Much to Ampere's dissatisfaction the mare seemed neither intimidated nor cowardly. In fact, Ampere found her rather brave for her responses and clearly well mannered, perfectly diffusing a tight situation Ampere was manufacturing, whether purposefully or not. She wanted to hate the whore for it, but she left her without any fodder to chew that anger on, and in its wake Ampere felt a cold absence. If she couldn't hate her, if the mare wasn't stupid or weak, then how could she tell Mesec not to love her? How could she convince him to love her instead?

Why did he have to bond...

About to speak, which was difficult as the blue mare tried to gather more spiteful words but found only this meek void of nothingness, she was nonetheless interrupted by Mesec. He moved towards her, and her body visibly lifted, eagerly anticipating his touch, the embrace that would remind her why he mattered so much, the hold that would prove he didn't love the other mare after all.
Yet, it never came.

He lingered at her side, his concern an audible thing but nothing tangible for Ampere to grab onto and press inside of her until shit felt better. So everything just continued to ache, and if it was possible, it maybe even felt worse now because of that hope that he shattered. The tar wept from her eyes in place of tears.

"Yes," she replied to him, gasping as she said it, which was in part due to the illness that clutched her lungs but was mostly because everything hurt and it was because of him. Well, it was because of her, if Ampere was being honest, but she wasn't ready for that just yet because it was still his fault that he bonded at all.

By the time she'd spoken Ampere realized he meant the illness, not her heart. Scrambling to cover that, she glanced back at Najya, shaking her head and flinging off some of the black ooze as she did so. "No one knows what to do about it. It seems like it's caused from the battles in the new lands, like the boils, but I'm not even sure what cured that... mine went away while fighting the wolf." She glanced back at Mesec, because he was the only wolf she had really paid much attention to. "Are you okay?" she asked, unable to front the curt mood she'd arrived with, so instead she just had her legitimate worry.