Swollen belly had begun to impede Muriel's progress when it came to her search for Gull. It bumped her thighs and elbows, the new life inside her a swollen parasite in all intents and purposes. Muriel had never imagined having foals. Perhaps when she was younger, more naive, she had imagined a foal with the face she and Leliel had created together. He had been her everything, encompassing most of her life and visions of the future. They had been fanciful daydreams, a foolish girl with foolish thoughts imagining things she could never fully comprehend. Life had been spent as an outcast, a wanderer, a nomad. Since leaving Janat, foals had become a distant thought. It had been so long since she'd encountered one, they had slipped almost entirely from her mind.

Muriel had never anticipated loving one. Much less her own.

At first, she had been scared out of her mind. She was far from prepared for a foal, she hardly even had her own life in order. She was hardly even a real part of her herd, habit and instinct too strong to effectively kill. The foal's sire didn't even know he'd, well, sired the poor thing. How could she be a mother? Much less a good mother? Her mind had been in scrambled circles for weeks. She'd even contemplated going to Midas, asking him to find a wetnurse for the poor thing, or at least a lonely mare who would take the foal once it was weaned.

All it took was a single incident.

The wolves of Helovia had fed in abundance throughout springs plentiful nights. They had always been of little bother to the pink mare, who could escape with a single thrust of her dual wings. Yet, grounded by her massive belly, Muriel had not anticipated the consequences. She had awoken from a light doze with a sense of wrong, the same instinct that made her heart race and nape prickle when a predatory feline was nearby. The thunderous growls had come as soft as kitten purrs at first, until, heart racing, Muriel had come face to face with a trio of the snarling beasts.

A horse knew how to fight as soon as they hit their first year of life, perhaps earlier. The mare had fought with all her might, teeth snapping and screaming like a stallion into the night. Her only thought had been you will not take my baby. Only when the beasts had turned and fled, deeming her too dangerous a prey, had Muriel recognized the newly formed pattern of her thoughts.

That night she had hugged herself close with her wings, cried over the bulge of her belly until her hide was wet and dark with tears. "Why must you make me love you?" she had cried helplessly. All thoughts of abandoning the foal had trickled away, leaving nothing but silt and guilt in the palms of her hands. And a lone ribbon tied round her wrist, silk and satin. Love.

From then on she had spoken to her belly, wishing she knew whether it made a difference. She'd never felt more alone, and yet she'd never felt more content than when she would softly speak to the genderless foal in her belly. Though she never paused in her search for Gull, for anyone who would extend a kindness to her, Muriel had begun to realize that her life had to begin to center around the foal. Her foal.

So when labor crept upon her, she was not prepared.

At first, it was a mild discomfort. One easily ignored, misunderstood. Perhaps she simply needed to eat? But after a few hours more, the pain became nearly crippling. She downed herself in the meadow somewhere, thousands of miles of space around her that was yet unexplored. Foreign to her. She cried, then. Wet, panicked tears. What in the hell was she doing? What was going on?

And then, at last, peace had overtaken her. Nature found its way, and after hours of pushing and pulling and sobbing out her breathless lungs, it was over. Sweat and foam flecked her neck and flanks, medals of victory as she craned her tired neck over to look down into the grass.

Beneath the weight of a tiny foal, hardly big enough to have caused her such pain, it seemed the entire world washed away.

"My son," she gasped out, chest still heaving. He was beneath the canopy of her wings, sheltered. Protected. A ferocity she had never experienced tore through her, as strong as a tidal wave. A mother's love. And she cried tears of joy then, her smile so wide it hurt her cheeks to bear it. As she leaned to clean him, sore and feeling as if something inside her had broken, Muriel sobbed herself into newness. She washed away the sins of her past, the loneliness and the broken heart still cradled in her chest. She thrust herself into the fire and walked out reborn. Sooty, but new. All for the tiny life cradled against her side.

"I love you," she whispered, as if it was a grand secret to the world and meant only for his ears. A confession. Lilac eyes gazed wetly down at the tiny ruddy foal, feeling as if she would break apart into a million molecules with the intensity of this realization. "I love you."

@[Gull] and anyone else! @[Spice] if you made his account?

All she could do for a long time was cry, cry for her love, for her mistakes, for the pain. And beyond it all, in her loneliest hour, Leliel returned to her. He whispered and crooned to her, two hapless souls lost on a tide of an experience neither of them had even witnessed or heard of. It chased away the loneliness, gave her peace, gave her strength even as she was waning beneath the onslaught of pain. Hours slipped by, Leliel's voice her only guiding light as she foamed and flecked and sweated through the ordeal. And somewhere in those hours, at her weakest, some new chord was plucked and resounded within her. She grit her teeth and flared her wings and she told herself in that moment that her son was going to the enter the world, and she was going to be there to greet him. She would do it a thousand times if it meant she got to see his beautiful face, place her kisses upon him and shelter him beneath the canopy of her wings.

Was that what they called a mother's love? The instinct that had driven her to protect herself and her child when the wolves had come for her vulnerable form?

And in an anticlimactic end, it was all over.

Moving was the hardest thing she'd ever done, in that moment, but nothing would stop her. And her baby curled up beneath her wing, beautiful, the most beautiful thing she'd seen in her entire life. And she cried ever harder, even as Leliel spoke his soft congratulations. Her wing tightened around her son, daring the world to take him away from her, and all at once a name came to her. It choked off her tongue instantly, naming the child free from the restraints of Janat's influence. Her son was a Helovian, she would not curse him with those foul angelic names, regardless of the fact that he had been blessed with her wings.

"Brigand," she hiccuped, face matted with tears but smiling like the sun was beaming from her very pores. "His name will be Brigand." Turning towards Leliel, she swung heavily to her knees. "Leliel," she called weakly, feeling as if she'd topple any moment. "Please, help me stand? He must take his first steps, be fed..." the exhaustion in her voice was disgustingly obvious, and she hoped he would lend his shoulder to her for even a moment.