Kendra let out a strangled cry of fear as Bracken hit the ground with a dull thud, she wheeled around already changing forms. She knelt beside him and cradled his head in her lap, he breathed in shallow pants his face pale and drawn. A glistening arrow was stuck in his shoulder. Kendra bit her lip in consternation, she knew very little of magic, it took many years to master it and Bracken had only just started teaching her the fundamentals. But she did not need magic to know that the arrowhead was poisoned.
She knew she had to get him to his mothers kingdom, and the adept healers that called it home, but at that moment she felt and agonizing jab in her abdomen. She gasped in pain and her stomach flew to her hugely pregnant stomach as the contraction rippled through her. With a burst of strength she bathed Bracken in the light from her horn she had no idea what was going on but figured some random healing magic was better than none. She gasped again and went down to her knees in agony, wasn't labor supposed to be a slow process? Apparantly not because the contractions came harder and closer together as she instinctively changed forms. In her horse form the pain was more tolerable, and she felt instinct take over, she wanted to lay down, but she knew she couldnt Bracken lay at her feet dying. Using a simple levitation spell she lifted him onto her back and began to stagger through the jungle, back towards the fairy queens shrine.
The trip that had taken her only minutes running flat out now stretched as an eternity before her. She squealed in pain as the contractions continued stumbling over tree roots and rock outcroppings. Before long she knew she could go no further.
She found a relatively clear patch of ground and settled Bracken on a thick mat of decaying leaves and foliage. Her knees buckled and she fell to her side, panting heavily, her once satiny smooth silver coat black with dirt and matted with leaves and fungus. Her legs strained against the as she peddled them, trying to outrun her pain. She cried out in pain as the most intense contraction of all came over her, she strained with it and sensed her child slither onto the ground behind her.
For a moment she lay there, shocked and exhausted before instinct beckoned to her and she twisted around to peer at her newborn foal. She nipped the birth sack and licked it away as her colt took his first breaths.
He looked surprised and his big ears whirled madly as he took in the world. His little nostrils flared and his wide blue eyes stared back at her as she drank in the sight of him. He had glittering strands of gold streaking his silver coat, and threading his stumpy mane and tail. Long slender legs attached to thimble sized hooves. A long lean body with sloping hindquarters and a long swanlike neck. He was beautiful and perfect and the love she felt overwhelmed her, she felt as if her heart grew five sizes in an instant as she stared into her sons eyes for the first time.
Kendra staggered forward and hauled herself to her feet, breaking the umbilical cord and leaving her foal on his own for the first time. She licked and licked his coat until it was shiny and clean. The afterbirth slipped out easily and as far as she could tell it seemed to be intact, which she figured was a good sign. Her colt staggered to his feet, tottering on stick like legs towards her udder. As he nursed Kendra marveled at the novelty of it all, 20 minutes ago she had been killing enemy soldiers and now she was watching her first-born taking his first steps.
At that moment she realized what his name would be. Gavin, because she knew then that she would never live in fear of her past again. Once again, she shouldered Bracken and began to stumble forwards, with Gavin prancing along beside her. Exhaustion blurred her vision as she limped forward, with only instinct driving her on, she persevered.
When she reached the shrine she had just enough strength to lap from the bowl of golden liquid before she collapsed. Her last impression was of her son licking her cheek and a bright pillar of ligh searing her eyelids, then blackness crashed over her and she knew no more.