Your noise prevents sleep, it deludes the voices that lull me toward dozing. Scents come forward, drifting on an unfamiliar wind of pine and crisp snow. The mountains of a short childhood, lost in the swells of time. I had a fair memory of faces and voices, it aided in the recollection of essence that approached one by one. The male of which in particular caught attention enough for me to force one lid apart, revealing a hue of hazy ice. Gaze sharpened from its fuzzy state into one of awakening awareness as Illynx lowered her warm breath across my throat and Sno started speaking; some small slice from my active conscious told me that I’d come to know this elder girl—we had frolicked across the Basin. I trembled and tried to shift toward the familiar faces that were around me.

Da was near, his hot breath raked across my bare fur. Trembling came uncontrollably as I willed my untested muscles to come alive. Head slowly drifted from the mud, dripping; bewildered and trusting gaze landing upon him squarely. The weight of skull made this position tough work, nevertheless there was strength enough for muzzle to carry itself forward, desire beating out fatigue, and searching to press into warmth that seemed to radiate from his flesh like a torrent. He was real right? Da! The faint crease of a smile slipped the corners of lavender lips apart; pieces of dirt fell from where they so tightly clung to my fur in a wet mass. Silver tendrils reached out, concentrating on him alone, an embrace came with the touch—a warming tide of emotion that expressed the purest amounts of love and affection. Tears that better suited a child swelled in the rims of my eyes, “Da…da..daddy..”

The first to come to her call draws her full attention swiftly and with hope burning brightly behind the worry and grace that compose the rest, and while the figure is not Faelene, she remains amused with the young woman that has come to answer her call, even if it is not the girl’s mother. Smiling in a sad sort of way that befits the situation, she responds the white youth with a name, as well, a name that she had not said in many a season and had, more often than once, wondered as to the validity of its meaning, whether or not the girl still lived. ”Sno," comes her soft voice, a giggle offered in response to the observation the once filly makes most immediately.

Psyche did not talk of her daughter or the girl’s father much, but Illynx was clever enough to piece the parts together; this was the child of the spotted once Lord of the snow, one of several children that had come from the loins of the Bane of the past. While she doesn’t approve of how the child came into existence or how her life was handled by either of her parents, she does feel love for her niece in ways that Illynx can feel such things, and it is pleasant to see her face, even in the darkness of the moment.

It’s not your father’s, she wants to say aloud, knowing the mother of the snowy child well enough to assume how her little brain works as well. She was young when the Empress and she had both disappeared into the wilds, perhaps not remembering the loyalty that the golden wench held in her heart for the dark queen of the Plague, and the words would have come across chidingly – even if Mauja was a fine male of fine lineage, he was off limits for the simple fact that he had taken a bite from the supple, forbidden fruit of her darling Psyche. That he had then taken the apple and tossed it away as if valueless to him was another matter all together.

She didn’t want to talk down to or of her lost family in this moment, and so her tongue was held. There would be time for explanations later.

’Her name is Sielu…’ she hears, then a secondary arrival rustling behind her that draws a single golden eye back and a slightly mocking smile to make way onto her lips. Was today a day of reunions? A great big, happy family all coming together again to help a little girl in distress, the lost Lord who had left and never returned suddenly appearing as if a ghost in the trees. She could snort in disdain of his arrival, but there is something so sad about the way he holds his entire being that she withholds all sound as if he is still a king to her.

"Mauja," she states, the remarkable appearance of the speckled ghost evident in her tones, "what a pleasant surprise."

She slips so easily into old habits; it drives her mad, makes her figurative fingers clench and bite into the soft heart of her palms. Her vengeance is played out upon the edges of her tongue, bruised and sore as it is clenched between white teeth and her mind ponders what words to add into the moment, golden eyes watching the first stirrings of the still and weak child with hopeful interest that disguise how badly she wants to kick Lord Mauja squarely in the jaw while embracing him in the knowledge that he had not died.

Poor Illynx, so complex and bitter, a wretched thing of jealousy, lust, and greed all bound together as one. If not for her love of what the two standing unicorns held in common she would dig into the cowardly stallion for leaving both she and her Empress in such a disparaging state that it had cost his lover both her station and most of her pride; if not for her memories, brought to life by a simple words. "I played with her once, when she was quite small," she begins, looking down at the girl with mistiness to her eyes, the presence of a child in her belly drawing such maternal sorrow from her as she looks upon the purple frame so weakly stirring in the brush.

It was impossibly hard to grasp the position I found myself in. In truth, during a not so later time this would all feel like a dream, a reality that wasn’t actuality. But those problems would be handled momentarily—for now my struggling consciousness only tried to keep up with the rapid conversation.
The adults spoke over me, around me, obviously not understanding my rising bewilderment as they kept on talking and understanding of the situation lessened as memory sharpened from a hazy black into grey. Tri colored pools that lacked the maturity of years in this body darted toward the golden female, then back to the alabaster mare called Sno, who had taken this moment to start barking at da before finally stalking off into the forest. I didn’t comprehend the reason for her anger.

My tether was still firmly attached to da, his mind the stronghold in this surge of aimless bickering. He could surely feel confusion climb higher as gaze drifted slowly from the swaying frame that vanished from view to his clear crystals which seemed ever present in the shadows that grew, ever true in its securing of mindless trust. His voice a plush fervor that my earnest heart grew hospitable toward—for I knew nothing of adult grief or strain, jealously or the idea of betrayal, it only knew that I was the child in all this and my daddy was close by to rescue what had been damaged.

