Wild Berry Meadow No time

The herd weathered the beginning of summer in the shade of the forest. While higher grounds would have been preferred by the sorrel lead mare, she knew that Cedar wouldn't have done well with the rough footing. 

Day by day, the bay mare ailed, and Fancy saw in the hollowing near her hip and the arching of the mare's withers the telltale signs that Cedar had begun to shut down. Never did the creased above her tired eyes cease. She carried guilt that Fancy tried to dispel, to no avail. Even Silverbirch's antics failed to rouse her spirits. 

In the night, she left, as quietly as she could. Fancy slept in short spells, but awakened to count only @Selenia and Silverbirch within sight. She whickered softly, looking through the tree trunks, hoping Cedar might answer, to hear nothing in response. She nudged the palomino, and began to sniff about. 

"Wolf's teeth," She murmured. "She's left cover," She commented, noticing the faint trail of broken fern fronds that led toward the meadow. She felt thankful the mare hadn't wandered toward the North, where a pack had seemingly settled in the plains. "Cedar, you better be sleepwalking," She said, setting her teeth.

In her heart, she felt despair, but she pushed it aside. 

"I'll go look." With no herd stallion, they would be short on defense; if she could find Cedar and herd her back, they might have had a chance; but the lives of Selenia and Silverbirch weren't ones she was willing to risk.

Silverbirch was sick and tired of this forest grass. The ferns weren't particularly tasty, and whatever grass grew on the forest floor was often smothered out by the knee-high fronds. In little pools the light filtered down in the odd spot, where grass might persevere, but she couldn't understand why they stayed in the woodlands so much. The occasional trip to the meadow was a delight- but it was never easy. Start, stop, head for cover- all because a squirrel made some dead grass rattle. Sometimes they didn't make it to the meadow at all before Ms. Bossy Pants herded them back into shelter. 

To make things worse, Cedar dragged behind, and slowed them down. Silverbirch yearned to race on ahead, to go out into the open and kick up her heels- but those opportunities were few and far between. 

Wolves remained a constant threat- but one that they seemed to have avoided for some time. 

She snorted when the lead mare woke her in the middle of the night, but she took some interest in the disappearance of the downtrodden mare. She nosed at her mother's side. "Are we going too?" She asked, ears flicked forward in a plea.

selenia's eyes flickered to where cedar had been, pain tightening her expression. "we could go too, fancy. i don't know if any of us should be alone right now."

truth be told, she was anxious over the idea of fancy disappearing from view, reliant on the lead mare to choose their path as well as find good forage. with maplesmoke and cedar gone as well, she resisted.

but the dip of her muzzle would convey her deference to fancy's wishes, a willingness to stay put where they were if she saw best.

Before the sorrel could shake her mane and assure the filly that she would be staying in the forest where it was safe, the girl’s mother spoke up with an offering. In truth, she hated leaving them behind; herds were not meant to be split up unless divided by stallions who picked and pulled the mares they wanted. 

Without a stallion to go off looking for stragglers, they were left with bleak prospects, in Fancy’s eyes. 

She heaved a sigh, flicked her ears back and chewed her molars together but nodded and began moving. Her tail whisked from side to side. Each step she took was echoed by the sounds of others; she calmed within moments. 

”We need a stallion,” She sighed softly, speaking with a low voice as the small band pushed their way through the woods. ”Equus knows I can’t be both mare and stallion at the same time.” She wouldn’t likely be quick to forgive Maplesmoke if he ever came back- but she wouldn’t turn him away, either. 

At this point, they couldn’t turn anyone away.

Yes! 

The filly hopped and bucked, curving her neck so she could blow out an excited snort while her nose was between her ankles. She jigged sideways as she small band began moving, occasionally prancing on the spot in order to exhaust some of her energy. 

Fancy’s mood seemed rather flat. She said something Silverbirch found amusing, so she asked: ”Why can’t you be both stallion and mare? And who’s Equus?”

