Alysanne had left the thicket clearing sooner than she felt comfortable with, but with the drastically turbulent atmosphere in the group that had gathered, she had hurried to get the foals out of the way - to safety. Or, at least, those of them that would let her. She rather considered everyone too young now, and she wondered whether that was a side effect of being a doctor for so long. She had devoted her life to taking care of others and whether or not there was a magical deer and frightening thicket involved didn’t seem to matter.

Now she could wonder if she would’ve made the same decision to leave if she had been queen then. The guilt of that day had settled heavily on her heart and she thought of it often. Still she didn’t understand what was driving Tembovu to destroy their home in order to construct spikes and defenses. Why not repair the ruins of the glass wall? The wall made as little sense as the other defenses they were planning.

Why not put the time and effort of this quest into training the herd to know how to defend themselves? Why not put the effort into extra patrols? She wondered if it was her place to bring up her doubts or, since the quest had already been started, it was out of her hands. It hardly failed to surprise her that the Elephant King was worried about attacks - she couldn’t be the only one in Helovia that found his personality infuriating. All he had to do was piss off the wrong stranger and they’d be trapped in another fight.

But, enough about him. Alysanne’s overwhelming anger had been a fleeting thing lately, easily overcome by the complexity of her other emotions.

Today, at least, her attention was distracted by more pleasant company - in the form of the handsome sergeant Rohan. But while Alysanne’s attention had been on him, it didn’t stop her from noticing movement in the trees nearby. Her green eyes flickered towards it and she spied the white form of young Erthë. Alysanne wasn’t entirely familiar with the young girl but she recognized her instantly - remembering briefly the exchange of words at the thicket but an awful lot had happened since then and she wasn’t going to linger on it today.

After a warm look to Rohan, she whickered to the young girl to get her attention - and her voice soft when she spoke out. “Hello Erthë! How are you today?”

If you could only understand—through my heart and through my veins

I gave it all,

I'll give again.