All Hail the Conquering Warrior

[Rhapsody]

Azami

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It was worse than anything she'd ever experienced. Worse than the attack that had created the thing that now sought to escape her. It felt as if a predator was ripping her apart from the inside out, claws ripping her gut to shreds. Azami cried out in pain as her legs gave out beneath her and she collapsed on the cold stone of the caves. It was happening. Gulping in air, the mare tried to calm herself, but the deep breath brought with it new complications. Her lungs were on fire; it was as if the fire that had been burning in her these past months had now spread to the very air she breathed. Relief was nowhere in sight. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. The thing stirring within her felt as if it would kill her in it's fight to escape her. But death would have brought relief; and so, the mare was forced to keep drawing air, to keep fighting to stay alive. If she could have cried, she would have wept tears of sorrow at her continued existence. Anything would have been better than living.

Time had no meaning to her; seconds passed like years. Or perhaps he had frozen time but left her to writhe in her agony. It seemed an entirely realistic possibility. Azami would never again doubt the cruelty of Acheron, or the powers of him or his sisters. This had taught her that lesson. But she would always loathe them; never would she pledge herself to them as her father had. But she would respect them. If only to spare herself the pain of this ever happening to her again, she would respect them, be an obedient mortal.

At long last, when her final vestiges of energy seemed spent and all hope seemed to be lost, she felt the creature leave her. The pain, the gut wrenching, mind blowing pain did not lessen. But at the very least, the parasite within her had departed her body. Instinct told her she was supposed to tend to it, but her own selfish desires told her that for all she cared, the creature could die. She was too tired to stand, to clean it and tend to the helpless little vermin. But the idea of Acheron's wrath made her tremble, and so the mare forced herself onto unsteady legs, appearing herself as uncertain on her feet as her newborn foal would in time.

Her exhaustion made each of her moments slow and heavy, but Azami did her motherly duties, albeit grudgingly. Her tongue washed over the foal's body, noting dully that it was a colt. His dark body's color was indistinguishable in the feeble light of the caves, but she could see that he was splashed here and there with white. It was the strange scar on his shoulder though that drew her attention. He seemed already scarred upon his entrance into the world, like a predestined warrior. "Mordecai." She said softly, unconsciously granting him his name. He was a warrior; it had taken a war of wills to make him, and so he would be named for his warrior nature. The nature she would instill in him in the short period of time she would deign to keep him at her side.

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