Cold air continued to predominate the world, but in some way, it seemed as if the bitter grip of Frostfall was loosening. Ampere wasn't sure if the sunshine was stronger, if the light was longer, if the birds were louder... or if she was just warmer from her exercise this morning, but either way, she felt something like a change. It brought a tune to her lips as she walked, unusually unburdened after wearing herself out on an endurance run. It had left her sleek with sweat, darkening an already dark coat, and limber in her legs so that at times she faltered on the uneven ground with the weariness of her muscles. Yet it felt good. It felt right. So she sang, wandering casually back home on nothing more than her four hooves.

By the time she made it to the land bridge her sweat had all but dried in salt lines on her flanks and her tune had grown slow and steady, like the season. She was imagining the oasis, her thirst poignant on her tongue, but like the wind her thoughts changed as her gaze skirted the figures in the distance.

She recognized at once the stalwart stallion crafted of earth and fire. She paused for a moment, her step stumbling as she did so, her tune cut short with an abrupt warble of a wrong tune. She breathed heavily, unease roiling in her gut, ears sliding back slightly with the feeling of it.

Then she shook it off.

She resumed her pace after a moment of composure and strode forward with song back on her lips. She was determined not to let him govern her every waking moment, and she was thirsty. Still, to be cordial, she slowed as she neared them, nodding to both her brothers in turn. As she did so she noticed more of the meeting - the two seemed to have just shared a private conversation. Again not unusual, but something wasn't entirely right either. Gaucho was usually patrolling or deeper within the land when grounded. Silk... she honestly didn't know much about him other than his title. Perhaps an intruder had broken in, or someone had been stolen? Was she supposed to be on patrol when she'd been out exercising? She thought she had checked...

"What're you doing?" she asked lightly, only intending to make small conversation, though her gaze, reinvigorated with curiosity, slipped between both of them. It lingered longer on Gaucho, though she did not look at him again for a while for that reason.

His response was mildly surprising. Although she had never thought Gaucho stupid, she had definitely considered him a slow sort. It wasn't to say he lacked tactic or strategy, on the battlefield few, if any, could compare. Yet a knife is only good for so many things, it can cut, it could shine, and it could dance in its own way, but it could not hold, could not mend, and it could not be diplomatic.

Her lips pursed with thought, amusement tinging her eyes a softer shade of blue. Her heart swelled, easily persuaded by him when he offered surprises like this, but just as easily he crumpled the sensation with the weight of his next words.

Blow up
and
Boats

Those were the words that rung in her mind like a peal of thunder over the sky. Her feathers bristled, wings lifting slightly from her sides on their own accord in an attempt to make herself larger, more confident, less uncertain of all of this. She was quiet, surprisingly, as she chewed on what Gaucho had said, her mind reeling with questions and scenarios. Mostly she was trying to figure out what the hell a damn boat was - a native word of his perhaps, like some of the others he'd let slip by more often lately?

She glanced at Bucephalus, who seemed unperturbed, making her feel foolish. So too did the purple girl seem at ease, and then also the bay stranger. War was her game Ampere could tell at once, watching the way Megaera carried herself and the words she spilled. She was ready to back Gaucho, safety at the forefront of her mind.

All the while Ampere wondered what had happened that made them so doubtful of their current talents. As it was they had so little to guard with this land bridge, compared to some lands. Did Gaucho doubt the skills of his warriors? The thought made Ampere bristle, her teeth grinding with a muffled squeak behind her lips.
Maybe it was her upbringing, raised in the open plains and the wilds where home existed wherever your hooves and your family were, which more often than not was the sky. There was nothing much to guard then, nothing to blow up surely. You fought when you had to, slept when you wanted, and laughed often. It was freedom, impossible to isolate and cage in with safety.

Tandavi slipped in, but her silence made it easy for Ampere to ignore her. "Gaucho," Ampere began slowly, not wishing to excite the herd with her bubbling dismay when so many seemed unruffled. "This will make it harder for us, for our brothers and sisters that don't fly." She glanced at the gathering, gaze resting on Tandavi for several pulses before sliding back to Gaucho. "Boats..." she shook her head, her tongue thick with the strange word. "We don't know boats. What about a bridge, like this, that comes when we ask? Or wings gifted to those that need to cross? Like the other island." Caela Insula had it's floating cloud to lift the flightless, and though Ampere still had her reservations about that place, she was glad for that bit of magic. She had never found the pegasus superior, but she had always pitied the horses grounded - flying was her one stable love and she wanted them to know it.

She still wasn't sure blowing up their land bridge was the best idea, but she couldn't argue that it would make them safer, not so long as there was an easier way for flightless to cross back and forth when necessary. Still, this wouldn't mean they were untouchable. If anything would it make horses on patrol lazier?

Ampere fidgeted with unrest and uncertainty. Land was to be shaped by gods, hearts by mortals.

[BLAH rushed sorry ;-;]

Coiled tight like a spring Ampere stands ready to be assaulted for her voice. She was well accustomed to it by now, opening her mouth and assaulted for it, but it did not come this time. There were some flickers of disagreement, but no outrage at her own, no hooves or lash of tongues. She breathed a sigh of relief, even wearing a tentative smile when others voices started to lift with ideas or agreement.

The moment of calm was not one long to last however; such is life.

A step or two was taken back as the earth began to quiver, Ampere's feathers fluffing in response to the abrupt change, instinct making her ready rather than rational. When the sand began to gather though, and given what Tandavi had just spoken, Ampere knew what came, though it did not ease her tension any further.

God of the Sun.

Several more steps were taken back until she bumped into someone. She couldn't afford to glance back, but she wanted to melt behind whoever it was. The herd meeting he'd been summoned to had been large enough, her presence easily overlooked, but she feared that her she would finally be cornered by the god's wrath. Her own anger had grown stale over time, the slighted egg easily forgotten among the assortment of other, more pressing worries that plagued Ampere.

Such as an angry deity.

He appeared no less magnificent than before. As always she was struck by his warmth and his unearthly beauty. Unbidden she remembered what it was like to feel him, but that night had been tainted by so many other feelings that its joy was quickly desaturated. She shook her head, chasing it and all its ghosts away.

He spoke to Tandavi, and his eyes swept the crowd. She wanted to shrink away from him, but his stare was brief, settling on Gaucho whom he addressed more fully. Ampere let out her breath, suddenly starving for oxygen, unaware she'd been holding it for so long. She gasped loudly, which invoked another wave of shame to drench her. She tried to back up further, still blocked by something, or someone.

Yet... the more the god stood there, the longer she was not burnt. Perhaps his plan was to completely ignore her? No she thought, decisive with that one thing. The God of the Sun was not one to punish lightly; mind games were those played by his siblings, he took pride in his work, for better or for worse, and he would see that those he touched knew it. If his wrath endured, she would have been engulfed already. It was probably too much to assume he had forgiven her, but he continued to let her thrive in his land, and that she supposed, was enough.

She relaxed, even when his stare did at last linger on her, a frown marring his brilliance. She averted her gaze, unable to withstand the intensity and the weight.

"Agree," she murmured under her breath.