wolves and wannabe's

steven chuckled "just like a woman" he said softly his horse stamped his foot and nodded in agreement before following them towards the creek, but he stopped Steven looked at Dove adn Andrew. "I wish they would make their minds up" Shadow said softly Steven looked at him and chuckled "yeap she must be getting close to birthing" he said looking at Andrew "you all right, I saw her buck you before "

"Fine," Andrew said, "She's just really sarcastic and moody. I'm okay. She' d better get over it, or maybe I will find that snake again." "No," Dove said, truly repentant now, "I said I was sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me today. I'm not normally like this. Not with one so small. I won't try to throw you off again. I just have sort of an upset stomach today."

"I bet your baby's coming," Andrew told her. She stopped dead in her tracks. "I don't think I want to do that," she told him.

"I don't think you have a choice," Andrew laughed at her.

steven smiled and nodded "ok we should head back to the stable but theres an old shack by the caverns we could stable her there till its born" he said "we are a bit too far to return to the ranch, although you know it could take several hours for her to birth" he said to Andrew "Dove you ok to continue it just up ahead " he asked sheadobecme rstless under him "hey shadow settle down it won't happen right away boy" he said brushing his hand over his neck gently. "you know andrew we may have to stay the night , I hope Kate understands" he said rubbing the silght numb patch still on the side of his head.

"I'm not having any baby in some old ramshackle place! You tell him!" she snorted at Andrew. "I want to be back in my own home. Not out here. Its dirty and probably smells. He doesnt know anything about babies, does he?"

Andrew frowned at her. He really didn't like her short temper. He relayed the message to Steven. "She's insisting she's going back to the barn. She doesn't think you know what you're talking about. She's really not nice today. I can understand that, but not everybody is as dumb as she thinks they are."

steven ooked at her " its not ramshackel infact its quite nice as you will see , I keep all the buildings on my land in tip top contition , and as for birth foals i have done a few in my time and with my father too" he said moving shadow towards a building on the horizon. Shadow shook with steven on top ofg him "its ok its a clean proper stable " he reashured him as they walked on , glancing back he could not help worry about Andrew being on Dove now he thought again he'd made the wrong choice and sighed as he thought about how many with him he'd made.

Andrew directed her to the outbuilding, despite her resistance. She eventually submitted to him and resolved she wasn't going to win. Andrew had learned from unicorns about how to be stubborn when it was truly necessary, and getting Dove to go where she needed to was not as much of an issue as Dove had warned Andrew it would be. He slid off easily when they got to the outbuilding and turned her back over to Steven.

Steven shook his head "ow no, shes your horse remember" he slipped from shadow and opened the doors , inside was completly diferant to the outside inside was clean and modern fresh hay lay on the floor and green hay in the feeding baskets "told you I keep my biuldings in top condition, that stall is big enouph " he pointed to one on their right "to any one else it looks like a ruined stable but to us its all modern" he explained as he closed the stall dorr where he ahd put shadow , he thought it best he should be next to dove since he was the father ofthe foal or fily being born.

Andrew hadn't counted on this. The only thing he truly understood about animals having babies was to let nature take its course. He put her in the stall, took the bridle and bit off, but the saddle was too heavy for him. He couldn't begin to do anything with it. He was, after all, very small for 11.

He settled her as best he knew how, and she nuzzled him that she knew he was too small to be doing a lot of this. "He's being a silly human. He should know you can't lift that. I think maybe I will decide to like you and not him if he doesn't help you," she said, "You are, after all, just a little foal."

"He's okay," Andrew said to her. "What else do you need?"

"Just time, Foal. Just time. Go do whatever human foals do. If I need you, I'll call you," she said.

He looked at Steven, "Can you take her saddle? I can't do it. It's too heavy."

Steven nodded "sure I forgot that heavy even for you , sorry" he said walking over and undoing teh saddle sliping it from her back to rest on the dividing wall "my apologys to you Dove, I should have left you in the barn but I wanted Andrew to be your rider and only him" he said softly as he moved his hand around her tummy feeing how it tightened under his hand "Humm may not take too long, but then agan it could take all night " he looked at Dove "you have a safe warm place here and no need to rush"

"If you don't take better care of Foal, I will," She snorted angrily at Steven. "He's too little for what you expect of him. I'll take him myself. And I know you can hear me if you can hear Smoke. If you wanted him to be my only rider, why didn't you just say so? And what about your other Foal? What will you let him ride? You're a horse short, Human. You don't understand foals at all. Give them to me!"

Andrew wanted to laugh. First the wolf wanted to keep him, and now the horse. Animals always liked him better than people did. That was why he'd always been safe in the woods. The larger creatures saw he was small even for a human and wanted to parent him when he didn't have food, or when he was locked out of the house in the rain or the snow. They sometimes would keep him safe and warm by keeping him snuggled up close to him all night. He'd befriended Centaurs and all sorts of creatures. He had learned to love all animals from little up because they did what his father would not.