[Set after her challenge with Oxy. If you'd prefer this be in the DT Whit I can rearrange it.]

He left.

He left, and so did the orb, and she did not follow. She cannot, follow. The reality of it cripples her.

Something akin to victory curls upon the velvet nose of the girl, though it does not belong there.
I'm alive. As if she has been holding her breath the whole time she exhales heavily, the sound whistling through her nose with relief.

That shuddering thought and the fact it had been a question only moments ago was a cold slap upon Ampere's face. She had always been reckless and headstrong, but she had always been surrounded with friends that had the strength to lift her out of her troubles or fight alongside her against them.
Now though?

Now she is alone. Utterly alone in this wretched place infested with greed and selfishness, and because of that, she cannot follow him. Because of that, the orb is gone. Because of that... Ampere finds mere happiness in being alive, but she has won nothing.

Her eyes only stay dry from the fire that rages within.

"I cannot...crumble," she whispers, her body beginning to slump back towards the earth as the agony in every muscle began to overwhelm her.
"I am right..." she says, fainter, her knees hitting the ground.
"They cannot win..." she growls hoarsely, her balance wavering, her hocks trembling before they too sunk into the soil.
"I am...I am the shore," She grits her teeth as she forces the phrase out, hard, but empty of resolve.
Her body rolls onto its left side, flattened against the terrain in a wash of blue and black feathers.

And they are the waves... she thinks as her eyes pinch shut, her breathing slowing.
And I am drowning...

I am alone.

The body will instinctively protect itself. Even if the soul goes beyond understandable limits to put its shell in harms way, at some point the mortal casing will hit its limits and regain control.

Ampere is in the cocoon of her limits.

Though her heart buoys her more often than her wings, it has never had to endure the lash of a storm upon its feathers, nor had to repair the exhaustion within spent muscles. There are only so many hurricanes she can ride in the name of love, the rest she has to conquer with the mettle of bone and blood, nothing as inherently magical or fantastical as spirit, but something we need just the same.

Ampere exhales steadily, her flanks rising and falling while her eyes flicker beneath closed lashes. She is dreaming, or more accurately, she is remembering. This, the way the mind keeps us safe, the way the soul is inspired.

---

Sunlight breaks through pinholes in the clouds, but the grey of the world stretches ever on, the storm wrapped about the heavens like a giant serpent. Ampere laughs, a maddening sound that the wind whips away before her ears can even catch it. Rain drives upon her hide like thousands of fangs while lightning hisses on the horizon.
All the while the blue of her eyes shines rebellious.

Below a worried mother calls up, her fear tinting her voice with anger. The wind sends it away as easily as the laughs, and Ampere flies on. She flexes the fan against her tail, reducing the drag and shooting forward with a hum of speed. She sings as she flies, this battle but one of many in her lifetime, her melody but one of dozens she has sung in war. Ampere, her thoughts whisper her namesake, bolstered with strength and promise, woven with such fabrics from the passionate tales of her dam. She is invincible in this moment, flying with the wings of her heart.

As always the body is reminded of its limits though.
The kestrel colored mare below surges upwards, cutting off the draft on which the lightning girl rode. Ampere's facade cracks, a strangled cry parting her lips as she falls, tiny wings beating for purchase on a plane that never grants such. She hits the dirt, a grimace twisting her lips and a fire raging in the sea of her gaze. She rounds on her mother, but she strikes first, her wings an impossible embrace; warm and loving.

Sopping wet Ampere squirms, beads of the sky thrown off her as her tail spins and her neck rolls and jerks. Her dam laughs now, pulling back from the little bolt with a teasing skip. "Why do you fly so high in a dangerous storm little bolt?" she asks as Ampere chases, their game of tag a routine. Ampere pauses, her thoughts filtering by quickly.
"Because, I want to be strong like dad! Brave and mighty and able to strike down foes with a thrust of a sword!" Ampere exclaims, bucking and rearing up at the sky. Her mother tuts in response at her, wrapping 'round her and pushing her against her shoulder with a spare wing. "Silly little bolt," she croons, "the storm is not your enemy and you are not a sword!"

Ampere pouted, her lower lip sliding out further than her upper, which made her mother laugh again, spritely and carefree. Of course she knew countless tales, many of which her mother had made up once she saw the adoration Ampere had for the stallion, The Samurai. He had been an exotic thing, even among their traveling flock, and Ampere at once was in love with idea of such a wild warrior fighting for justice and hope. She always scanned the horizon at dusk and dawn looking for him, waiting for him. One day, she had long ago decided, she would go out and find him, part of her always knowing he'd never come back here.

"Don't make such a face little bolt, you are already your father's daughter, you do not need to be reckless to prove it." She smiled down at her daughter, nuzzling her behind the ears. "If you want proof though, I have a gift for you, my little sword," her mother murmured, drifting away, "now close your eyes and stand still brave one." Ampere did as told, feeling the velvet maw of her mother ruffle her drenched mane. There, amid the brown barred feather and the blue freckled one, a yellow one now sat nestled.

"It is his, and you are old enough now to have it..."

---

The dream began to drift away as voices around Ampere warbled the past with the present. She twitches, a leg sliding against the dirt while her lips fumble with a name. "V-volt..." she sighs, falling still once more.
Voltaic.

Ampere bolts upright, wings flapping and knees complaining as she scrambles back to her feet, wild eyes cast about like a frightened animal as she regards the two near-strangers, recognizing them only in coat and not by name or smell or memory. "What do you want!" she demands, before her wounds remind her of her place and she sinks back to her chest.

Ashamed of her weakness and torn by her loss she turns her head away from them, exhaling with a dramatic sigh. "Kill me if you must, better to be done with it than shame the Samurai any further." She was certain he had never lost a battle, or a companion orb, in his life.