Her babe circles anxiously and nudges occasionally as the little snowflake of a girl rises to her unstable legs, Illynx herself serving more purpose with a guiding muzzle and gentle bracing when it seemed the thing would topple over. It’s not to her liking, that she is assisting an obviously impure blight on the earth, but her son is still naïve to the ways of his people and she cannot deny that it would pain her to see his heart break from her callous hatred.

Once the girl is standing, however, Illynx must admit to herself however silently it may be that the lost one she has found is pretty, the color of snow etched with golden borders and two knubs protruding from her brow. She’s much smaller than Rikyn, perhaps from breeding or simply malnourishment or both; the Lady sweeps her eyes across the delicate lines of the bastard, feeling at last what her son had noticed most immediately when he’d discovered her.

She is different.

How, Illynx cannot explain; she is different in the ways that the stone shrines are, the way the mirror in the mountain is. The filly simply radiates some sort of aura that implies she is something important enough to save from death, a second reason found in the relentless heart of the ice queen as the young, innocent eyes find her own, such a sweet coo rising from the lips of the golden babe.

Maaa? she says, and Illynx feels her heart flutter beneath the tender touch of sweetness, hears the desperation hidden beneath the weakness and the sheer lack of understanding in the young half breed. Her son looks to her with serious curiosity in his features, judging her already though she has not turned the child away or harmed her, for he can see what she knows within her heart.

She cannot love her, not as she loves him. She feels only loathing when she looks on the wings lacing the back of the should be perfect girl, a burning in her guts that makes her want to turn away and leave the little shit to her sniveling in the grass if it wasn’t for the tears sure to come from the eyes of her dearest treasure. Snorting again in disgruntled agitation with the mix of emotions flooding her, she gestures with a golden horn down her flank, to where food hides from the starved ones mouth, disdain writ all across her face as she watches the approach of the dirty and worn child.

Her Rikyn smiles again, and it is enough to hold her still, to ease the desire to smash her hind hoof into the brittle jaw of the orphan.

"She’ll need a name, you know," she tells the boy, who perks his ears up and grins foolishly in the sunlight, skirting around to her other side to nudge his velveteen nose under her belly to attach his lips to the nipple not being used by his newfound sister.

"Thistlebabe,” he says with all seriousness before taking charge of his half of the afternoon’s meal, drawing a sweetly exasperated smile and sigh from the Golden Lady.

Certainly not that, she thinks, slipping into the rhythm of the tugs and suckling sounds rising from beneath her.