While pregnancy had been something Neph hadn't wanted to meet again for many seasons, it seemed mother nature had other idea's, and had thrown the warrioress once more into the budding arms of motherhood once more. Her body, which she had worked tirelessly to trim and regain after the birth of Verro and Tasokh, the hours she had painstakingly ran until her breath was ragged and her muscled heaved from training in the arena was once more derailed.

She was once more soft and round, her sides heavy with children by a stallion she hadn't even thought to ask the name of. It had only meant to be something of a fun gambit, stoking the flames and enjoying the benefits. Nothing long term, nothing serious, definitely no foals. Most of all, definitely not twins. She had endured enough with her daughters to know her bursting sides were home to two bouncing bundles of joy and mischief. How she could box that ginger stallion right in the mouth with a good left hoof, if she hadn't maintained some semblance of dignity as hormones and late nights she spent quietly grumbling to her swelling sides for just five minutes, she just might've scoured the four corners of Helovia to do it. Instead, she left the safety of the Throat to enjoy the last warmth and good grazing the mainland had to offer, before the snows and ice blew in from the northern regions.

The Labrinyth wasn't a place she visited often, now and again she had spied it as she flew over the land on her patrols, it hadn't struck her as a place of particular note, as did most of the Rift brought lands — maybe it was time to change that and enjoy the lands so many had fought to cleanse. Her hooves touched down with considerably less grace than she remembered, the long strands of ebony and fire-orange which coiled down in knot and waves were next with their salt kissed tassels to touch upon the verdant greenery before her front hooves joined them. Velvet ears flicked back and forth as her dual coloured eyes searched for any signs of intruders as she navigated toward the grassy banks of the nearby pool, picking at a stray shoot or two as she did.

Her sides ached terribly, punctuated by the occasional press of a small hoof to misshape the curved sides as the babes within shifted and responded to her. They seemed more steady when she was on the ground, she noted, rather than in the air like her daughters had been when she took to the skies. A disgruntled sigh escaped her lips, a hoof cocked to the side with the change of weight as she shifted to stand in the pools waters. "If I ever find you, you are so dead." She found herself whispering in an uttered note of exhausted irritation.



talk talk talk

Nephele

Love,
 my territory of kisses and volcanoes