she felt it ought to be too early. Winter was still raging around her, the fury of a storm so intense that she was forced to land much sooner than she had planned. Of course it had been stupid of her to attempt to fly anywhere in her pregnant condition but the usual glen had felt so crowded lately, cramped and dull and boring. Restlessness brought her off, away on one last journey, one last adventure before she would be grounded indefinitely.

Maybe even permanently? No, the shadow mare couldn't believe that any child of hers would be born without wings. She might lack a lot of things in life - dreams, foresight, patience - but she had always had the blessings of the wind. It had carried her through life for eight years now, and with luck it would continue to guide her path for many years to come.

The Blackbird landed gingerly in the deep snow at the nearest space big enough to hold her - a vast open plateau where the snow danced in the whistling wind, forming little fluttering tornadoes that rose and fell around her. It was still daytime but the sun was nowhere in sight, obscured by the heavy clouds and the drifting ice. She stumbled in the deep snow as the wind caught hold of her outstretched wings, and just then a sharp convulsion forced an involuntary groan from her throat, a sound that was torn off and swept away before it had hardly left her tongue. Desperately the mare looked around, searching for a place - any place - that might offer some shelter. But all she could see was white, snow and ice and the winters chill, until... something tall, paler than even the snow, caught her eye. It was a tree, a gleaming white trunk of some unknown specimen that had taken root in the middle of the field, white as ivory and barren as befitting the season. It wasn't much, but she could not afford to be picky. Urged on by another contraction Shadow made her way over towards it as fast as she could and huddled down on the leeward side, listening to the howling wind and her own pounding heart.

She had wanted him to be there when it was time. How she had hoped that she would have her lover by her side as she gave birth to her second child. Last time Midas had been there, had watched over her and protected her when things went wrong, sheltered her son from the obnoxious father whom she had been unable to forgive for imposing such a change on her, unbidden. Now, as she rode out the waves of pain, Shadow regretted her harsh words, the cold attitude she had showed Carnesîr. He should have been allowed to stay, should have been invited to attend like she had now invited Vadim. But oh, how was he supposed to know that it was time, or even where she were? This was far from the protection of the Deep Forest, off her usual beat and not at all a suitable place to deliver a child.

But the foal was coming, and there was nothing more Shadow could do. Her body was unwilling, remembering the pain and injury of last time, and with the tension the progress was slow. Minutes passed, then hours; the storm ebbed away and darkness fell, and as she collapsed into the snow for the last push the mare found herself staring helplessly up into a midnight sky, starry where the wind tore gashes in the swiftly flying clouds. A full moon was slowly rising. She stared at it, almost forgetting her pain and loneliness as she drowned in the beauty of its pearly glow.

How long had it been since she last saw at the moon, properly looked at it? Shadow couldn't remember. She had forgotten how serene it was, how magical.

"Watch over me now" she begged it, her voice but a whisper, tired and hoarse. "And if not me, watch over the child. Safeguard its life, if I don't make it. Please... anything so that it might live."

It was time.

The contraction that followed cut through her in a stab of horrendous pain, she felt how, just like last time, something ruptured within and a hot and sticky something gushed out between her legs, too thick to be birth fluid. Screwing up the face against the pain she tried to endure, struggled to contain herself, big her jaws together so hard the teeth might crack.

But it was too painful, and as she got swept up into the final throws of labor a lonely, desperate cry rang out, riddled with pain and longing.

"Oh... oh nooooo.. VADIIIIIIM!"