It was a catastrophe. An absolute disaster, of such monumental proportions that even the disappearance of the gods and the sudden onrush of winter paled in comparison. Unlike those monumental, world-spanning events however, Erthë's problems were of a very intimate and decidedly personal scale, though in no way less cataclysmic because of it.

She was pregnant.

There was no doubt about it. In the short span of her life thus far she had seen enough mares display the symptoms for her to recognize them in herself. The swelling belly, the hysterical roller coaster of altering emotions, the sudden sensitivity to everything that went on around her - not to mention this ravenous hunger that drove her away from the misty forest with it's salty fields and moldering greenery and into the rolling hills of the Thistle Meadow. Here she set into the browning Orangemoon grasses with a fervor that threatened to leave large patches of the grasslands a barren waste, and between each mouthful she cursed her fate and the damned stallion who had done this to her.

Did he have to be so bloody fertile that he could even impregnate a hybrid mare? Her kind were supposedly near infertile, so much so that it was nothing short of a miracle for Erthë herself to even exist - a hybrid child born of a hybrid father, and now cursed with offspring of her own. Was it just a myth with no foundations in reality? Or was it, as she suspected, because Volterra could impregnate a rock if he just tried hard enough?

Regardless of how it had come about, Erthë raged against it with all her might. It was too soon, too early, she was too young for this! What did she know about kids? She wasn't even sure she even liked them, and now she would have one trailing behind her, drooling and asking questions for the rest of her life? There were ways to get rid of the seeds that had sprouted within her of course. Certain herbs and roots that would cause her to seize up and bleed, and rid her of this nuisance before it had grown into something that could even be considered a 'child'. But... somehow, for some reason she had been unable to put the plants to her lips.

It certainly wasn't love. Erthë felt nothing but reluctance and impatience for the parasite that grew within her, just as her mother had felt nothing for her first child, the brother Erthë had never met and not known about until Shadow lay dying by her feet. Rather, it was more akin to guilt, to a sense of duty and responsibility. Perhaps the affection would come later, once the beast was out and she could actually see it... Point of the matter was that she had made a reluctant decision to see this through.

Even though it had not been her idea.

Knowing this did nothing to soften her temperament however. The little mare wanted nothing more than to track down the big, oversized stallion who caused this and tell him exactly what she thought about this.

And she would!

Just as soon as she'd finished eating.

Big girls cry when their hearts are breaking