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Colored Spring groaned, desperately trying to ignore Havemercy's insistent calling. It was way too early in the morning for this. Does. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. This one humored him well enough, but her insistence on things like conversation was starting to wear on him. His generally suave facade had already started to slip, and keeping it up took considerable effort. Spring groaned again the next time Have shouted at him, and finally pulled himself to his feet to see what she wanted.

"What is it, I'm trying to sleep...," the buck muttered as he strode into the briar grove, then stopped short. Were those...sacs? He was suddenly confused and flustered, his thoughts completely thrown into disarray. His first instinct was to run away...but Have was lying right there; there was no way he could get away from it now. He opted instead to approach the sacs cautiously, leaning down to look at them more closely. They...didn't look particularly red, but they were still just sacs, and maybe the red would grow in later. Now that he had looked at the babies properly, Spring felt a strange sense of awe at the miracle of life. He looked at Have, inwardly cringing at her obvious delight at this development, and asked, with perhaps a hint of wonder, "Did I...are these...my babies?"

Colored Spring's eyes narrowed at the question, but he nuzzled the sacs while he considered it. He'd followed Havemercy around for days before the festival...it did seem unlikely that she would have had some chance encounter without him knowing, and he hadn't noticed any other bucks hanging around her. Then again, Havemercy was smoking hot. Who knew what she might be getting up to when he was sleeping? Still, there wasn't much reason not to believe her, despite the disconnect he felt when he looked at the two tiny forms before him, now that his initial wonderment at the miracle of life had worn off. At least there was no question as to the mother, he thought resignedly, looking at her beaming face. "Well, they're certainly...yours, aren't they?" Colored Spring nuzzled the sacs again. "What, err..." He was really not prepared for this father thing. "What do we...do with them?"

Some time later...

Colored Spring had been left to watch the sacs while Havemercy sought out sustenance. He stared at them gloomily. Last time he had tried leaving the sacs alone, he'd gotten such an earful from her, and then she had withheld certain other things to make her point, that he'd concluded that it was really not worth it to try that again. But now he was bored out of his ever-loving mind. The buck was used to watch other Kimeti for hours at a time. But those Kimeti were usually doing something, or, if not, so enchantingly beautiful that no one could possibly do anything but stare at them all day long. All these weird little...things...did was vary in blobbiness and occasionally squeak. Granted, the lining of the sacs had gotten thinner, and the creatures inside seemed to be getting more restless by the hour, but they were still...pretty damn boring to watch.

Spring examined the two sacs for the umpteenth time. The foals inside didn't look any more red than they had the day they were born. In fact, if it was possible, they looked rather less red. The nagging suspicion that he was not actually related to the sacs in front of him just would not go away. But he was only here because he hadn't tired of their mother yet, so what did he care? He frowned to himself and sighed.

Colored Spring's roving foxbun wandered into the clearing. "Where have you been, huh? You'd better not have found a lady foxbun..." Colored Spring stood up and scowled at the pet, but it just chittered at him and wandered over to inspect the sacs. Spring rolled his eyes and turned to leave. "Does everyone care about those things more than me? Great, you watch those and I'm getting out of here." The foxbun chittered at him again, a bit more urgently this time, and pawed at the sacs.

"What is it, you obnoxious creature?" Spring scowled and pushed the foxbun out of the way, then bent down to examine the sacs again. Well, at least things were going to be a bit more interesting. A pale hoof was sticking out of one of the sacs. He hadn't the foggiest idea what to do about it, though.