The silver soldier is a social creature, so having to spend the duration of her pregnancy in solitary confinement has been agony. She has lurked around Helovia's furthest borders, watching the hours turn to days, the days to weeks, and the weeks to months. Winter's harsh grip seems reluctant to leave the lands, and the stress of being pregnant during the least forgiving season has taken its toll on the grey mare. She is weak, with what little sustenance she can find beneath the snow not seeming to fill her as her child gorges greedily on her fat stores. Her muscles, though still rippling and firm beneath her silver fur, seem unable to hold her weight for long periods of time. Her sides are grotesquely swollen, and she fears she holds a large foal within her womb.

Or, worse, two foals. The thought terrifies her - and Nyx is not a woman for whom fear is a familiar feeling.

At last, the day has arrived. Familiar pains burst through her stomach, like she's being carved open from the inside - this is usually a happy moment, the welcoming of a new life into the world, but this time there's just a burning relief that her ordeal is almost over.

To his credit, Dominus has stayed by her side throughout the months of solitude, the one social contact she has had - and the only one she needs, in his opinion. He stands by her now, pressed protectively to her side, growling ominously in the depths of his throat to ward off any potential threats. Together they march towards the place Nyx selected many weeks ago, a massive tree with gnarled roots that create a small, earthy cavern. It is sheltered from the elements, and nicely ensconsed away from the hungry eye of predators. The mare settles herself down on some trampled leaves, nudging away the snow to ensure her child does not freeze to death when it leaves her body.

Because this foal might have ruined her life, but it is still her responsibility. It is a living, breathing creature who does not deserve a slattern like her as its dam.

Labour progresses quickly. The soldier rests her head on a tree root, watching the day turn to night as the hours pass whilst her stomach ripples with contractions. Dominus remains beside her at all times, an ivory sentinel glimmering eerily in the weak moonlight, his back straight and mane ruffled protectively to enhance his size. As the pain reaches its crescendo, the mare rises to her feet, feeling the warm, wet body slip free from between her thighs. It lands on the ground with a moist splat, and instinct takes over as Nyx turns to clean it with her tongue. It is a filly, black in colour, but with the legs and head marginally darker than the body - an indicator that she will probably grey out as she ages. Three small nubs of horns grow down her face, and a lion's miniscule tail twists behind her damp little body.

Relief blasts through the ironheart, and she sags against the tree. Her lips and muzzle work over her daughter's body, memorising the contours and shape of her. The filly twists and squirms, trying to rise to her feet, her own muzzle shunted greedily upwards to sniff back at Nyx. "Oizys." The name gives her a strange sort of vindictive pleasure. Her dam, Querida - a cruel and abusive mother whom she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy - had taught Nyx of the origins of her name when, to the LightningQueen's disgust, she had realised that her firstborn child could not see. Nyx, goddess of the night. She'd thought it delightfully ironic, to give her blind disappointment of a daughter a name that implied eternal darkness. She'd also taught the silver of the other goddesses, children of Nyx; like Oizys, the goddess of misery, and that's precisely what this foal's existence has brought her.

Of course, she could never be as wicked to her new daughter as Querida had been to her. She will love the child and nurture it, despite its origins. But she wants something to soothe her corrupted soul, blackened and tarred by long months of solitude. She wants something to serve as an eternal reminder that her own uncontrollable lust created this unwanted little filly - she hopes it will serve as a deterrent in the future, to make sure this never happens again. I brought misery forth from my womb.

Continuing to lazily groom her newborn, Nyx muses on her labour. She is reluctant to describe anything as painful as childbirth as easy, but in comparison to her others, this one had indeed been quite a breeze. Strangely, the pregnancy in this dangerous season had been a lot harder than the birth itself. And, save for a small, racking cough that shakes her whole body, the filly seems healthy enough. Yes - easy is the word.

Too easy, she should have realised.

Her blood runs cold as pain arches through her once again, like a knife to her spine. Oh, no. Dread turns her legs to jelly, and she folds like a house of cards. Oizys, lost in the difficult process of trying to stand for the first time, squawks indignantly as her dam collapses beside her, but that doesn't stop her from nudging insistently at Nyx's leg to try and reach the milk beneath. Pain spasms through the mare's midriff, but the second foal seems stuck fast. Already exhausted from the first birth, Nyx fears this could be the death of her - her energy is gone, and yet if she does not push, both she and the foal will perish. So will Oizys, as she would have little chance of surviving alone.

Breathing through the pain barrier, summoning the last vestiges of her strength, the fallen General ejects the second foal from her body in a wave of blood and agony. A great groan leaves her lips as her remaining energy abandons her, and her head clatters to the ground with a muffled thud. She has just enough strength left to lift it again, to clean her second daughter - smaller than the first, black, with a blue blaze down the face, as beautiful as Oizys and yet as deadly as nightshade for the way she's almost killed her dam - and to shift her hindlegs so both girls can access her teats despite her position on the ground. "En...yo," she murmurs - the goddess of war. War, like she's waged on her poor mother's body.

That is how the silver soldier comes to be lying prone in the embracing roots of a great tree, snow falling softly onto her steaming flanks whilst her two little goddesses flop and flail around beside her. Her eyes flicker open and shut, barely conscious, barely alive, whilst Dominus sits sentinel by her head, his worry pulsing into her mind.