"we do," she agreed, ears planing as she tried not to consider what sort of fate might have befallen maplesmoke. "and you shouldn't have to be."

she was learning, slowly; watching where fancy led them and when, the temperature of the day, the timbre of the nighttime world. these were things she had always monitored on an instinctual basis. now she would try to do so formally.

who's equus? silverbirch piped, and selenia glanced to fancy in amused pride.

Fancy snorted, and turned her head, flicking one ear forward and one back at the foal’s question. She glanced to her mother- deciding then that as this was not her own foal, she couldn’t be quite as blunt as she might be with one of her own. 

Selenia assured her, and she nodded faintly, before she looked to Silverbirch again, now with both ears pricked. 

”Can’t be both mare and stallion because only one of them has a brain.” She said with a flick of her tail.

”What?!” She snorted indignantly. Only one of them had a brain? It sat with her for a moment- and incapable of sorting sarcasm from truth, she was lightly baffled, but came up with an explanation soon enough. ”If- if only one of them has…Have a brain, then, then…Why wouldn’t you wanna be a stallion so, ‘cause then you could have a brain?” 

A giddy smile and a coltish giggle, and the girl shimmied sideways toward her mother to see how her joke was appreciated.

"silverbirch!" selenia exclaimed, mane flying as she whirled to look at fancy.

but the laugh escaped her through flared nostrils; she pretended to glare sternly at her filly but tittered again.

fancy, forgive her rudeness; though she was interested, greatly so, in how her lead mare would react.

Fancy snorted- lightly offended at the implication that she did not have a brain. Selenia’s exclamation was a poor attempt at chastising her child, and the laughter that followed was forgivable, simply because it was a sound that had become somewhat of a rarity. Her features softened, though she kept a light smirk on her lips.

Filly- Equus bless you for living this long without a stallion around She stomped a hoof, as if to curse Maplesmoke again for leaving them. You just wait until we find another one. Then you’ll see what brainless really means. Stallions only think with one thing, and it’s the thing that hangs between his legs, She explained.

What?! She gasped, her mock-obliviousness fading as her mother snickered softly. She’d won this round- even the lead mare seemed somewhat amused. 

She was forever mentioning the name Equus, and forever speaking of stallions with little more than contempt. Silverbirch remembered nothing of the bay stallion who had wandered off, and remembered nothing of what could be hanging between his legs. She tilted her head to the side.

His brain is his nipples?

that was true. silverbirch hadn't ever lived beneath the aggressive protection of a lead stallion. her tail flicked with another bit of amusement at her filly's question.

"a stallion has something else. he uses it to — put foals inside mares. in return, he guards the band from wolves and even other stallions," selenia explained, feeling rather awkward. but silverbirch was asking now, and so she felt obligated to give a true answer.

Fancy snorted and laughed; she could hear Cedar cough to clear her throat of the grass she’d been chewing on before she too chuckled. Fancy looked with Selenia then, curious to see how she might respond to the filly’s question- and how the young silver buckskin might take her first lesson in physiology.

Her ears turned back, and she gave her mother a highly skeptical look. Of course, there were no stallions for her to look at, for reference, but in her mind she envisioned some massive lump hanging off the stallion’s belly- something large enough to hold a foal in it- and found it incredibly difficult to believe. 

If you say so, She said with a shrug. I don’t remember being put in you, but I kinda remember coming out of you, She said. You remember, right?

"my goodness, silverbirch. i couldn't possibly forget that!" selenia exclaimed with a teasing squeal. "it's not — well. it isn't pleasant," she went on, then flicked her ears forward.

a very brief but very informative anatomical discussion was delivered. 

she wondered then if her filly would have anything brash to say, hiding a smirk.

Fancy lowered her head to graze and allow the two the complicated conversation of reproductive systems…Keeping one ear turned toward the pair the entire time. She took a step, edged her way toward greener grass- and it was then that she felt it. 

A fluttering of movement- faint, but present. Another followed, subtle enough that some might have dismissed it as gas but to a mother of many, it was recognized for what it was. 

She tuned back into the conversation in time to hear the more grizzly part about a foal’s birth, and smirked lightly.