Watching the poor, deceased Queen fall to the ground, Maude’s eyes well with tears, which pour over her pale lashes, and down her snowy cheeks, into the slowly rippling pond below; behind the first plip plop of those pitiful tears is a sniffle, and then a quiet, moaning wail of heart broken sadness, an audible release of the hurt that has suddenly flooded her breast. Even when boy she stands alongside professes that it is safe, the maiden finds very little inward relief in the notion that they are no longer in danger.

"Oh no!" she softly moans, her hooves coming to life beneath her, and carrying her dainty frame with bouncy, splashing steps to the shore, where she teary stares at the torn hole in the earth, into which the ants had carried the Queen, "how could we?"

Sobs and sniffles wrack her small body as she just keeps staring, and even when the pretty, gold mare the Queen’s magic had blessed approaches, and the colt asks her what her name is, she just keeps looking at the horrible act that she and the others had helped to commit. In her chest, a shame grows, dark, and awful feeling, and alongside it, the smallest ember of anger at the spiders begins to grow. It takes her much longer than usual to turn to the strangers, who she would greet with a bright smile any other day, her eyes instead filled with tears, and her heart a deep, cold well of regret, and sorrow.

"I… I’m o-o-okay," she cries, not caring that the ant bites sting, at least not until she looks back and sees Patrick itching at his. Deciding she can’t bring the Queen back to life, but that she can help everyone’s bites stop hurting as bad, she glances at the shrubbery surrounding them, and spies just the plant she’ll need. Before she goes to get it, however, she looks at both Pat (a name she quite likes, she decides) and Yael, and smiles a weak, bleary grin of greeting, diminished by a snuffle. When she continues to speak, her words also continued to be perforated by her tears, and sucked in breaths. "I, I, I’m Maude. I, I’m train…training to be a he-e-e-ealer, and…"

Sucking in a particularly deep breath and stomping her hoof down, as if the motion might smash her tears back inside of her, the child clenches her eyes shut for a second or two, trying her best to get herself together, so she can manage to help. What good was all her stupid schooling if she didn’t use it at times like these, right? However, every time she tries to start over, she finds herself stuttering, and impotently wailing, again.

"I’m sorry!" she emotionally gurgles, "I am just so upset! The p-p-p-poor ants!"


MaudeHow should we like it if the stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
let the more loving one be me.