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He leaves me dripping his seed, and with a warmth in my belly that has nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with feeling incredibly loved. I don’t know what it is about Equs, but his touch and his attention makes me feel like the most valuable and loved creature in the universe.
I go back down to check on the mare, Gossamer. I know that tonight is the night, and I know where I will be staying for all of it. I wouldn’t care if the apartment upstairs was furnished with nothing at all. I’m going to be sleeping on straw and maybe hopefully finding something like coffee if they have any. Doesn’t matter.
I have everything I need. I have more than everything I need.
All it took was getting exploded, then poisoned, then passing out for a month. If only I had known how easy falling in love can be. Or at least, earning the sexual and romantic favors of a king. Are we in love? Is this a relationship? I don’t know. The last I really remember, he was treating me like Gossamer here, an animal to be bred. I guess when you’re a hammer, everything is a nail. And when you’re king of stallions… Something changed over the course of my illness. Maybe he realized that losing me would suck. I think losing him would suck too.
“Next time you fuck in my stable, make sure you keep it quiet. The horses don’t need to be disturbed by your wailing.”
So this is how the stable master is planning on speaking to me. Hell to the motherfucking no.
“Tell King Equs that,” I say, noticing immediately that Vulpes didn’t have shit to say to Equs. He waited until I was alone to try to bitch me out, and I’m not having that.
Vulpes growls and walks away. He doesn’t like me. I don’t give a shit. I don’t like him either. Equs gave me these stables, and I intend to treat them like my own.
I sit back down, claiming my space. If the big stable bully wants to come back, I have more attitude for him. But he doesn’t. And nature is taking its course. The mare is pawing the ground right now, laying down and then standing up again. This is happening.
Before my very eyes, Gossamer is down again, pushing like a champion. She’s a fine mare. I can see something coming from her tail end. A…
“Red bag! Red bag!” I shout the words, hoping someone hears. This is an emergency. If it were happening in my stable, I’d be wanting all hands on deck. I’d be throwing the phone at the nearest stablehand and telling them to call the vet.
As it is, I’m in the stall in an instant. Horses give birth like a bullet leaves a gun. Fast. And hard. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they’re fine. But a red bag is bad. It means that the placenta has separated, and the foal is being born while still inside that organ, which is no longer supplying oxygen. That baby is going to suffocate if I don't get it out now.
I don’t have a knife on me, so I grab the placenta in my hands and just bite it hard enough to get through the tough outer wall. It’s not pleasant. It’s straight-up gross. Body temperature heat and raw flesh don’t make for a great combination, but needs must. All that matters is getting through and getting the foal out. I can feel it squirming beneath my hands, fighting for life.
With the placenta open, there’s the thinner membrane the foal should have been born inside. It doesn’t need my help for that one. It stretches and kicks, tosses its head and it is out, sprawling in a small flood of amniotic fluid.
The whole emergency is over in less than a minute. I’m covered in blood and goo, and I couldn’t be happier as Gossamer starts nuzzling and licking her confused baby. It’s a little filly, with the same coloring as its mother. Right now it is all matted and covered in foal down, but that metallic sheen is unmistakable even at this early stage.
“Oh yes, mama, what a good girl you were. What a sweet baby you have.”
She’s not listening to me. She’s fixated on licking her baby clean and nuzzling it to get it up. I get out of the way. My job is done, and there’s no point staying even if all I want to do is cuddle the hell out of this sweet little baby.
I can’t stop smiling as I emerge from the stall, just in time to see Vulpes walking toward me.
“What the…”
“Red bag,” I say. I assume he knows what that means. It’s pretty universal when it comes to horses.
He stares at me, at the complete state I am in. If he knows a goddamn thing about horses, he knows I just saved that baby’s life. I expect a thank you, or at least a good job.
