As the sun began it's ascent above the cragged rocks and orange peaks of the Dragon's Throat, casting long shadows as it sought to purge the cold from the sun kissed realm, the Warrioress laid within her nest of grasses, feathers and down with a pain expression upon her chiselled features. She had silently prayed to the Sun God that her foals would be born in the coat tails of Orange Moon, and not the cold chased days of Frost Fall where the nights had turned bleak and icy. Yet, her foals did not come as the days had frittered away to the pitiful few, her sides remained swollen and peppered with occasional hoof prints.

No they had held on, she would have to give them that, and now with the dawn of the first of many days of Frostfall, she felt for the second time in her life the familiar pains of impending motherhood. She gave an uncomfortable groan while her head found comfort in the gradually warming sands, her pierced nostrils flared to inhale lungfuls of crisp air. Twins once more, twice she would have to struggle and hope that both were okay, both would come into the world strong, fit and every ounce the fighters she hoped they would be. Her daughters were vivacious and fiesty, ready to stride into their amazonian prowess the moment they skipped onto their second birthday. The vision was a firm one in her mind, each child of hers would be headstrong and proud, head held high and thrived in the heat of the moment.

As the seconds ticked away into minutes, the pain raising higher like a sea eagle on the rising currents of the tides, she huffed and snorted out her cusses and transgressions against their father. She cussed the Sun God and even fate itself as she pushed and shifted, wings splayed out against the nest and the red sands she had woven her home upon. Finally, after what seemed like hours, hours of stuttered agony and mental chanting to the most high, a wave of relief (and disgust at the sticky fluids that accompanied the foal) rushed through her as the first foal made contact with the world. Nephele's neck immediately raised so she could turn her dual coloured gaze to finally meet her child — and her breath catches in her throat.

The babe is the colour of the dappled forest floor in autumn, rich earth tones paint him (it's a boy, a son) while white paints his forelimb and his side with the stark white tree she remembers his father having. Her lip threatened to quiver at the thought of the ginger stag, but she refrained. No, this is not the time for irritation, anger and annoyance to fester in her heart fire. It is not these earthen touches which draw her breath to catch and her eyes to widen. It is the barren space upon his shoulders which drew tight the strings of her heart.


She didn't have much time to ponder, pain wracks through her and demands her attention. While her son sniffled and huffed a bleated snort from his mothers side, her dead unceremoniously dropped as she resigned herself to the throws of birth once more. It doesn't take long, as she's careful in her discomfort not to accidentally strike her newborn son as her legs twitched and her sides heaved. Her second child followed in another rushing feeling of euphoria, relief and anxiousness. Her first child had been barred the blessing of flight, and as she once more turned to glance at her second child, the stone within her stomach doubled. He was the same shades of autumn and sunbeams wrapped around his strands, and the same tree marking ran instead up his flank. They were so very beautiful, but she could not help but feel a loss for them.

Both her children, doomed to never fly. Blue and gold look over each of them in turn as she shifted, her wings outstretched to gather them beneath her banners as she set to work cleaning them. Part of her wanted to weep, part of her wanted to burst into flame over such a thing. A bigger, more ferocious part wanted to coddle them both, keep any questionable stares and sneers away from them, at how odd they would look toddling at her side. How different they would look stood next to their elder sisters, should their elder sisters come home. Her feathers spread further to nestle around her growing family, they needed names. Could she possibly give them fitting names, Verro and Tasokh had been named in the warriors tongue of their fathers land, her thoughts drifted as her cleaning efforts came to a close.


As she laid in the quiet stillness of the morning, her head laid between her sons small bodies with her breath falling in even breaths. Names flittered in and out of her mind, faces and tales from the years she spent beyond Helovia's mountain ranges. Then there was more recent tales, muttered stories shared around the fires and then among the groves she explored while her children were still within her. "I think you shall be Byron." Her head tilted slightly to press her pierced muzzle against the elder of the twins, and then her head did the same to the one who had come just minutes before. Her voice was warm, and surprisingly soft, a breeze which promised a summer storm should the wind turn afoul. "You shall be Jude."