Disclaimer: Howrse was created by Owlient. Titan is fictional, but was inspired by all the virtual horses I've taken care of on Howrse since I joined the site on New Year's Eve 2007.

A pony is a childhood dream, a horse is an adulthood treasure.
—Rebecca Carroll

It was time. Tipper had been through this six times in the past, so she knew full well when her time had come.

The chestnut mare paced around in her stall, her stomach swollen with the foal she had been carrying inside her for the past eleven months. She groaned as she felt the foal move inside her, moving away from the comfort of her womb and towards the coldness of the outside world. With another groan, Tipper fell to her knees. Her rump dropped down seconds later.

Tipper breathed heavily as she felt her foal move once again. She felt wetness against her hindquarters, a signal that her water had just broken, and that she needed to start pushing. So that's what she did. The chestnut pushed hard, stopped to take a breath, and then pushed again. She snorted as she thought briefly of her breeder, how she had decided for her to conceive again, less than two years after giving birth to a set of twin colts. Now that had been a difficult pregnancy.

Tipper pushed again, willing the foal to move out into the open world. Where was her breeder? She needed her to get the vet!

As Tipper pushed down for possibly the fourth or fifth time, she heard her stall door open. She looked up to see her breeder, dressed in a pink shirt and jodhpurs, staring at her with wide eyes and an open mouth. Tipper whickered to her, showing how relieved she was to see her, but impatient to get some assistance in the delivery. Almost as though she understood what her mare was telling her, Tipper's breeder hurried off. Tipper, feeling uncomfortable in her current position, rolled on her side to alleviate the pressure from her stomach.

A few minutes later, Tipper's breeder returned with the vet, who bade her to stay where she was before entering the stall. The vet, her brown hair in a braid, knelt beside Tipper and patted her distended side, whispering words of assurance to her. Then she set to work.

It was over in only a few minutes. Tipper felt a sense of relief as she felt her new foal finally slip out from her, and elation as she heard the newborn whinny out for its mother. Tipper lifted her head to see her new baby curled up in the straw, its golden pelt slick from the fluids of the sac it had been contained in. Tipper moved forward to clean her newborn foal, but the vet shooed her away for a moment to inspect the foal. The vet felt the foal's head, neck, sides, and legs, then lifted one of its back legs to look and see if Tipper had had a colt or a filly.

"Congratulations," she said, "your mare has given birth without any problems. You have a healthy little colt." A colt! A new little colt in the world of Howrse. The vet continued speaking. "What do you intend to name him?"

Tipper's breeder chuckled. "Well," she said, "I'm not sure. I didn't do an ultrasound on Tipper this time, deciding to keep the foal's sex and color a surprise, but I had honestly hoped it would be a filly, so I could name her something pretty, like Lily or Rose. But..." Tipper's breeder chuckled a second time. "But seeing that it's a colt, I guess I'll name him Titan."

"Titan, huh?" the vet mused.

"Yep. The sire's name was Iapetus, and in Greek mythology, Iapetus was a Titan. Plus, Titan starts with a T, just like Tipper." Tipper's breeder and the vet silently watched as Tipper cleaned her new son, then rouse him to his feet.

Little Titan nursed voraciously from his dam, and once he'd had his fill of milk, flopped down in the straw and dozed off, nescient of what fate had in store for his life.

Characters Introduced:

Titan: Our protagonist, a palomino Quarter horse/Standardbred cross.

Tipper: Titan's dam, a chestnut Quarter horse/Standardbred cross. She is equipped in western riding. Tipper's name is a reference to how a goal on Howrse is to name a horse "Tip."

Iapetus: Titan's sire, a purebred Quarter horse. He is equipped in classical riding and has won more than sixty races. He will not be appearing in this story.

Randi (Miranda): The breeder of Titan and Tipper, though not referred to by name here (she will in the next chapter!). She breeds Quarter horses, and has thirty-two of them when the story begins (that includes Titan). She is twenty-two-years-old, with dark brown hair and brown eyes.