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The first thing she noticed was how foul the world smelled—both of iron and algae, churned mud and something sour—and the second was the cold, needling rush of water sluicing over her ribs and fur. Blurry, mismatched eyes blinked grit and sleep from their corners as she lifted her head from the water. Long fur dragged heavily against the river's current, droplets threaded from her whiskers and pattered to the shallows she found herself in. She tried to rise and a white bolt of pain jumped through her hind leg. A sharp breath, a bitten yelp and teeth clicked softly over her tongue as she swallowed the sound and flattened her ears against her cranium.

Blood simmered into the stream in a thin red veil, thicker than a simple cut. Beneath the chill, her belly felt taut and wrong. Round with a recent promise and now cramping hard and low. The smell of copper was laced with something milk-sour and it was coming from herself. She angled her muzzle down, nostrils flaring, sorting scents in a way her thoughts refused to: wet stone, bruised reeds, her own blood, and something that smelled very much life death. The land was familiar, and yet cruelly wrong—how had she come to this side of the world? Even for Svajone, that kind of slip felt like a dream that shouldn't be possible.

And yet here she was.

She braced again, pushing up with her forepaws, weight shifting to the uninjured side. Water sloughed from her coat in mini rivers; she managed two, three limping steps before her bad leg buckled and she went to her chest with a huff, tail curling tight to her flank. The cramp seized her belly, a grinding wrench that made her jaws gap in dry, silent pants. A thin ribbon of blood trailed from beneath her tail, beading, then clouding the shallows. Pure instinct and medical training moved her: she tucked the throbbing limb close, pressed a forepaw above the worst of the gash, then nudged her swollen abdomen with her nose, gentle and helpless, before lowering herself to keep it warm. She laved at the torn fur of her hind leg with quick, efficient strokes, then turned to clean the blood from her haunches as another contraction rippled through her. A soft whine escaped her lips despite herself, eyes slitting against the dizziness and the ache behind her ribs that came roaring over her.

With what little strength she had left, Svajone gathered a mat of dead grass toward her, pawing it into a shallow nest the way any expectant mother might have, only now to cradle pain instead of bundles of joy. She pressed into it, stealing what heat she could, and shook once, shoulders to hips, to settle her coat without jarring her leg or belly. The bleeding came in pulses, tinged with small dark clots that told her what her heart already knew. She laid her chin on her forepaws and between cramps she counted her breaths, slow and stubborn as she mourned her loss.