The shrine begins to glow. Pale gold gildes it, runs along every edge, a shifting kalediscope of orange and amber and shifting yellow playing over ebony and charcoal. It's beautiful, unpredictable, just like the flame which dances in the wind... her breath hushes, snags, and her eyes widen, dark lashes spreading wide. In her thoughts, the depths of her ponderings, she had slipped into a trance- an imminent quiet unruptured even when Gaucho had landed behind her. Now it seemed as if something, someone had been listening...

A sign from the gods.
Knees tremble as her blood burns, an electric current sizzling through her ruby veins; it hurts her head, makes the world spin out of focus, and for a moment she is drunk off her own charged body.

The young girl snaps back into herself at a faint whisper underlying the crackle of flame, the serpentine hiss of an old friend. Her heart, thumping wildly, gleefully skips a beat in aroused hope; what a coincidence! And yet in a way, it was not at all; where else would she run into her beloved father, her idol, chosen of the Sun God, other than at this shrine? Wasn't that, submerged deep in her subconscious, part of the reason she had been so drawn to Helovia's veins, where the magic pulsed outward? This... this was a place for reunion, for old memories burnished by the passage of time. It was only natural for Gaucho to be here.

With a pronounced cautiousness, a nervous twitch to her pearly skin, the Wildfire's daughter turns to face her father.

He's not as magnificent as she remembered.
Don't get her wrong; he was big. Strong. The very epitome of masculine paternity; it couldn't be any clearer he was a good warrior and a good man if he had it tattooed on his dark skin. Still, he wasn't the same as she remembered.
She hated herself for it. Hated herself for...
Growing up?

"Mara," Zenobia says quietly, and the corners of her lips tilt upwards in a smile. It's a relief to see someone's staying the same in her time away; at least the snake is as beautiful and lethal as ever. Her gaze, so bright, so blue, shifts back to her father; and her throat convulses, works, as she swallows down the tangle of emotions. It's not worth getting worked up over, seeing him. He didn't even seem particularly inclined to shows of family love. (And, gods, that hurt; not that she would admit it. She kind of deserved his casual affection for fleeing him.)

"Father." Wings rustle, half-spread in her discomfort, before settling back to her ivory flanks. "I'm sorry." And down her retinas drop, to observe her hooves.

She wants him to comfort her. To tell her it's okay.
Somehow, she doubts it's going to happen.