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Canace had, admittedly, been avoiding her mother lately. Actually, she had been avoiding pretty much everyone. Soon, there wouldn't really be much hiding the swell of her stomach. Also, even already the extra weight was a bit a of a drag--literally--when it came to flight. She just couldn't keep up the distance for nearly as long as she used to.

So she dropped down from the sky, as gracefully as she could, aimed for a likely looking forest grove, and landed--gracefully, she insisted stubbornly to herself--with a thump in a bit of bracken.

The snow made this significantly less painful than it might have been.

Elena saw relatively few people. The white mare kept to herself. Still, the flailing of wings and crack of branches was worrying, so she hurried herself over to see what was up.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

With an irritated whinny, Canace dragged herself out of the bush. That had not gone particularly well. "I'm fine," she answered, rather shortly. "I mean, I only fell out of the sky and misjudged my landing and went all over the place, but other than that, I'm just fine." She was admittedly near tears. "I'm fat and clumsy and I hate everything." She flicked a few stray twigs off her wings.

"You're not fat," Elena answered automatically, and from her point of few, truthfully. She nosed Canace out of the shrubbery, helpfully. "You ought to be more careful. Come lie down."

"I have to be fat. I have to be. I'm not pregnant," Canace wailed, even as she allowed herself to be shuffled along. "I'm not. I can't be, I..." She sighed. "Okay. Yes. I am. I admit it. But you can't tell."

Pregnant? This was a bizarre confession coming from a complete stranger. Elena looked doubtfully at Canace. "I'm not sure how you expect to hide it," she said. There were some things that were just sort of obvious, and this was one of them; given Elena's understanding of these things, mares generally tended to get bigger.

"I was planning on hiding," Canace muttered. She lay down, cautiously, in a bit of soft, relatively snow-free ground under a tree. "I thought, I could just hide out, and then my mother wouldn't know, and I wouldn't have to answer questions, and then I could have the foals by myself and then I could find them nice homes and then nobody would ever know. Except me." She hesitated. "I would sort of miss them," she said.

Elena lay down beside Canace, feeling rather protective for no really adequate reason. Besides, the other mare's faintly fiery mane and tail provided some nice warmth. "Why do you have to give them up?

Canace did not have an answer for this. "I don't know," she admitted, in a small voice. She was well aware that her great plan to avoid discovery wasn't very good.

This was the strangest conversation she'd had in ages. "What's your name?" Elena prompted. "I'm Elena."

"Canace," she sniffed, miserably. "I don't think I can tell anyone who actually knows me, you know. Um. No offence."

"None taken." Elena gave Canace a curious look. "Are you sure you're not hurt at all?"

Canace considered. "Maybe a little bruised. But I'm okay, really. Nothing serious." She struggled to her feet. "I should go. I don't know where I'm going to go! But I need to go."

"Home?" Elena suggested. She trotted worriedly around Canace. Certainly the younger mare didn't seem badly hurt.

"But I can't," Canace wailed. "I just can't. I mean. What will people say?"

"But they'll be able to help you, right?" Elena offered.

"Well. I hope so." Abruptly, Canace gave her wings a firm flap. "Thank you, Elena. Um. I think I'm going to go home. I guess I don't really have anywhere else to go. And it's sort of cold. And I don't think... I don't think I can do this by myself." Faced with Elena's compassionate silence, Canace went on, nervously, "Um, thank you. I said that already. Well, thank you anyway."

And without another word, Canace rose up into the air with a sudden effort of her wings, as clumsy as she felt, and she drifted off through the sky with something resembling purpose.

Elena watched her go, puzzled, and with a certain amount of resignation, went back to her aimless journey through the woods.