She knew her mother -- the dove gray of her coat, the softness of her silken muzzle, the tangible quiet in her voice, and the comfort that she found beneath those wide, endless white wings that so endearingly cradled her. Those were the tarnished memories of a time of dependence and the need for the taste of milk on her tongue: and so she tried her hardest to accordingly squash the longing for the warmth of a creamy flank and the lilting murmur of the crafter's stories. Feelings, longings, for a mum's love and that pretentious sense of ease -- those were not the staples of a heroine! Relief found by familiarity was for momma's boys bores, horses afraid of the exotic flavours of adventures! Zenobia was to be the outrageously fantastic and kickass crimestopper who battled legions of henchmen before breakfast; the war goddess who reaped the lives of the unjust, who delivered revenge for the wronged and sickly! {Or something like that. Her job descriptions were a work in progress.}

But here she was looking for her parents anyways.

It was odd, she could not help but admit it -- when the nightmares came to life in Helovia, she really, honestly, did not care much that her parents weren't protecting her. Well, maybe her dad, just a little. [He was supposed to be a hunk of butch and brute strength who did the whole attractive one-liner thing. But he's dad, so any thoughts about possible hotness/handsomeness was off-limits.] During the catastrophe, she was so consumed with battling off wimpy feelings such as fear that she neglected to feel abandoned. Or lost. Or, really, anything. Mostly she lurked around in the corners and occasionally jumped out, her wings doing a frantic dance, scaring off passer-bys.

No, it was definitely after, when they all trickled out of the caves and she remained lost inside, that she grew afraid.

Terrified.
And she hated it, above all else. The quick ticking of her heart, the thud of blood in her ears, the nervous bursts of static electricity along her wings, the dryness of her mouth. She was supposed to be courageous, indomitable as her father was: but she high-tailed it out of the dark world below Helovia as soon as she found the way out. Coward, coward, coward. Down, she orders -- back down, puny little thoughts of nefarious monstrosities; she was going to be a hero, a vanquisher, a soldier in the making: she was going to be a WAR MISTRESS, capable and cool and ------------------

Thoughts fall away because mother, oh mother.

Mother; sweeping grace and silken hairs, pale against raw sands, and the daughter of a warlord and goddess bursts forward to meet her in a clumsy whirlwind of graceless white and black. Eyes shine, voltaic, running upwards to glitter joyously -- meeting bi-colored orbs of seafoam and sky. Careless, brash, the see-saw of her neck a chaotic thing as she rises up to reach the outstretched muzzle, bumping her forehead against the softness of her mother -- oh mother how I've missed you so.

"Mumsy" is Zenobia's exhale, prayer, sweet and fond and bold on her charcoal lips, before she remembers her newfound maturity. "Sohalia!"