Miss Tandavi’s words make Maude’s heart sink, the memory of the day the Ant Queen had died for the love of her colony rising to mind with full clarity. It strikes within her such sorrow still that she does not manage to answer the healer’s initial question until she has continued. Her words further deepen a love for the chestnut in the heart of the ginger kissed cremello, and the pale green eyed doe looks to the her herd mate, bolstered by a shared opinion, when she can at last muster a reply through her emotional recollection of the event.

"Not today," she answers, her voice wavering at first, though it regains hope and vivacity the more she opens up, "but before. I will not be blind again, though. We’ll make sure everyone stays safe, right Miss Tandavi?"

Soon, however, a familiar voice chimes out her name, and the girl steps away from the older mares to linger in a more age appropriate group. Cheerfully and gently bumping the star-flecked filly with her ruddy nose in greeting, Maude looks back over at the cheetah, her growing, rippling white tail swishing about her hocks as she ponders.

"Hey Vesper!" she chirrups, finishing what she says next with a giggle, "maybe from the big fire? Maybe it’s where the Sun God keeps all his pets."

Her happiness soon becomes worry, however, as the cheetah begins to move, and something happens.

What do you want with fire, anyway? replays in her mind, as the earth blooms with buds of flame beneath her; though she hadn’t understood what Tilney had been so wary of, then, suddenly, watching it all spread across the ground, she knew why her father had been so cautious when broaching the topic of making fire with his curious daughter.

"Oh, this is bad!" she exclaims, stamping one of her small hooves down on a nearby tongue of flame, and looking fretfully towards her young herd-mate, "ouch! What do we do, Vesper?!"

Though she has a watering can in one of her pockets, she hasn’t any water; what good would a single can do against all these flames, anyway? Beginning to panic, though mere seconds have passed, she looks toward the river woefully, knowing with a glance that she is not fast enough to make it there and back with enough speed to be of use. Procuring her can, anyway, she offers it to anyone with longer, faster legs who will take it, while dancing about, trying to stamp out the fire despite the pain it causes her before it can spread.

"Someone, here, take this and fill it up! Ouch (stupid fire); oh, please don’t break it!"

[ OOC: Maude offers her watering can to anyone who is fast enough to make it back and forth from the river enough times to be of help. Otherwise, she tries to step on the fire to keep it from spreading. ]