He spoke again, asking me something that I couldn’t honestly answer without first checking for myself. Wearily, head twisted with neck still bent toward his frame in an absentminded urge to remain in close contact. Eyes momentarily left their steady fortress in order to drift along the curve of my side and quarters—watching as limbs shifted on command, flimsy in their trembling but moving nevertheless. One lengthy forelimb uncurled gracelessly out from underneath and scrapped mud as I drew it up.

Feeling no direct pain, only numb cold I replied. “No. Not hurt.” There was a momentary waver in the connection between, I sighed, regaining control and adding, “Tired. Hungry.” Where was momma? Her warmth would hold nourishment, sweeter than the musky smelling grass that I’d hardly begun to eat when…

Feet shuffled, moving instinctively to pull my body from its pitiful position. I’d only made it halfway before realizing that the ground was much further than I’d come to remember it, the act of gazing down made the dizziness in my head spin ever tighter—and I slipped back into the mud one instant later with visible shock flooding forth, “Whaa?”

Illynx watches what happens as Mauja emerges from the trees with quite a lot of interest. It’s not often she gets to watch other people scream and shout when she’s not really involved, and so she goes from one face to the other with her golden eyes wide and mouth slightly agape and bemusedly grinning as she watches the mayhem unfold.

All the hostility that had been pinned on her within the frosted girl’s eyes as she looked upon the wide berth of the Lady now turned savagely and with saliva rippling towards the ghost of the Frostheart, her first words not as bad as what came next but still sending a thrill through the golden bitch’s skin. The girl was so much her mother wearing all this hostility that it made Illynx quite proud, if only mildly horrified that her reunion with her lost niece had turned into this rather than the jovial chit chat she had wished for on the way to the Basin.

The thought that Sno would not come with her or that Sielu may not either hadn’t ever crossed her mind. Why wouldn’t they want to walk with her, after all?

While all this shouting is being cast at Mauja interspersed with some hurtful (albeit mostly true) commentary, he stands there like a moron gawping at his daughter with all that nothingness writ across his face that has earned him his name. It makes her want to reach over and smack him, to get him to say at least something before…

Before that happens, she thinks with a dismal frown, watching the daughter of the Empress storm off into the wilds after a parting glance to each of them.

Like nothing had happened or possibly because the silent way Sielu communicated had pulled his attention back to her (one can never tell what motive drove his actions, only that things tended to crash down around him) he tends to the weak child in the brush, probably because, like most men, it’s easier to deal with physical problems rather than one of the heart. She does not know if he looks at it that way. She does know that this daughter, at least, still loves him and believes he can help her.

His other child, however, believes he can do nothing.

He is doing nothing for her now.

"You should follow her, you know..." She knows it is a choice that he may not want to present him with, but Illynx is not the sort to give a shit if someone wants to hear the truth or not, and so she speaks it anyway. "It’s always this way for you, isn’t it? Having to chose between the things you are supposed to love again and again," she says with a casual roll of her eyes, concern still held within her for Sielu though a more pressing agitation prods her, "if only you didn’t sell yourself so cheap, you wouldn’t have so many directions to fly at once." She steps forward, her nose lowering again to assist the girl should she try to stand at her father’s urging, but she continues to glance at Mauja and speak to him.

"I can help you get her to the Basin, to see Lena," she offers, though she figures he’ll run away too once he hears the name of the place he’d abandoned, "she needs a healer."

Before he can even argue the point, she looks at him sternly, the first signs of her impending motherhood writ all across her face.

"No, she probably won’t die if she doesn’t go. But you owe it to her to protect her from whatever pain you can. Do not let her suffer for your comfort like you have everyone else," perhaps more arrogantly than is necessary she flips her eyes back down to the girl, "if you won’t take her I will manage it alone."

They squabbled about things that where beyond my control—about failures and self-pity. All emotions my young mind had yet to truly experience and thus didn’t even begin to understand. What was true and understandable, Da’s voice. Not the golden pelted woman who was rambling on rather rapidly while my head did multiple U-turns in an attempt to clear that fresh wave of haze. They both ended upon the note of urging me to rise, breath heaved out in a soundless sigh; a child’s naive belief that somehow these people would repair me. Daddy asked me a question, about someone in the Basin. My birthing home, this Lena raced through my mind and came back empty hoofed. "No. Don't know Lena."

At their request I obediently and perhaps ignorantly try again, this time actually pressing to lean toward Da as a sort of anchor before shifting off to Illynx when the blanket urge of staggering bewilderment threatened to send me reeling again on her side—with the likelihood that I’d lack strength for a third try if this attempt failed. Limbs trembled uncharacteristically, and not just from the damp cold that clung to my body like a sickness, but for lack of muscle strength. Limbs that hadn’t been used in nearly….

They hurt. Every part of me now screamed with an unholy fire that couldn’t be seen or touched by mortal eyes. The pain washed through my bond with Mauja, the emotion so vivid, one could almost say it had a noticeable color. Lips broke apart to scream a soundless cry as muddy knees locked upon themselves and with shaky effort held my lean frame up. It wasn’t noble or graceful but it was an upright position.

“Legs hurt.” I gasped to him, lowering my muzzle as the unfamiliar weight of crown strained my neck into a limp bend. “Head hurt.” Why did everything feel tight? Strained? I gazed at the ground with bewildered pain. They got me standing—but walking… “It burns.” I said again, weakly and pitifully evident in fear notes that I wouldn’t be able to do as they asked. My body trembled with effort. Unable to stop its shaking.