They are skullfaces. The same blood runs through their corroded arteries and withered veins.

She will not forsake him.

Together they rise. She is sleepless, restless with her weighty thoughts, but upon seeing his spindly legs unfold and his scrawny haunches rise she finds a smile flickering across her lips. Once more she reflects on the hope that lightens her burden. She hadn't thought of what Kid's generation had meant upon seeing their birth; her thoughts had been consumed by jealousy and dislike in equal measure. Now, with the skull-faced children right up in her face and reflecting her face, she'd realized that they were the next generation. When she passed on, it was Kid and Sabre would remain behind her to teach and raise the next legends. It hadn't crossed her mind that this was part of her duty; she'd never given thought to children. Children of her own had always seemed to be a faraway reality, but Kid and Sabre demanded her attention as much as her own children would one day.

Meadows give way to trees and then to forest. The dark swallows them and the shadows consumes them. She is not uncomfortable. In her childhood she'd spent her time in the night and the fringes of daylight; the forest had become familiar, as had much of Helovia. As they weave their way through the brush and the labyrinth that is Kid's home, she is lulled into an oddly serene state.

For once, she has some kind of purpose. She is loathe to part with it.

Twigs snap and branches claw at dusty silver skin. The mother is neither subtle nor friendly—her voice is a whip cracking through the air, carrying with it a threat of violence. Nymeria, silent and withdrawn behind Kid, bristles; a storm begins to brew beneath her charcoal skin. Red eyes flicker to pink (is she always like this?) and then away from pink to slither over youthful, bruised flesh and old scarring.

There's a saying about hell having no fury compared to a woman scorned—but a woman scorned has nothing on a mother's invoked wrath.

There is fear on Colt's face and Nymeria is savagely pleased with it.

"... You were saying, Colt?" (Her voice is a purr; her smile is an unsheathed dagger.) "I would hate to interfere with your disciplining."