[Sanctuary] A Storm Of New Life

[Kavala]

Spring 1, 512 AV (During the Djed Storm)

The Konti took her leave of the others. The waiting had just gotten to be too much. Tasival had fallen asleep on Aweston’s lap while the Drykas dove deep into the webbing surrounding the Within and seemingly watched the storm from his ancestral point of view. Kavala, having worked reimancy on the hearth and fixed it into something spectacular earlier that night had nothing left to do. Energy swarmed her system though, far more than normal and left her wandering The Within, a trail of dogs on her heels, wondering when the storm was going to end. She managed to make it down to the Sea Cave early in the evening, where the livestock was busy eating their hay and generally relaxing.

The stallions all had their own boxes down there, while the cows and goats were kept in the upper cave. Yearlings and two year olds and the boarder horses were kept in one corral while the pregnant mares who haven’t already foaled were kept in another. There were five foals on the ground already, late winter babies, and Kavala wanted to make sure they were okay penned up with the broodmare herd. Bloodbanes, all of them, for they’d came to The Sanctuary already bred. Far too early Sama’els mare had foaled twins, bad luck, but then they’d both survived and thrived which Kavala deemed good luck. The rest of the boarder horses were doing well, resting amidst the chaos lingering outside.

Everyone knew death lingered outside. She was scared… scared like her ancestors had been. No one knew what the other side of the storm would bring. And Kavala tried not to think of it really, as she made her way downward, because the important thing was the here and now, getting the animals and the denizens of The Sanctuary through the crisis unscathed.

The ramp made accessing the Sea Cave easy in the storm. No one had to go outside. You could walk from the Within Commons to the Sea Cave in about five minutes, faster if you jogged for it was all downhill. Kavala had medical supplies stowed in the cave below, in case anyone foaled that night, since quite a few mares were due right around the first of Spring. She hurried without seeming to hurry and stepped through the double doors into the sea cave proper. The emotions of the horses and other livestock inside hit her like a ton of bricks and she had to concentrate on not listening to tone them out enough to function. But before she did, the Konti identified pain quickly. Pain came from all over, the sharp shooting spasms of labor. Nervousness hit her, not her own, but the maiden mares and veteran’s alike knowing their time was near. The sensation was overwhelming and not understandable until Kavala actually took a moment to pause.

[Kavala]

Djed crept in under the door, infused the whole cavern, and circulated like poisoned air. There was strong magic in the air, leaking in where no poison should. Kavala knew terror in that moment, loosing herself to fear briefly until her Konti sensibility took hold and made her pause. Nothing could be done for it now. One crisis at a time was all she could manage. One action at a time was the only reasonable course. Help those in labor now... and there were a lot of them.

In a very short time Kavala realized with a growing sense of panic mingled with her already present terror that every mare that was pregnant in the Sea Cavern was going into labor. She almost called for those above them in The Within to come down and assist. But there was really no way she could get away in time. Kavala instead rushed to her emergency supplies, picked up the heavy duffle bags in the waterproof casts stored in each level, and hurried towards the broodmare corral. Two mares were already down laboring, and several more were sweating profusely and biting at their sides as contractions came. Kavala checked the two that were down first. One was a doing well, progressing, while the other needed calming down and soothing before she’d relax enough to make nature take its course.

Once she determined the horses would be fine for a moment, Kavala turned to the problem of the wild djed in the cavern.

The Konti healer drew her djed up, pooled it into her vision, and looked with Auristics. Power swirled around the room, unattached djed weaving in and out of the horses, through the waterfall, and infusing even into the stone itself. The two giant caverns were awash with it. They should have been safe, but the power seemed to come from everywhere, deepest and most frightening near the huge double doors that lead out onto Sanctuary’s beach.

Djed swirled beneath them, the massive imposing structures never designed to withstand magic. They were hung against normal storms, flooding, and powerful waves. Kavala let her auristics drop and rushed for the doors, raising her hands and calling forth a shield, tasking it as she extruded it, willing it to block djed. She covered the doors with it, feeling the djed bombarding it, shredding it so violently it was as if the shield she cast was a spider web strung across a walkway trying to hold back a gang of children intent on rushing down the pathway not even noticing the web was there as they smashed through. Kavala cried out, frustrated, and tried again, throwing a shield up over herself and having no luck there at all.

Wild djed bombarded everyone in the caverns, everyone including Kavala. The Konti, at that point, would have left for she knew her life to have more value than perhaps a boarders horse or even one of her prized stallions. But their pain and fear stopped her, the sure signs of mares in labor, and far more than one. Kavala turned and rushed to the broodmare corral and found them there, her whole herd, in various stages of labor. Some mares, like the bloodbanes, where openly biting at their sides, hissing in pain. Kavala had them in their own corral walled off away from the normal mares. One of them, Saber, was the worst.