"No!" Ampere responded brusquely to Maren's accusation. Her eyes were apart in an instant, and her legs twitched out from under her, ready to rise. At her sides her feathers flared out, flushed with the embarrassment that Ampere felt racing through her. "How does she know?!" came the furious whirlwind of her thoughts, murmuring in tempo with her racing heartbeat. No one had ever called Ampere out for all her running away, except Tandavi (was being a hard ass a prerequisite for Diviners?). Even those who had been affected by it, really, had never bothered to ask her or condemn her for her actions. She had gotten better, she thought, since then. Of course much of this was owed to the Fire Dancer, who boldly stood in her way not even a few seasons ago when Ampere laid on the ground with another egg.

Still, she didn't like having someone look at her and immediately poke at her greatest weakness. So Ampere got angry, and even if it was wrong, it didn't change the fact that it was. "I meant running around. Sometimes it helps to sleep, when you're already tired." Ampere could certainly sleep, but much of that was surely due to exhaustion and habit. This time of day Ampere was ready to accomplish things, not to lay in the sand and relax.

Then Maren asked questions that Ampere couldn't answer. Did she want to do this? Was she ready for this? The question she had for the Sun was not an easy one for her to ask, and it walked so closely with the cruel stab Maren had already taken at her, ripping off an old scab and opening up an ugly scar. Ampere at least was competitive though, and in that moment, sure or not sure, she knew she couldn't stop now because then it would be failure, it would be defeat, it would be loss, and all to a damn mare with wings on her head and an easy ability to relax like it was a fucking job.

Sneering, Ampere folded her legs back up and thrust herself back into the sand. Her neck stretched out, jaw line pressed against the sand. She exhaled fast and heavy, the energy of the fight rising up inside of her, the speed of the defenses she had to erect against this tiger, and it blew the sand slightly, creating divets. "Yes," she said finally, by way of answer, and pinched her eyes shut once more.

Ampere chased her thoughts into submission, cornering all her worries, all her complaints, and all her uncertainties. In what was left of her mind, she pictured her favorite place, the one where she usually went to relax, the sea. If she listened well enough, she might hear the ocean where she lay, but they weren't close enough for the usual experience she wrapped herself in when she needed to run away. So Ampere imagined the seabreeze on her neck, the salt in her nostrils, the spray on her fetlocks. She let herself see the waves churning, back and forth, blue and grey and green and white. She let herself think of the sand crunching beneath her as she walked against the shore, leaving her marks in the wet sand which the water ate away, erasing her path the way she wanted it to erase her worries. She put each concern into each step, hoping that one day, maybe it would take them all away.

So it was, bit by bit, Ampere began to relax, however against it she was.