Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Time skip to the past... cause I are l0zer and just now got around to this.. XD! )

There was nothing about the rising sun that foreshadowed the events to come.

The day had actually started uneventfully... not to cloudy, not to bright. The breeze was there, but could hardly be felt except to dispell the heat that still rolled up from the barren plains even this early in to autumn. The forests were cool enough, and the animals had started to gather their winter stores with renewed enthusiasm, but their effort was lost on one particular soul. The gentle unicorn mare known in this lands as Amarinne hadn't been one to ignore the toils of the forest folk, but these days she had other things to worry about.

As it was she had barely moved more then ten whole paces from the pair of glistening baskets, sending her mate Crousader off to bring her food, or guard them himself while she went those ten whole paces to the stream just beyond the thicket she had chosen to hide her children.

Unlike last time, she had no intention of allowing herself to melt from their lives right at the start. She had learned her lesson and would stick by her children's sides all the way through their yearling years, and being the support system she had been for everyone else.

Truth be told, she really hadn't been ready to be a mother for Seresai and Amerlei. She was afar better friend and adult mentor... or at least she had been.


Yes... she intended for this time to be different.

The second colt was, for lack of anything else to say... bored.


Like his brother, he too could hear voices and movement, and had grown accustomed to them in much the same way he had grown accustomed to his dark and soothing shadows. One, a rich and lilting voice he identified as the one that surely provided the gentle warmth at night that seeped through the thick weave of his little world. A second voice, deep and brusque, he hadn't quite fathomed it's purpose. He could hear it coming and going, whispering to the musical one, and sometimes he could feel the presence of a shadow falling over his basket and that of his brother, watching them, just as the musical presence faded for a span of time.

Also like his brother, he had taken a few quick peaks beyond the 'sky,' and found that his world was merely a small segment of a greater world.. but he had yet to assign bodies to the voices outside... though he was quite certain he would know them when he saw them. The musical one he was particularly interested in, especially when it sang. Many a night he had yearned to raise his own voice with the strong one outside... but every night he remained silent.


Now though, despite how still and pristine his basket rested, he was gathering himself. He was finished with this small confining world, though of the peace it granted, he vowed to carry it with him. He was ready to embrace what the world outside had to offer and shrug off this boring black interior for the light that he had seen once on a very bright autumn day.

- - - - - -

Crousader had made a new habit of staying away from the thickets during the birthing season. In his old herd, males were expressly forbidden from entering such places, and even he (then the herd leader) had been chased away when he had politely inquired on the health of one of his best lieutenant's mates after said lieutenant had come begging him for admission when he had heard his mate's violent cries of pain.

Silly females, what could possibly be so bad about childbirth that he, a battle hardened soldier, couldn't handle?

Well, he had found out quickly last time his own mate was pregnant.

The normally quiet and delicate unicorn had been positively violent in her pain, striking out with sharp fore hooves when a contraction took her suddenly and painfully. At the time, they had only Tai and the frail human Celei to help them, and fearing for the human's safety, Crousader had chased them off and bore the brunt of Amarinne's pain himself. Resting beside her and counting with her and to her as the process wore on.

Eventually, the two fillies had come, and with a sigh of relief, he had nosed them into the baskets Celei had lovingly woven for them. To him, they were perfect, little angels that had bits and pieces of himself and Amarinne in them... and at that point he vaguely understood how other parents could seen their own immortality in the eye's of their children.

But he had learned nonetheless, and when Amarinne had again confided in him that she was pregnant... he hastily gathered what support she would need and stayed far far away when the time came, only coming forward and fulfilling his role as father when the foals were safely in their baskets and Amarinne was lucid enough to nuzzle without fear of being beaten.

That his mate had always been lucid and had appreciated his presence the first time around eluded him, along with her acute sense of abandonment when he wasn't there until the end the second time.

So now, as he stood near her watching the bright white basket with whirls of gold shift and rustle, he couldn't comprehend why she wasn't looking at him at least once. He was certainly watching all three of them, and after a moment, he took a step forward to rest his muzzle against her neck. Surprisingly, she tensed, then relaxed almost by a force of will, sparing him a quick glance before turning again to her children and nickering a soft note of encouragement to them.

Taken aback, he ended the contact and resumed watching only the baskets. Neither of them were prone to speaking about their problems, and in Crousader's world, he had none. Amarinne was probably still feeling the after affects of pregnancy, and would come around soon enough.