Ampere was not anything more than what you saw. She was loud, rash, impatient, promiscuous, temperamental, and untrained. It was those qualities which most often seemed to push others away, and by which she was most often judged by. Yet Ampere was also young, smart, generous, loyal, passionate, and willing. She was the first to admit her faults, and the first that was willing to change them, as much as she was able.

Hardly anyone ever gave her the chance.

They saw only a lightning bird and hated her for her noise, her color, her hostility - unwilling to see the child that she was wandering, lost and broken, alone and afraid. Ampere fought so fiercely because it was all she had known, and because it was all that had kept her safe in the past. She preached so tirelessly because she knew the worth of freedom and what its absence was like, and its was a cruelty like none she would ever wish upon another.

No one even tried to understand, why did they expect her to?


Ampere's gaze turned away, unable to meet Africa's after the fear she had seen there, quickly hidden behind a wall of tough-jawed stubbornness, but there no less. Ampere never wanted anyone afraid of her. Terror in it's own right was another form of enslavement.

Ampere sighed, not knowing how else to explain herself.

"That would be for the best," Ampere agreed as Africa lightly suggested she handle most political matters. Diplomacy was not Ampere's strong suit, she fully understood that. She glanced up, hating the reserved voice Africa had taken on and the caution in her gaze. "I never wanted this!" Ampere wanted to tell her, but the crown on her 'brow kept her quiet.

Africa continued, though as she began to talk about the Basin Ampere's attention shifted from herself back to the conversation. As if jolted by something her head whipped around, her electric gaze holding Africa firm. "What did you say?" Ampere whispered, nearly cutting off Africa's final question. "Supremacists? Basin?" The word of that awful land jogged her memory abruptly and she recalled her trip the winter world, when companions and boundaries of Helovia had still been so new to her. She'd been chased out, never knowing she was lucky to endure only that.

"I've been there," she said more calmly as a grimness settled in her. She frowned as she considered the new information. "Once. It was beautiful, but the patrol chased me off..." she glanced at Africa, her 'brow knitted with intense thought. "Most patrols would do the same to a stranger, but you say they are supremacists? How do you know this?" It was not that Ampere was skeptical of Africa's information, but that she was in disbelief such horses existed, and that they were allowed to continue doing so.