I had been gradually swelling ever since that night in this frozen hell, where the crowned king of four horns had laid me to waste. A certain glee fluttered in my chest, though perhaps that was just nausea erupting in my gut every time the parasite inside me lashed out with a frail limb. Glee, nausea, they're really the same in the end.

The time of swelling had finally come to and end though, and I knew that the time to pop had arrived. My knowledge on pregnancy is limited to the basic understanding of something inside of you needs to get out. I often found myself enduring sleepless nights as I pondered the best way to carve open my flesh and remove my child so that I would endure minimal pain and blemishing, but all of those thoughts dissipated as I find myself overwhelmed by a crippling agony. It ripples through me like a current, pulling all sense and reason out of me as it passes. I stagger through this wasteland of snow and ice, taking some comfort in this familiar area as that long ago night now comes to fruition.

I remind myself that this is what I wanted as I drag my body into a sheltered alcove of frost. I can't remember, in this moment, why the fuck I wanted this, but I am sane enough to know I've crossed the point of no return.

I cry out as the pain rips into me. My body convulses, pushing against it. I brace myself against a frozen wall, my boiling hide eagerly embracing the cool touch of winter's respite as I caw out my hatred. It goes on like this until I've lost track and even my bones shudder with fatigue. I know something will have to give soon, me, or it.

I fail to consider we might both cave.

Too soon that time arrives, but I stand strong, as much as I can muster, while the parasite slides free. A wash of fluid drenches my groin and rushes down my legs, followed by a wet plop as something solid connects with the ground. I shiver as I turn, face to face with the wet, shiny ball of foal stirring in its package. Something drives me, instinct, want, need. But I go to it, my child, and I tear off the remnants of my womb that cradle this new life.

The foal gasps its first breath and my heart pounds with that nauseous glee again. I hurry to dry it with my tongue, more eager to stuff my wasted body's nutrients back inside me than anything else. It calls out, pitiful, and I wonder if this is what I looked like back then too. My mother, The Wicked, had she tended to me in such a manner?

It's a wonder she didn't kill me then, as I consider doing so now looking at this pathetic skeleton of hide and hair that I birthed. This is not my hell's army, this scrawny thing, this is just the pus from my uterus' festering zit and I would have it eradicated.
What a useless thought to think my destiny, my God's destiny, lie in nurturing something like this.

My breath hissed between my teeth abruptly as the creature found its way to my nipples before my thoguhts finished their course. Its nose rooted against my thighs and I shuddered at the touch, a kick stirring in my leg as I lifted it, but it died down as the hunger of the child began to pull the milk from me with a steady drought. My neck craned as it twisted around, my own muzzle searching among the dark body of my get.

"A colt," I knew as I breathed him in, orange eyes flashing as his smell settled in my nose.

I could not kill him, I knew then, as he feasted from my body and wore the hairs that I remembered on my father. He even smelled of him faintly, though perhaps that was just the blood. No, I could not kill him, he bore the blood of my God and I would worship him just as equally.

"Öde, my son," I whispered, rocking to and fro as he nursed.
My son.