All Legs and Attitude

[stargayzer]

The mare was down, and up again, and down again, angry with the pain in her flanks. She kept turning to bite at her sides, and the sides would kick back in convulsive spasms that rocked her body and caused her legs to splay.

Caltrain leaned on the stall barrier, watching with careful intensity, but unwilling to step in to the stall unless his help was truly needed. A foal was always better off left to its own efforts during birth ... and he wanted his beasts to always be vigorous and self sufficient.

The girl had arrived within minutes after receiving his note, and stood beside him, her usually confident and haughty expression now a mask of honest love and concern for the mare.

But Vision was doing fine. He reassured her, though he knew she already would know that, just because the sound of his own voice saying it was a comfort to him as well. All was proceding normally.

The mare rose then, giving a low grunt and groan, and began to lower her forelegs again when her waters gushed forth, soaking the straw behind her with salty-smelling fluid.

The dark eyes rolled back with pain, for the breaking of the sac increased the contraction intensity. Instinct took over, irresistable, all-compelling, and Vision began to push.

Caltrain smiled softly, for he could hear Ravyna grunting beside him with every contraction. He wondered if she even realized she was doing it.

Several minutes passed, contractions coming close together, the whites of the mare's eyes shining in the glowlight of the midnight stables. Then the glows revealed little hooves. They appeared with one push, and retreated as the contraction subsided. Caltrain scowled, he hadn't been able to get a good look. Shifting the glow lantern he held farther into the stall, he tilted his head sideways to get a better view, as the mare's sides spasmed again.

"Shells," he cursed, and handed the lantern to the girl.

The bottoms of the tiny hooves were pointed upward.

They were hind feet.

"Little trouble-maker isn't going to make it an easy night."

He removed his overshirt, getting sleeves out of the way, grabbed the scrub bucket and supplies, and climbed through the rails into the stall.

"Breech," he said quietly to Ravyna, and he could see the panic on her face.

[ravyna]

She was still groggy, as she'd just fallen, exhausted, into bed and begun to doze when the drudge delivered Caltrain's note. The girl she shared a room with ... something would have to be done about that! ... was already snoring when she'd staggered in. She'd been helping stock fabric in the store rooms all evening, and her head was pounding from the sound of the Headwoman's complaints about the quality, or lack thereof, of the goods. All she wanted to do was sleep off the headache, and when the woman had arrived at the door, whispering her name, Ravyna had snapped at her angrily.

The baffled look on the old lady's face, for she'd then been hugged and kissed after Ravyna saw what the contents of the message said, as she'd run out in her night clothes was still swimming before her.

And here she stood, in night dress, next to a little twisted man, in the middle of the night, watching a mess of birth fluids gush out of Vision's body into the straw.

She was nearly hypnotized to sleep by the rhythm of the contractions, her connection with the mare lulling her into a blending of sensation, as if she were dreaming that she herself was giving birth, when Caltrain's curse shook her awake.

"Breech? No-- " Although she'd never attended a foal birth herself, she had been around runners and runner people enough to know that mares were sometimes lost to breech births. The stallion had been large, solid -- what if the foal was, too, and Vision could not pass it backward? Panic gripped her, and her hand shook as she held the lantern out toward the Beastmaster.

"Have you ever delivered a breech foal?"

[stargayzer]

Caltrain looked up at the worried owner, and nodded. He did not try to fake a smile, for there was no use in pretending that the situation wasn't grim. "Yes, it happens more than you'd think," he said quietly. "I won't lie to you, there's risk, but I haven't lose a foal or mare to a breech birth yet."

The boost of confidence was necessary, and Caltrain wasn't about to tell the girl that this was only the third breech birth he'd attended.

At first, Vision reacted with fear to the man's presence in the stall, and turned her back end from him, showing her teeth. He spoke soothingly to her, in a soft, sing-song chant, and waited for her to relax. Once he saw that she recognized her caretaker, and lowered her head for him, he moved forward to stroke her neck. She licked her lips several times, letting him know he was accepted, and he moved toward the end where the business was to be found just as she went into another violent contraction and pushed hard.

The long, spindly rear legs, which appeared to be jet black in the glowlight, emerged all the way up to the hocks before retreating half way. One more push, and Caltrain would be able to safely grab them. Quickly, he stuck his hands into the redwort solution to make sure they were scrubbed sterile, and waited.

Vision spread her hind legs, lowered her shoulders toward the ground, and gave a loud grunt that ended in a pain-filled scream at the next push.

The stallion in the next stall answered her with a nicker, bumping against the barrier in his effort to get closer to his comrade.

Caltrain could hear Ravyna speaking soothing words toward Renegade, as he grabbed the foal's hocks tightly. Though small, the man was wirey and strong from working all his life with runners, and his grip was like a vice. He held firmly to the legs with one hand, and reached the other into the mare. He had to be sure forelegs and head were clear, or he'd injure both the mare and her baby when he pulled.

Good, then, "Everything's in the right place for this," he said, loud enough for Ravyna to hear.

On the next contraction, the mare screamed in pain, and Caltrain pulled firmly on the hind legs. Progress was made, but not quite enough. One more should do it, though -- and the pressure he kept on the foal caused it to come almost immediately.

The mare pushed.

Caltrain pulled..

Vision cried out again as the hips, the widest part of the foal, were hauled gently and solidly through her pelvic opening.

A gleaming black filly landed with a gush in the straw, spattering Caltrain with fluids, blood, and a huge satisfied grin.

"It's a girl!" he called out, and the mare spun around, the pain forgotten, and nuzzled her baby tenderly.

Caltrain cleared the membranes from the foal's face, nose and mouth, and rubbed her briskly with a piece of rough burlap he'd brought in with him. He dipped her umbilicus in redwort, and the filly whinnied and tried to kick out at him.

He laughed and stepped out of the way. "You're a little spitfire, aren't you, lass?"

He turned to Ravyna, and smiled at the transformation on the girl's face as she gazed at the tiny black filly in wonder. "Well? What's her name?"

[ravyna]

"Name?" Ravyna asked, reluctantly pulling her gaze from the shining, wet hide of the baby. She was so black that the glowlight cast copper highlights off her coat, making her look practically metallic. "I hadn't really thought about it ... well, I suppose I had, but hadn't settled on anything definite. I'd tried combinations of the sire and dam's names, but nothing really fits her. "

She hung the lantern on a peg, and stepped through the rails into the stall, taking a second burlap to help Caltrain and Vision finish drying the baby. Even as they worked, the filly began to struggle. She got a remnant of control over her forelegs, and placed them ahead of her, then scrambled with the hind to get them into the straw. Ravyna stepped back, as did the Beastmaster, to give the baby room. The little one tried to rise, and fell, squealing with frustration. Her mother reached out to nuzzle her with encouragement.

Once again, the legs pushed against the straw, and the filly raised her belly off the ground. She stood, wobbling precariously, for a moment before falling back. This time, however, she landed in a better postion, and was quickly on her feet again, swaying back and forth.

Ravyna realized that she had tears in her eyes and a huge, stupid grin on her face, but she didn't care, for Caltrain was wearing the same expression.

The filly took tentative steps, one at a time, teetering with each stop till she found her point of balance. At last, she figured out what legs were for, and stomp, stomp, stomp, took three determined steps to her mother's udder.

Without hesitation, she began to nurse, bumping the udder hungrily, and Vision sighed with contentment.

Ravyna laughed. "Shadow. Shadow is her name, short for Dragon's Shadow, born in the shelter of the Weyr. She'll grow without fear, and race across the bowl, chasing the shadows of dragons in flight." She looked up at Caltrain, and smiled.