Winning Prompt!

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How this mare earned her name so many know (and might fear) and how she earned all the scars on her body.

In Irish mythology, Danu is a hypothetical mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann (Old Irish: "The peoples of the goddess Danu"). Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land.

On what was in fact a completely non-noteworthy day, the filly that would one day become known as Danu came into the world. The first thing she remembered was the sunshine, the gentle breeze, and the careful, loving touch of her mother.

But there were no feelings there.

It was a day. It happened to be the day she was brought into this world, but ran into the rush of the rest of her early memories. Being pulled from her mother for weaning was just as emotionally uncompromising as her first farrier’s visit. All memories - her first time tacked, her first ride, her first home, her second home, her third - they all blended nicely together. Owners came and went, events and shows and people and dates passed her by without any significance. There had even been a few foals, pushed out and weaned in less than a couple of months, sold on for a handsome sum while she cooked up the next one.
Nothing significant, nothing noteworthy.

Chewing nothing as she was loaded into the back of another trailer, carted off to another home, she took a little joy in tossing her nose, annoying the humans that were trying to tie her in safely.

As soon as she arrived at the new home, she knew something was off.
Something noteworthy.

Her ears flicked back as she stepped out of the trailer, scanning the area for the source of her unease, but couldn’t settle on anything. A solitary horse peeped her head over the stable doors as Danu was led down the aisle, but no more. The simple, chestnut mare watched as Danu was loosed into her stall, spinning immediately to regard the mare again. Pinning her ears in an unchallenged show of dominance, the graying mare turned her head to watch the last remainder of her old life disappear down the driveway.

She was left to wallow in the stall for a couple of days, only checked on when it was time for feeding. The winter passed by with little events of any interest, both mares beginning to round out with the lack of exercise and the foals that would be arriving come spring.

The days were just beginning to warm, the evenings beginning to stretch out on this fateful day. Danu and the chestnut mare were led out into the small field, both girls thrilled about the prospect of that sweet springtime grass.

But the grass was still bitter, the winter chill in the air.
By the time dusk rolled in, both mares were standing at the gate, heads eagerly peeking over the gate, searching for the human who would bring them in.

But they didn’t come.

The mares barely slept, huddled together for warmth. Both awoke to the frostbitten grass, trembling with the cold, but it wouldn’t be the first night spent like that. As foaling dates loomed, the mares began to worry. The humans had left them alone, abandoned in this field to foal and care for their young ones without even a shelter above them.

Within weeks, a small, black colt and a leggy, bay filly pranced around, playing and growing while their mothers fretted and worried. The colt approached his mother, pale goggles around his eyes indicating that his coat would copy his mothers as he got older, but to Danu’s horror, she noticed something she had never seen in any of her sons - pale discharge drying around his nostrils, an image that she may never forget.
And things just kept getting worse.
Her son, barely old enough to rough house, deteriorated before her eyes, eventually laying down with coughs that racked his entire body.

He was gone before she could even name him.

And her companion wouldn’t be long behind him. The chestnut mare, ribs and hip bones poking from beneath her reddish pelt, fell asleep one evening, and, to her daughter’s dismay, did not reawaken.

Something in Danu changed that day.

She aggressively took in that filly, fending off anything that may have been even thinking of being a threat.

A black bear peeped his hungry head around the corner of the barn, which was responded to by raucous squeals and thundering hooves of an angry mama.

A raven decided to light too close to her adoptive daughter one day, and almost lost some tail feathers.

But the bodies of the lost were too much of a draw to predators.
The cougar sneaked through, sliding almost like liquid beneath the bottom rail of the fence. Danu kept her eyes on the predator at all times, watching the feline even as she slipped back into the undergrowth.

But it wasn’t long until she came back.
Cubs had hungry mouths, too.

It was the dead of night, Danu dozing as she stood over the sleeping body of the filly. That familiar, skin-crawling chill began to creep up her spine, like fingers dancing towards her withers. She opened her sleepy eyes just in time to see the horrific sight of the cat’s eyes, reflecting the moonlight back towards her.

The mare opened her maw and screamed, thundering against her instincts towards the cat as it began to leap towards them in a blur of nothing but claws and teeth and eerie eyes. The filly, awoken by the commotion, cowered in the corner of the pasture, her eyes white as she watched the mare who had raised her battle it out against a large predator.

For both sides, the battle seemed to rage on for hours. But in reality, after a few short moments and some well-aimed blows, Danu stood, victorious. Collapsing to her knees once she was sure the cougar couldn’t rise again, Danu found herself swapped with the filly, the leggy foal standing guard over her guardian.

It was only a mere few weeks before the pair were found.
Loaded into a trailer once again, and shipped off to another home.

But this one was more memorable. More faces, more horses, more work, more safety, more support.
Other horses were friendly and welcoming, but Danu would let none of them close.
Physical wounds healed, but mental wounds did not. The filly was almost a yearling before Danu had built up the trust to allow the humans to separate them. And in that time, the mare had earned herself a new name.

Mother’s Malice.
Danu.

The ferocious mother who refused to let anyone near her daughter.
The mother who would have fought armies to keep her loved ones safe.