AN: And some more! There are a few more to be written and they are in nothing like chronological order, just so you know.
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Tale the Second
Daine was very well aware that, had the natural course been followed, she should not be in this situation for at least another two weeks. Wind, the second pony she had ever owned, informed her plainly that Nature sometimes took things into Her own hands, as had happened when Cloud birthed Wind herself. Daine acknowledged the point, and asked if Wind would please go and get someone to help her. Preferably, someone with hands.
Wind tossed her mane and informed her friend that help was already on the way. Did she think that the daughter of the Green Lady would go through this alone? Daine leaned hard against a tree and let loose a string of words that no lady of her age should have used. Daine had, however, spent a great deal of time in some very odd company, and even the most high born of her acquaintances had interesting modes of speech.
A pelican swooped down from the sky and landed very ungracefully in the clearing. Daine was surprised to see him as they were quite a ways from shore. The bird opened his engorged beak to reveal that it was full of water. Daine stared at him perplexedly, but he didn’t say anything.
“My bill is not large enough.” Broad Foot appeared at her side. “I called upon a friend for aid.”
“You do know that it’s to be boiled, right?” Daine asked. “How exactly are you planning to do that?”
“Hush, Kit.” The Badger nudged her to her feet and then pushed her into waking forward. “Your mother has given us extensive advice, and a fair few threats. Walk for a bit and leave the rest to us.”
Wind came to stand beside her and Daine leaned hard upon her mare when the pains came again. I am sorry, friend, she thought. This should be happening far away from here. Wind nipped her gently and walked forward so that Daine could continue pacing.
The branches of the trees began to weigh down as the birds landed. Owls and eagles and jays and robins and sparrows and many others crowded in around the clearing. They seemed not to care that it was not their usual habitat nor their usual time of day nor even that some preyed upon the others.
The birds grudgingly made way for the squirrels, though most of the latter chose to climb down the trees and sit in the grass beside the marmots, chipmunks, foxes, mice and even a large bear. Prey and predator gathered together to wait.
Daine was not paying attention to anything save the mare and the Badger, but she was vaguely aware that all the spectators should have made her nervous. They were all completely silent, and they all watched her, but somehow it did not feel intrusive. It felt like family.
Family, Daine thought with something approaching anguish as she doubled over and gripped her mare’s mane tightly in her hands. He should be here.
He will be, Wind soothed her.
Daine saw a flicker in the trees and looked past the ring of animals. Standing in a glade a few metres outside the circle were two impossibly large wolves. She knew them from earlier in her life, but this time, she could sense the presence of all wolves in them. Two more forms flickered into view and millions more presences came with them. All around her, she could feel the wild gods and all of their subjects join the animals that were already close to her.
With a supreme effort, she staggered back to the Badger and collapsed at the bas of the tree again.
“It’s time, Kit,” He told her. He reached out a paw and touched the totem that hung, as always, about her neck.
She could not have given a description of what followed, save that it was beyond anything she had ever encountered before. The water from the pelican’s beak somehow managed to be warm or cool depending on where the Badger and his mate, whom Daine had never met but who somehow seemed exceptionally familiar, applied it. She remembered crying out for him and for her mother, and she remembered feeling the presence of friends she had not spoken to in years. Brokefang was there, and Quickmunch, and Scamp and once, though foggy from the pain, Daine swore she heard her Cloud.
When Numair finally broke into the clearing, he could hardly hear his daughter’s cry for all the animals that had assembled to celebrate her birth.
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fin
gravitynotincluded, May 10 2006.