It took me a while to gather my brood. If anyone would have projected that I, someday, would have a brood, I would have laughed in their face until my sides split and I could no longer breathe. And yet here I am, taking a head count and cursing under my breath when it comes up short- white brat, black brat, but the orange one has wandered off, vanishing into the heavy mist as she seemed to manage every time I closed my eyes. "Tandavi!" It irritates me, the heavy exhaustion I can hear in my voice, the weary age and resignation that bow my spine and only fuel my wrath. I mutter, "I'm too old for this," and Kali chirps an uninvited agreement. Brat. I can feel the equivalent of a grin through our bond, and don't give her the benefit of looking back to where she and Natraj rest upon my back. No, I trudge on and glare into the mist, looking for my daughter in an exercise in futility. She'll show up when she shows up; I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

Problem child. Just like her fathers. Kali laughs.

I don't really hear them, the faceless mass of bodies that makes up my herd. Have I ever really listened, ever really seen? These shapes that resemble horses, do I really know any of them? Do I care? I hang back as foreign scents paint the air thick with colors and tales, unfamiliar to me as mine no doubt is to them. There are fewer than I expected, the gathered swarm that worships my little sister, the bleeding hearts who think she's theirs. I thought our masses were more plentiful, our army more mighty- but I have been wrong before. Maybe there are more like me, lurkers on the outskirts who haven't shown their face. Who don't find the idea of large gatherings appealing. The possibility is not so unlikely, is it?

And yet somehow, my daughter has not gained my irrational displeasure when exposed to those who are not our kin. In fact, sometimes I wonder if she's displeased by anything. Or pleased, or angered, or phased at all. My brat appears as easily as she vanished, a flicker of flame from the gathered mist; I see her only because Natraj leapt from his place on my back, padding on those insanely tiny feet to where my firewraith stands, an implacable force in the shadow of her aunt, still smaller than my little sister but growing quickly, growing tall. I feel an irrational twinge of jealousy - Does she love her aunt more than she loves me? - and bat it away as an annoying fly, almost laughing at my own addled mind. Tandavi's proximity to her aunt represents nothing but her need to be close to others, a need I cannot fulfill- have never fulfilled. I should not read into it, should not let my mind wander. It should make me smile.

It does.